Embassytown - Halfway - Through Festival of Lies

[Bretnie]

This thread is to discuss the first half of the book - spoilers are ok up through Part 3, the Festival of Lies.

[Mark]

I LOVE the world-building China does through the growing Avice. Everything is normal for her! There's a number of places where the reader is caught off beat, such as where she says she left Arieka when she was seven and returned when she was eleven -- as a trained professional.

[Mark]

Hee hee, China trickled the weirdness gently through part one, opened the faucet a bit as we dove into the immer, and then, as we attended the festival of lies, released a waterfall!

[Bretnie]

Mark wrote: "Hee hee, China trickled the weirdness gently through part one, opened the faucet a bit as we dove into the immer, and then, as we attended the festival of lies, released a waterfall!"

Ha, I felt like the first part wasn't gentle at all! Although I could probably attribute a lot of that to coronavirus making it hard for me to focus on books that require a lot of attention to detail.

I felt like I slogged through the first two parts, and things only started to come together in part three. But yes, the festival of lies changes everything!

[Whitney]

Mark wrote: "I LOVE the world-building China does through the growing Avice. Everything is normal for her! There's a number of places where the reader is caught off beat, such as where she says she left Arieka ..."

Yes, this. Too many fantasy writers over-explain their worlds. Or fall into the opposite pitfall of having too much fantasy jargon packed into sentences. Mieville strikes a good line. Like reading a translated book from an unfamiliar culture.

[Bretnie]

I was quite intrigued by the use of humans as similes as a way of learning Language. I thought that was really original and got me thinking a lot about how people learn language.

[Bretnie]

One part of the book that I thought was interesting was Avice's return to Embassytown. I think it took me a while to get what the book was "about" because I was trying too hard to figure out "the immer" and other aspects of the world Mieville has built. But really, looking back on it, so much of the story is about Avice's coming home.

She's been on these space adventures and recognizes that most people never return to her equivalent of a small town. What did you make of all the backstory of Avice's space adventures and marriage to Scile as the buildup to the book's turning point - the Festival of Lies?

[Mark]

It feels like there are three novels here (or more...) Perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise in a story that CM first started thinking of when he was eleven.

There's the story of Avise the immer: This presents a sweet and appealing "coming of age" plot with the spice of Miéville's imagination.

There's the story of the marriage between Avice and Scile. In some ways, this is the most emotionally affecting story, as we see the first wonderful portrait of mutual involvement of the two slowly grow into estrangement. In some ways, I would have been happy if that was the end of the story.

Finally, and I don't think it's much of a spoiler, we see the story of the end of the Host civilization that stood behind Avice's childhood. This is the principal business of the second half of the book. I'm put off by this a bit, as it seems that this is CM's preferred idea of a "proper" ending of a novel. Lots of big explosions and billowing fireballs, like the end of a Marvel superhero movie.

[Bretnie]

Here's a random question - any thoughts on the use of polyamorous relationships in sci-fi? Is it just me, or do those tend to pop up more in male-authored books? (it could be just me!) I found it interesting that it was explored more in Avice's multiple partners than Scile's.

I found her relationship with EzRa weird, thinking about it more like a person having a relationship with twins. That would be weird for the twins, right?

[Mark]

The relationship is weird, but that's CM's middle name. I suspect it is weirder for Avice than for EzRa, as they are wired and grown together. It's not too surprising, considering Avise is the center of the book. Her connection to them is not there for mere prurience -- it ties her in more firmly to the core of the story. She is becoming more than just a floaker with the prestige of being an immer.

[Bretnie]

Mark, that reminds me, how would you define a floaker? I like that Mieville doesn't overdefine this world, but I was never quite sure what he intended floaker to mean. Something like a retired person who can do whatever they want?

[Mark]

Bretnie, something like that, cognate to "float." It seems less reputable than "retired," more like the occupations of the folks in Guys and Dolls. For Avise, of course, she brings the prestige and perspective of half a working lifetime in the Out, something few from Arrakis escape to and even fewer return from.

[Emmeline]

I really enjoyed the first half. I agree that Miéville strikes a good balance between world building and letting you just get on with it. It's interesting because quite a few of those early chapters were glorified info-dumps -- Scile and Avice chatting about culture so that the reader can be informed, but I found them very readable anyway (my writers' group would be down on this kind of thing like a tonne of bricks, so I enjoy seeing it work in the wild).

I'm almost finished and I agree with Mark that I would have been happy with a smaller story about a relationship and culture clash, but now I'm enmeshed in violence and explosions. It's not bad, I just find it unnecessary. Maybe it's one of those genre/litfic conflicts though.

[Sue]

Emily wrote: "I really enjoyed the first half. I agree that Miéville strikes a good balance between world building and letting you just get on with it. It's interesting because quite a few of those early chapter..."

I'm at the same point - a ton of violence. It feels like the first half and second half are two completely different books. Not better or worse, just not what I was expecting!

The first half of the book had led me to believe I would see some "palace intrigue" type of conflict. And starting into the second half took my by surprise.

My overall impression of the first half was wonderful world building and a fascinating look at language and how what we can say impacts what we can think. Reminds me a little of 1984 in that regard.

[Emmeline]

Sue wrote: "Emily wrote: "I really enjoyed the first half. I agree that Miéville strikes a good balance between world building and letting you just get on with it. It's interesting because quite a few of those..."

The other Miéville I read was similar (though much shorter) in that there was a bunch of interesting and very cultural set-up followed by escalating monsters and war, so that seems to be his thing.

[Whitney]

Now that people have pointed it out, that's been my experience of Mieville's novels as well; primarily the Bas-Lag books. His joy seems to be in creating the worlds, their inhabitants, and their social and political conflicts. I wonder if he may even consider the plots a bit of a bother; a necessary framework on which to hang his worlds and create a proper novel.