Take a photo of a barcode or cover
jtjfalk 's review for:
The City & the City
by China Miéville
Beszel and Ul Qoma are neighboring city-states that exist grosstopically in exactly the same place. At the beginning of the book, you assume this is all happening somehow supernaturally- characters "unsee" not only foreigners walking among them, like ghosts, but entire buildings, streets, car traffic. But what makes this world so brilliant is that there's nothing supernatural going on at all- the fantastic existence of these topolganger cities is entirely ideological. Some parts of the city are "total," that is, entirely in one nation, and some are "alter," that is entirely foreign. And where these two nations overlap, or "crosshatch," citizens of both nations cross paths while "unseeing" the Other. Any interaction with a foreign pedestrian, any trespassing into an "alter" building, or even shifting your perception in a crosshatched plaza so as to believe that you are in the other country is considered "breach"- a crime worse than all others.
It all sounds completely absurd, because it is. But the book explores brilliantly how ideology really can reshape the world around you and enforce rigid borders that are extremely real even if they don't exist materially at all.
It all sounds completely absurd, because it is. But the book explores brilliantly how ideology really can reshape the world around you and enforce rigid borders that are extremely real even if they don't exist materially at all.