Has anyone else read this new book by Mieville? I just finished this captivating story and in browsing the Web looking for reviews and commentary, I am struck the fact that reviewers seem to have interpreted the book in a very different way than I did. They seem to focus on a supernatural or science-fictiony explanation for the relationship between the two cities, while I favor an entirely mundane one.
Sorta-spoilery:
I don’t think that there is anything supernatural about Ul Quoma and Beszel - their separation is an entirely political phenomenon on the part of their inhabitants. It represents the extreme end of nationalism/partisan politics - like red vs. blue states. I can understand that the publishers may want to play up the urban fantasy angle in order to attract the Perdido Street Station or Scar readership, but to my mind this was a purely political thriller.
I want to say Moorcock, or mayby it was Lieber, had a similar city in one story. Pretty sure Moorcock, in one of the Dying Earth stories.
The inhabitants of the city were conditioned from childhood to not notice the people weraing the opposite color. Havok ensued when the hero awakened the being who set up the color distinction originally (to force the factions to cooperate).
I’ve only read Between Equal Rights and Iron Council, the first of which I got a lot out of and the second of which I didn’t enjoy a whole lot because at the time I didn’t realize it was part of the Bas-Lag series and it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me standing on its own. But I’ve always planned to give him more of a chance 'cos… well, he’s one of us. (The party he belongs to used to be the sister party of the organization I belonged to back in the States.)
I didn’t know he had a new book out. Un Lun Dun struck me as a watered-down, preachy cross between Neverending Story meets Neverwhere–but everything else I’ve read by him, especially his short stories, has been right up my alley. I’ll have to look for this!
I’m buying this book tomorrow with my 40% off Father’s Day coupon, so I won’t be able to discuss it for a few weeks, until school is out. I’ll bump the thread then, I guess.
I just finished the book about five minutes ago, having received it for my birthday. Damn, what a fine book! Reminded me a bit of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union: a complicated hardboiled political murder mystery set in an alternate modern world with some very interesting things to say about our world.
The rest of this post will have some mild spoilers in it, some of which will be in spoilertags.
I agree wholly with Brossa, and I think there’s a bit from the end that strongly supports this interpretation:
[spoiler]Ashil says, “It’s not just us keeping them apart. It’s everyone in Beszel and everyone in Ul Qoma. Every minute, every day. WE’re only the last ditch: it’s everyone in the cities who does most of the work. It works because you don’t blink. That’s why unseeing and unsensing are so vital. No one can admit it doesn’t work. So if you don’t admit it, it does. But if you breach, even if it’s not your fault, for more than the shortest time . . . you cant’ come back from that.”
Note also that when Borlu joins Breach, he discovers that they have no supernatural powers.
I think there’s zero support for the idea that the separation of the city is supernatural. Rather, that’s something that’s promoted by Breach.[/spoiler]
I read this a few years back and enjoyed it, but I remember
being very disappointed by the mundane solution to the mystery. It seemed a bit of a cheat to invent this bizarre dual-faceted city, teach the reader the rules under which it operated, including hints that there were beings with powers to override or enforce this duality, and then say “ignore all that, it’s not really relevant”. Yes, it was a nice bit of misdirection, but in a fantastic situation, you kind of hope for fantastic elements, rather than just another locked door mystery. (Apologies if I make any gross misstatements here – it’s been a while since I read the book.)
One thing I did enjoy about The City and the City is that Mieville doesn’t seem to hate his characters quite as much in this book as he does in, say, Perdido Street Station.
I really enjoyed reading Perdido Street Station…and afterwards I didn’t really want to read anything else in the series :D. But I did go on to read The Scar and enjoyed it. But I was left with nearly the same reaction. Then I read King Rat and came to the conclusion that China Mieville creates characters just to see how much he can fuck with them.
I think he is very talented, but the ending of his books are just plain unpleasant.