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The City and The City
I just finished reading The City and The City, by China Miéville. Reportedly, he doesn't want anyone spoiling the central twist, so I won't, which makes it hard to talk about, since the twist is the cool thing about it. But there's plenty of reviews out there that summarize it better than I could. Otherwise, the main character--a detective in a vaguely Eastern European culture investigating a murder--is bland but pleasant. The mystery itself is satisfying and pleasantly twisty without being implausible. But the setting! The setting is so marvelously messed up. If it works the way I think it does, the book isn't even normal fantasy. I don't know if I hope humanity has the strength of will to create a world so all-encompassing out of nothing but style, conditioning and willpower, or terrified that we do exactly that, every single day. What I am unseeing?
I'm so damn fascinated with borders and human perception of them, with the ways that we create our own world and our own identity. I'm almost tempted to e-mail an old professor who taught a class on that sort of thing, and demand she make this required reading.
There were a lot of things I wanted to see that I was actually glad I didn't see--more of the main character's personal life, more revolutionary stuff. I wonder if there will be a second book, and if that one would deal with those. But the book can stand alone, and likewise, the ending swells with potential. In an essay on crime fiction, he discusses how the real pleasure of mysteries is the many different potentials flying throughout the story, until the end, when it all collapses into one, and is often disappointing simply because of that necessary collapse. This novel sidesteps that by leaving the ending so full of possibilities. (Though it's still heartbreaking, because so many possibilites have been torn away.)
I'd babble about the questions I have--about the mechanics of the world and so on--but that would be spoilery, and instead I'll have to whisper them to him on Friday, when I go to his reading in Seattle. (Thank you Keffy! <3 <3 <3 )
I'm so damn fascinated with borders and human perception of them, with the ways that we create our own world and our own identity. I'm almost tempted to e-mail an old professor who taught a class on that sort of thing, and demand she make this required reading.
There were a lot of things I wanted to see that I was actually glad I didn't see--more of the main character's personal life, more revolutionary stuff. I wonder if there will be a second book, and if that one would deal with those. But the book can stand alone, and likewise, the ending swells with potential. In an essay on crime fiction, he discusses how the real pleasure of mysteries is the many different potentials flying throughout the story, until the end, when it all collapses into one, and is often disappointing simply because of that necessary collapse. This novel sidesteps that by leaving the ending so full of possibilities. (Though it's still heartbreaking, because so many possibilites have been torn away.)
I'd babble about the questions I have--about the mechanics of the world and so on--but that would be spoilery, and instead I'll have to whisper them to him on Friday, when I go to his reading in Seattle. (Thank you Keffy! <3 <3 <3 )