TCaTC: Boring Borlu

[Ruth]

I found this book to have a clever central concept, and the mystery was well set up, but it was severely lacking in interesting characters and for me that dragged it down from a potential five-star read to a three-star read,

Our protagonist, Borlu, is just a bit boring. He doesn’t have an interesting backstory or complex interpersonal relationships (it’s mentioned that he’s seeing two different women which could be potentially interesting but then this doesn’t actually go anywhere). He doesn’t really have any personality traits to speak of. He’s just… there. The other characters are not much better - Corwi is just a cipher and while Dhatt is a bit livelier, they don’t really get much development or chance to do anything interesting.

I found the most compelling character, especially near the end, was (view spoiler)[ Bowden, who actually gets some development and a nice moment with Borlu, but even he gets very little page-time. (hide spoiler)]

For me, the lack of an interesting central character made this book much less compelling than it could have been. I just wasn’t that bothered about what Borlu did or what happened to him, and so I found myself not picking the book up as often as I could have. It was a book I had to force myself to get through rather than one I actively enjoyed. I’m not sorry I read it because I did find the premise intriguing and the plot well-constructed, but Boring Borlu made me feel like it was… kind of hollow.

The coda, where (view spoiler)[ Borlu has to leave his life in Bessel behind and join Breach, just didn’t have the emotional weight it should have done, because I didn’t really care very much about Borlu or feel invested in his life. (hide spoiler)]

For me, character is a much more important “doorway” than plot or setting, and this book was lacking in that department. How did everyone else find it?

[Scott]

I generally expect the characters in a police procedural mystery novel to be mostly focused on the "job" and for aspects of who they are and their life outside it to mostly come through tangentially. Like many central characters in such novels, Borlu's life is mostly his work. He has two partners but neither lives with him, a contrast that stands out when he interacts with Dhatt's family. But Borlu cares deeply about his city and the victims of the crimes he investigates. Almost all his interactions with others revolve around that central focus. It shows up at the outset from his refusal to let the murder slide as others might have. It shows up again in his care for other victims and the anger that drives him to breach rather than let a killer walk away from murdering someone he had promised to protect. And I enjoyed his interactions with Corwi as the case progressed.

I admit I was mostly captivated by the world and the underlying mechanism Mieville was building, but I appreciated the mystery genre elements and had no difficulty slipping into Borlu's perspective as our vehicle for traversing the story. And I cared about his choices and actions along that journey. Character development and exploration certainly wasn't the central focus, but that's not unusual for a police procedural so I wasn't really expecting it.

[Tim]

Ruth I completely agree with your comment. I’d say character then narrative are the primary “doorways” for my enjoyment, and character definitely let it down.

I kind of liked it okay, but I did have a few problems with it

Aside from the thin characters, I don’t really think the narrative was that compelling either, at least not for a full length novel. It felt like a novella’s worth of plot spread out. I feel like I learned more about navigating traffic in Besel / Ul Qoma than I did about the motivations of the pro and antagonists - the word “alter” is used 18 times, “total” 27 times, and “crosshatch” 67 times! I feel like he could have used some of the time spent describing walking around “unseeing” things to explore other things in more detail. I did quite like the end though when (view spoiler)[Bowden is going to just walk on out by being ambiguous about his mannerisms! (hide spoiler)].

The mystery seemed a little thin too… lots of walking around, and then Borlu would just kind of intuit the next step, and then monologue what he’d figured out for a page or two. And speaking of dialogue, it often felt stilted to me, like the characters were talking past each other, which sometimes made it hard to follow the conversation

Finally, the biggest disappointment in the end was probably (view spoiler)[Breach. Lots of build up and in the end it’s just a bunch of people with weird guns and a decentralised decision making process? (hide spoiler)].

So overall it felt like a great premise that never quite lived up to its potential.

[Ruth]

Tim wrote: "Ruth I completely agree with your comment. I’d say character then narrative are the primary “doorways” for my enjoyment, and character definitely let it down.

I kind of liked it okay, but I did h..."

Good thoughts Tim but just a note about your spoiler tags: I can still see the text inside them. You’re using square brackets, you need to use the chevrons instead. Like this:
< spoiler > (remove the spaces for it to work)

[Tim]

Thanks (and fixed), I always seem to get that wrong

[Seth]

Scott wrote: "I generally expect the characters in a police procedural mystery novel to be mostly focused on the "job" ..."

This is how it struck me too. Borlu's most interesting characteristic is that he is constantly thinking about whatever case/puzzle he's working on currently. Also, I think it's interesting that Borlu is no kind of superman, but is still good at his job and determined to do it, even as he notably seems to lack in the kind of political feeling that motivates a lot of the other parties in the books (unificationists, nationalists, etc.). He likes his city and he tries to do what he thinks is right. Those are his two biggest relationships - city and job - and so that's why when we follow him that's what we get descriptions of.

And as for that coda: (view spoiler)[ I found it to have at least some emotional resonance because Borlu gives up his most profound relationships - those relationships just happen to be his own city and the sense of purpose he gets from his job. Now he has neither , though we don't quite get to see him say or think this or deal with the consequences. (hide spoiler)]

[Mark]

In the tv adaptation, the writers tried to give Borlu a more interesting backstory, but I don't think they succeeded. I think it just made more of a tv policeman.

[Papaphilly]

I watched the show, but did not read the book. How is the book?