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"There's a series of random and implausible crises that make no sense other than if you believe the most dramatic possible shit. And there's a dead girl."
That quote from a character in the book, sums this up very well.
I enjoyed the concept, the wordplay, and the impossibility of categorisation: it's a detective story, with strong political themes, but it's set in a world that is not exactly dystopian or futuristic or fantastic - but it isn't quite realistic either.
The Cities
The title relates to ...more
That quote from a character in the book, sums this up very well.
I enjoyed the concept, the wordplay, and the impossibility of categorisation: it's a detective story, with strong political themes, but it's set in a world that is not exactly dystopian or futuristic or fantastic - but it isn't quite realistic either.
The Cities
The title relates to ...more
I see why so many people are underwhelmed by The City and The City, China Miéville's strange and wonderful homage to the mystery genre and his mother.
It is because while The City and The City is both of those things, it is also -- and more powerfully -- a love letter to his fans and an act of oeuvre snobbery of the first order.
What Miéville has done is to build a story upon his favourite themes, and to require that his audience is familiar with other occurrences of these themes in his work to fu ...more
It is because while The City and The City is both of those things, it is also -- and more powerfully -- a love letter to his fans and an act of oeuvre snobbery of the first order.
What Miéville has done is to build a story upon his favourite themes, and to require that his audience is familiar with other occurrences of these themes in his work to fu ...more
My first reread of The City The City was an experience as convoluted as the grosstopography of Beszel and Ul Qoma. A chapter read, four chapters listened to; three chapters read, two chapters listened to; and on. Teaching this book in a town in a different province than the town I live in, across a straight, over a bridge (my adopted country's longest, the adopted country that plays such an important role in the piece, which is itself a nation sandwiched between nations in our always); a soccer
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John Lee, the narrator of many of the more famous Miéville books on audio, has a voice made for very specific kinds of stories. The City and the City is one of those stories wherein his voice works, as it also does with Miéville's Kraken. He has the kind of voice that perfectly suits the cynical world of our now. Hard without being harsh (and without the gravelly phlegm of smoking too much), almost combative in his delivery and mostly humourless (which worked oddly well in the very funny Kraken)
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Maybe we know there's a network of secret rooms in the walls of the house, but do we know what lies in the space between the secret rooms and the rest? Layers, boundaries, secrets.
Mieville's earlier novels may have been uncommonly imaginative fantasy, but were still very much bound by the fantasy genre. This ambitiously conceptual noir about the arbitrary or ambiguous nature of borders escapes such constraint very effectively, even as it toys with other genre. If there's a downside to the novel, ...more
Mieville's earlier novels may have been uncommonly imaginative fantasy, but were still very much bound by the fantasy genre. This ambitiously conceptual noir about the arbitrary or ambiguous nature of borders escapes such constraint very effectively, even as it toys with other genre. If there's a downside to the novel, ...more
He walked with equipoise, possibly in either city. Schrödinger’s pedestrian.
While I have never actually visited Beszel or Ul Qoma, I have felt the weight of the Breach. I have sensed the practice of unseeing. It is all very personal for me. The conditions do appear to be finite. limited to and subject to expiration. This is encouraging. Mieville's novel caught me unprepared for this distillation of a human solution to certain realities. ...more
While I have never actually visited Beszel or Ul Qoma, I have felt the weight of the Breach. I have sensed the practice of unseeing. It is all very personal for me. The conditions do appear to be finite. limited to and subject to expiration. This is encouraging. Mieville's novel caught me unprepared for this distillation of a human solution to certain realities. ...more
A story about two places that occupy the same place. The occupiers of each place cannot see into the other place. They must 'unsee' whatever they see. And unsmell what they smell. To notice the other city is to breach and no one wants that.
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This book is so long. I'm not even kidding.
But it is worth it. I finished reading it last night, well into the wee hours, all bleary-eyed and tense. When I reached the last sentence I felt sated, though somewhat spent, and nodded to myself...
Damn good writing, folks. Seriously.
First, one thing. China Mieville has the most incredible ability to create twists and turns and smack you in the face with the believable deliberateness of them. Like, once you've realized the actual truth of something in ...more
But it is worth it. I finished reading it last night, well into the wee hours, all bleary-eyed and tense. When I reached the last sentence I felt sated, though somewhat spent, and nodded to myself...
Damn good writing, folks. Seriously.
First, one thing. China Mieville has the most incredible ability to create twists and turns and smack you in the face with the believable deliberateness of them. Like, once you've realized the actual truth of something in ...more
Took me a while to get into; his style is a bit prickly, the syntax is a bit odd ... but I was very taken by the idea of the seeing and unseeing of the other city, and this idea of the borders not being allowed to be transgressed but always, in small ways, being transgressed. I would give it three and a half, and I would also give his next book a go ... I don't read a lot of 'fantasy', if this is that. The characters were all a bit flat, and some of the dialogue a bit clunky, but the ideas are s
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I rarely give 5 stars and, really, I think this is more of a 4/4.5 because I wasn't completely sure about the ending or, rather, the solution.
BUT the concept is so cool and the world building is so expertly handled and I really really loved spending time in those cities and I've even started to try to play a city and the city game where I try and unsee things when I'm walking home from work (I know - I'm a dork). It's the first time I've felt really excited while reading a book in a long time. ...more
BUT the concept is so cool and the world building is so expertly handled and I really really loved spending time in those cities and I've even started to try to play a city and the city game where I try and unsee things when I'm walking home from work (I know - I'm a dork). It's the first time I've felt really excited while reading a book in a long time. ...more
A brilliant premise, but the playing out of the premise gets tiresome. There's something of Oulipo in the novel's narrative strategy: unavoidable constraint imposed by the idea that drives the plot. A bloodless police procedural. I'd be happy to never hear the word b(B)reach again.
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Jan 30, 2010
Catherine Mustread
marked it as to-read
Apr 23, 2011
Sawan
marked it as to-read
Jul 10, 2011
Juniper
marked it as to-read
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review of another edition
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to-acquire
Sep 12, 2012
Joseph Michael Owens
marked it as to-read
Apr 11, 2015
Lindsay
marked it as to-read
Jul 14, 2019
Daian
marked it as to-read
Nov 25, 2019
Viji
marked it as to-read
Dec 22, 2020
Karigan
marked it as to-read
