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Loading... The City & The City (original 2009; edition 2009)by China Miéville
Work detailsThe City & The City by China Miéville (Author) (2009)
 k8davis | May 21, 2013 |  Mieville is one of few contemporary fantasy writers producing work that I can read. His work is lucid, straying beyond the "tropes" that define fantasy, and while The City & The City might be loosely labeled an "urban fantasy", it's the elements of magical realism or "the weird" that dominate this story. This is not a wizards-and-fireballs sort of book, and we are all better for it. The book carries deep themes of otherworldiness made familiar, a vibe which permeates Mieville's writing (and is shared by those "fantasy" writers whom I find most captivating). The story itself is an unremarkable murder mystery. What makes the book stand out is the setting. You never quite know what is happening with Beszel and its twin. Is the division the result of arcane magic? Demons? Technology? Aliens? Political agreement with mass application of psychology? We never know; it blends into the background, not as a problem to be solved but as a backdrop for the characters. In that light the book just clicked for me. Mieville has a way of taking elements that are otherwise mundane, and other elements which could quickly stray into the land of cliche, and making them into something new and bizarre which works. It doesn't hurt that Mieville can actually write, and his prose is a pleasure to read on top of his out-there stories. (  )1  MattP225 | Apr 27, 2013 | Very different from his Bas Lag books and not as immediately egaging but quite enjoyable. (  ) SChant | Apr 26, 2013 | This is a major novel. I would place it between "1984" and "The Process" in a Literature course as well as on my bookshelf. It has been said a lot elsewhere, but it's worth repeating: on one level it reads as a noir detective novel. But it works on many other readings. For me, it was mainly a novel about taboo and, more generally, the nature of power, perception, self-censorship, social control mechanisms, the sheer power of convention... Many people describe it as an absurdly impossible setting. For me what made it scary was its plausibility. I really had a most terrifying nightmare one night I stayed up late reading it and NOT because it was boring... It is very difficult to comment on this book without "breaching" on its plot, so I will focus on some more abstract characteristics of it. The prose has been described here as sparing. Maybe this is compared to other Mr. Maiville's books, I can't tell, this being my first one to read, but I find it unadorned if unbending and exacting on the reader, this said with an approving bent. The book offers to the reader vast possibilities for interpretation, since the narrator is deeply unreliable and pretty much everything must be doubted. Different interests will lead to as many inspirations and glimpses of diverse backstages, all of them fertile in possibilities... I think the book should appeal particularly to readers who enjoyed: - Nelson Goodman's "Ways of World Making" - Phillip Kerr's "A Philosophical Investigation" - Viktor Pelevin's "The Life of Insectcs" you get the drift... (  ) sek_smith | Apr 24, 2013 | I read this one in bits. The last half or so was all in one go, on a long train journey, but for the most part, I just read it in bits, a few pages at a time, and didn't really get involved with it. I didn't really care how it ended, for most of the time. I did get tense during the last parts, and I was sad for the main character about the ending, but I didn't really care, for the most part. I wanted to care more about Corwi and Dhatt, but I didn't really see enough of them, or enough positive about Dhatt... I suppose it was pretty realistic, in that, but what actually kept me reading was the core idea -- and, to some extent, the mystery. I've always said that cities were the most interesting thing about Miéville's work: he's really good at making them feel alive, I think. Less the individual parts, more the whole life of the city. This is a particularly interesting one, especially the way he navigates it: nothing here is overtly fantastical or sci-fi ish, really. I mean, it sounds completely far-fetched, but we know how deeply cultural conditioning can affect people, and if you just take it as a thought experiment... Still, I like the idea -- and Miéville evokes his worlds well -- but it really didn't have me on the edge of my seat, or caring about the characters, or needing to read more. ( ) shanaqui | Apr 9, 2013 |
 Subtly, almost casually, Miéville constructs a metaphor for modern life in which our habits of "unseeing" allow us to ignore that which does not directly affect our familiar lives. Yet he doesn't encourage us to understand his novel as a parable, rather as a police mystery dealing with extraordinary circumstances. The book is a fine, page-turning murder investigation in the tradition of Philip K Dick, gradually opening up to become something bigger and more significant than we originally suspected. Readers should shed their preconceptions and treat themselves to a highly original and gripping experience.The City & The City is still Urban Fantasy, yes, but don't look for elves on motorcycles or spell-casting cops. China Miéville has done something very different, new, and — oh yeah — weird.  The novel works best when Miéville trusts his storytelling instincts. I was immediately entranced by the premise of doppel cities and didn't need it explained at every turn. At times, I appreciated the intellectual brilliance of "The City" more than I lost myself in it. Borlú seemed an archetype more than a fleshed-out character. That's OK. The real protagonists here are the mirror cities themselves, and the strange inner workings that make them, and their residents, tick. Miéville’s achievement is at once remarkable and subtle. His overlapping cities take in an aspect of our own world—social conventions—wholesale. But by describing those conventions using conceptual tools borrowed from traditional “worldbuilding” fantasy, he heightens awareness of the unnoticed in our own lives. He doesn’t give us symbols. He gives us real life rendered with all the more clarity for its apparent weirdness.
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Two days later and I'm still musing about the idea of how in our world there is so much that we unsee in order to keep our personal worlds functional, be it our social, economic or intellectual spheres. (