Baby Got Books

The City and the City

China Miéville is another is those authors that I’d been meaning to get around to reading. I had vaguely remembered coming across glowing reviews of his past books somewhere or other. When I came across his latest book, The City and The City, hidden in The Strand’s downstairs half-off shelves, it seemed like it was high time to pull the trigger.

cityandthecity

One of the best things about The City and The City is the strange, but completely believable world the author has created. The novel takes place in a Baltic city-state that has been divided for centuries. Unlike most divided cities, there are no walls or other physical impediments splitting the city. The divisions are entirely cultural and are deeply ingrained. The two cities – Beszel and Ul Qoma – exist “grosstopically” are deeply enmeshed, with areas that may be common to both cities described as “crosshatched”. Citizens of the two cities must master the art of practiced heedlessness towards the foreign city and its inhabitants clearly in their midst. Visitors to the strange city-state would have a harder time:

…they would have had to undergo mandatory training and passed the not-unstringent entrance exam, both its theoretical and practical-role-play elements, to qualify for their visas. They would know, at least in outline, key signifiers of architecture, clothing, alphabet and manner, outlaw colors and gestures, obligatory details…

Noticeably sensing the citizens of the other city in any way is a strictly enforced taboo. To violate the taboo is known as a “breach.” The mysterious enforcers of the taboo are known simply as Breach. Miéville notes the seriousness with which abuses of the stricture are handled:

Trust to Breach, we grow up hearing, unsee and don’t mention the Ul Qoman pickpockets or muggers at work even if you notice, which you shouldn’t, from where you stand in Beszel, because breach is a worse transgression than theirs.

Did you catch the “unsee” there? Miéville infuses his dystopian vision with plenty of Orwellian word play. ”Unsee”, “unsmell”, and “unhear” define the methods by which citizens of both cities choose to be oblivious to people and places within the immediate vicinity. Topolgangers, grisstopically, disensus, and liminality are some of my favorite neologisms.

Don’t worry, there is a plot, too. A seemingly straightforward murder becomes anything but as a detective in Beszel follows leads to the other city, Ul Qoma, and the seedy underbellies of both. Eventually detectives from both sides join forces to solve a crime that seems purposefully executed to exploit the grey areas between the two worlds. The novel features also features one of the most bizarre chase scenes (on foot) that I’ve ever read.

The City and The City is an engaging novel that wonderfully blends the crime novel genre with thoughtful social commentary. Miéville explores the ways in which we separate ourselves from others and can consciously or unconsciously “unsee” the people around us. This is one of my favorite novels of the year – hands down.