TLDoNP Chapters 1-4

[Jaime]

So this is where we talk about the first half of the book. This will only include topics/events in chapters 1-4 (pages 1-90).
What are your thoughts so far? Do you like the story? The characters? If you have read other books by Mieville how is it comparing?

[Lindsay]

I'm about half way through this section. So far it's surrealism, the occult, Nazis in Paris and a Parisian resistance led by surrealist artists.

I'm not sure if I'm interested in any of that, but a stubborn interest in what exactly is going on is pushing me along with it.

The description of the Eiffel Tower as you see on the cover of the book is weirdly chilling.

[Lindsay]

So by the end of this section I'm well and truly hooked.

By this point we see what a surrealist in pajamas can do and we have the mysterious Sam and her book The Last Days of New Paris and the Nazi resurgent with whatever Fall Rot is.

I'm less interested in the 1941 chapters at this point, but I suspect that will come.

[Jaime]

Wow does Mieville have an imagination! Are his other works like this?
I enjoy the idea of the manifs.
Thibaut being a receiver and using those pajamas, so interesting. I haven't read anything quite like this.
The descriptions in this book are amazing. "...rainbowed as if with petrol on water." This book is very visually. With the set up, pacing, and heavy focus on visual elements I feel this might make a good movie.

[Lindsay]

Jaime wrote: "Wow does Mieville have an imagination! Are his other works like this?"

No, he's slowed down a lot. In his earlier books like Perdido Street Station there'd be more ideas and weirdness on a page than most SpecFic writers would put in a whole novel.

He calms down a bit in later novels and goes big concept in most of his recent ones, to their benefit really. IMO, The City & the City and Embassytown are his best and both of those center around some really fundamental ideas around perception in the former and language in the latter.

[Ctgt]

Really warming up to the story. The idea of surrealistic manifs is a fantastic concept but being only generally familiar with the Surrealistic movement I spent a lot of time checking names and works as I went through this first part. You're right Jaime, the descriptions are vivid but with the twist of trying to wrap your mind around surrealistic images and ideas. Love the Nazi occult aspects thrown in to the mix.

[Christina]

I've only read This Census-Taker, so I'm pretty new to Mieville. I'd really like to read City and the City as so many people I know rave about it.

This book is strange for me. Intellectually, I'm really liking it. I especially like the idea of how in our world the Nazi's were hunting art and in this world Mieville flips it around and has art hunting the Nazis. The vividness of the descriptions and the Surrealist works he uses makes this world so bizarre and imaginative.

Has anyone read the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children books? This book reminds me a little of those in how Mieville used Surrealist works to help shape the plot of his books in a similar way that Random Riggs used photographs for his books.

But this is definitely not a pleasure read for me. I have to read it slowly and stop often to process it. It feels too much like work. And the characters are more there to move the plot along. We don't know too much about their backstories, so they feel a little flat to me.

The pace is beginning to pick up now, though, and I'm more used to the world now, so I'm hoping this last half will be a faster read.