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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
As usual, Miéville weaves a truly bizarre story that challenges the reader to follow along while stymieing them (albeit in entertaining and delightful ways). Creative but confusing. Which isn’t a bad thing.
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
(This review contains spoilers.)
It is rare that I start reading a book and think it's brilliant. It is even rarer that I finish it and still think it's brilliant. The City & the City is one of such rarities.
This novel is multi-layered and there are different ways of looking at it. On the surface, it is a police procedural, a whodunnit about a murder of a young woman. This aspect is extremely well-written: there is enough tension and mystery to make the story gripping and difficult to put down. There are numerous false leads and smokescreens, which make it impossible to figure out until the very end who is the murderer.
Underpinning this story is the rich worldbuilding. The City & the City is a thought experiment of a divided city taken to the extreme: what if two halves of such a city overlapped each other and the border between them was spread-out and thin, almost fractal? The picture Miéville paints is so detailed, so realistic, that it makes me almost believe that Besel and Ul Qoma are real places somewhere in Europe. This is helped by the way Miéville seamlessly integrates them into geopolitics of the past and present.
The choice of governmental systems for Besel (democracy) and Ul Qoma (authoritarianism) is also interesting: this allowed Miéville to explore differences in how they would react to their circumstances. This includes numerous political groups (like nationalists and unificationists) and how they influence internal politics (more freedom in Besel vs. operating on the fringes of legality Ul Qoma).
The peculiarities of The City & the City are also exposed through language. We see words like "grosstopical", "crosshatch", "total", and "alter", which don't make much sense at first ("topolganger" is probably my favourite portmanteau here). English is also not a main language in either city, so Miéville played with how English words make their way into Bes and Illitan, with some creative inventions like "goodcop" and "badcop" as verbs.
The City & the City is weird fiction and the way the story unfolds, it is definitely weird. The Breach and the city borders seem supernatural, almost mystical at first. But that layer is gradually peeled off and we're left with a mundane, "normal" weirdness. The border is there, because people believe it is there. It is enforced by people as much as by the Breach, who themselves are just human. There is nothing supernatural to the weirdness of The City & the City, it seems weird just because no such place exists in our world (but perhaps it could). The only remaining question is how Besel and Ul Qoma came to be, but well, there needs to be at least one unsolved mystery?
It is rare that I start reading a book and think it's brilliant. It is even rarer that I finish it and still think it's brilliant. The City & the City is one of such rarities.
This novel is multi-layered and there are different ways of looking at it. On the surface, it is a police procedural, a whodunnit about a murder of a young woman. This aspect is extremely well-written: there is enough tension and mystery to make the story gripping and difficult to put down. There are numerous false leads and smokescreens, which make it impossible to figure out until the very end who is the murderer.
Underpinning this story is the rich worldbuilding. The City & the City is a thought experiment of a divided city taken to the extreme: what if two halves of such a city overlapped each other and the border between them was spread-out and thin, almost fractal? The picture Miéville paints is so detailed, so realistic, that it makes me almost believe that Besel and Ul Qoma are real places somewhere in Europe. This is helped by the way Miéville seamlessly integrates them into geopolitics of the past and present.
The choice of governmental systems for Besel (democracy) and Ul Qoma (authoritarianism) is also interesting: this allowed Miéville to explore differences in how they would react to their circumstances. This includes numerous political groups (like nationalists and unificationists) and how they influence internal politics (more freedom in Besel vs. operating on the fringes of legality Ul Qoma).
The peculiarities of The City & the City are also exposed through language. We see words like "grosstopical", "crosshatch", "total", and "alter", which don't make much sense at first ("topolganger" is probably my favourite portmanteau here). English is also not a main language in either city, so Miéville played with how English words make their way into Bes and Illitan, with some creative inventions like "goodcop" and "badcop" as verbs.
The City & the City is weird fiction and the way the story unfolds, it is definitely weird. The Breach and the city borders seem supernatural, almost mystical at first. But that layer is gradually peeled off and we're left with a mundane, "normal" weirdness. The border is there, because people believe it is there. It is enforced by people as much as by the Breach, who themselves are just human. There is nothing supernatural to the weirdness of The City & the City, it seems weird just because no such place exists in our world (but perhaps it could). The only remaining question is how Besel and Ul Qoma came to be, but well, there needs to be at least one unsolved mystery?
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No