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marthmuffins 's review for:
The City & the City
by China Miéville
The City & The City - 3.5/5
Cities creep intae our minds in ways we don't expect; concrete reflects back meaning unique to each individual. Our psyches infect cities, making them into their own little world, leaving the physical reality whilst forging a mental one; the City and the City.
But, sometimes, those two worlds don't stay separate, they Breach into each other and we show our city to the world, what we think of each building and street, divorced from their physical reality. But do we really want to see one another's ideas of the world? Or would it be easier to lock them away inside, hide them and show only the physical city, so as not disturb those other realities hiding all around us?
And that is the real strength of this beuk, its ability to create a city of the mind for its main character, Tyador Borlú. We watch him in Beszel, in 'his' city, as it falls apart whilst in that very same street, but an entire country away, invisible Ul Qoman towers reach for the sky. All the while he works his job as a detective for the Beszel Extreme Crime Squad, following the trail of a murder only to.
However, where the story really falls down for me is in the characters themselves. Borlu and his colleagues never really felt more than their stock character traits, Borlu himself as the hardboiled film noir detective, Corwi the young ambitious partner and Dhatt the any means but with a good heart partner. They never really developed past that point and it feels like a missed opportunity, leaving them as little more than half-formed clichés.
The story itself is fun, a murder mystery with plenty of twists and turns to keep the pace up, tying the city and the city together in a maze of plotting.
The writing itself is exceptional, it flows and forms the themes and world in such a way to capture both the noir atmosphere and the psychogeography of the cities. When Borlu looks out over a park or down a street you can feel the two worlds jostling for space whilst simultaneously, and desperately, trying to ignore one another.
Overall, read for the cities, not for their inhabitants.
Cities creep intae our minds in ways we don't expect; concrete reflects back meaning unique to each individual. Our psyches infect cities, making them into their own little world, leaving the physical reality whilst forging a mental one; the City and the City.
But, sometimes, those two worlds don't stay separate, they Breach into each other and we show our city to the world, what we think of each building and street, divorced from their physical reality. But do we really want to see one another's ideas of the world? Or would it be easier to lock them away inside, hide them and show only the physical city, so as not disturb those other realities hiding all around us?
And that is the real strength of this beuk, its ability to create a city of the mind for its main character, Tyador Borlú. We watch him in Beszel, in 'his' city, as it falls apart whilst in that very same street, but an entire country away, invisible Ul Qoman towers reach for the sky. All the while he works his job as a detective for the Beszel Extreme Crime Squad, following the trail of a murder only to
Spoiler
find evidence of a centre of control, a city within the cities, OrcinySpoiler
In the end, the controlling force of Orciny is revealed to be a lie, a lie exploited by companies and governments to exploit the gullible and the paranoid for their own profit; the Deep State a creation of The State.However, where the story really falls down for me is in the characters themselves. Borlu and his colleagues never really felt more than their stock character traits, Borlu himself as the hardboiled film noir detective, Corwi the young ambitious partner and Dhatt the any means but with a good heart partner. They never really developed past that point and it feels like a missed opportunity, leaving them as little more than half-formed clichés.
The story itself is fun, a murder mystery with plenty of twists and turns to keep the pace up, tying the city and the city together in a maze of plotting.
The writing itself is exceptional, it flows and forms the themes and world in such a way to capture both the noir atmosphere and the psychogeography of the cities. When Borlu looks out over a park or down a street you can feel the two worlds jostling for space whilst simultaneously, and desperately, trying to ignore one another.
Overall, read for the cities, not for their inhabitants.