PC Review 2: The City And The City

[Heradel]

PodCastle Review 2: The City And The City

The City and the City by China Miéville

Reviewed by Peter Wood

The City & The City, Miéville’s latest novel, is stylistically quite different than some of his previous work and, I think, considerably more accessible. In short, The City & The City is a crime novel that follows Inspector Tyador Borlú as he investigates a murder. The tricky part, for Borlú is that while the body was found in his city, Besźel, the murder appears to have been committed in the neighboring city of Ul Qoman. Additionally, there seems to be political slant to the case, putting Borlu in conflict with some very powerful people in both cities. He travels to Ul Qoman and teams up with his counterpart in that city, Qussim Dhatt and together they attempt to bring the murderer to justice. And of course, there are red herrings strewn about and further fatalities as the investigation proceeds (as any proper detective story should have).

Minor plot-oriented spoilers. DO NOT BREACH.

[eytanz]

Let me just say, I read this book, and I agree with every word in the review.

[CryptoMe]

I recently listened to this book on audio. I really enjoyed the reading. The narrator had a smooth voice, with really interestingly accented pronunciations of the various names, which gave an appropriate feeling of foreign-ness to things. I also enjoyed the crime drama story.

But I really could not suspend my disbelief for the whole 2 cities in one thing. I just couldn't believe that an entire population would agree to stratify in this way, nor that they could pull it off. Really, when one apartment in a building is in one city and the one beside it is in another city? How on earth does one keep all that straight?? And how do you differentiate between the people? Style of dress really won't do it, since there will always be people who dress different from the norm (either absent mindedly or on purpose). I know some people have said that this is an allegory to things like homelessness, class stratification, and racism in our society. But to me, the comparison falls flat, since we as a society actively work at rectifying such situations (though not very successfully) instead of ignoring them. Anyway, the two cities thing was an interesting concept, but not believable. In my opinion, the book would have worked just as well if you had 2 physically separate cities.

[eytanz]

I think that reading the story as an allegory is not successful, for precisely the reasons you give. For me, the book was more about the thought experiment; I agree that the 2 city arrangement was alien. Yet for me what was great about the book was not the plot - essentially, a pretty run-of-the-mill detective story - but rather, forcing myself to adapt my imagine the reality of the city. I think perhaps this works better in text form than audio form, as text allowed me to take the time I needed to get used to the concepts, and reread whenever I wasn't sure things were internally consistent (they always were, as far as I could tell). Audio, where pausing and rewinding feels a lot less natural - and there is no way to just stop and stare at text for a few seconds until it sinks in - would probably have made the experience a lot weaker.

And contra all that, there is one other factor for me. I grew up in Jerusalem, very much multiple cities. There is secular Jerusalem, where I grew up. There is Orthodox Jewish Jerusalem, and then there is Palestinian Jerusalem. Obviously, it's not the same as in the story - we were not required to ignore the other cities. We just preferred to. There ostensibly was one authority above them all, but in practice, there were different laws and norms, different law and norm enforcement, and those travelled with you. It didn't matter if I was in the East or West, I would have been treated as a secular  Jew. A Palestinian would have been treated the same in both too (not necessarily worse - this isn't Gaza I'm talking about. Just, different). The 2 cities in the book were alien to me as well, but they are not as far away from reality as you suppose.

[stePH]

The notion of the two cities occupying the same space reminded me of Gaiman's "London Above" and "London Below" in Neverwhere.

[eytanz]

The notion of the two cities occupying the same space reminded me of Gaiman's "London Above" and "London Below" in Neverwhere.

True, but there is a crucial difference, in that Neverwhere features a supernatural division between the cities - they operate under different natural laws, and, while I don't believe it is made explicit (though it's been a while since I read it and even longer since I saw the miniseries), it is heavily implied that London Below has some sort of glamour that makes it difficult, though not outright impossible, for London Abovers to see any of its inhabitants.

What - as far as I know - makes The City And The City unique is that there is no explanation for the behavior of the two cities except cultural taboos. It is a novel of speculative sociology and psychology, where a situation is presented where the rules of the world are exactly like ours, except that the inhabitants of one geographic region are all behaving in a way that is unknown to any culture in the real world. This can be taken as a type of fantasy (esp., if like CryptoMe, you believe that the behavior in the novel is simply contrary to actual human nature), but the book makes it very clear that there is nothing supernatural involved, just societal norms.

[DKT]

IIRC (and after Peter's review, I've been very keen on going back to reread it), it's more than just taboos and societal norms. There can be consequences, very big consequences, if you don't unsee, or if you attempt to cross over from one city into the other.

[eytanz]

IIRC (and after Peter's review, I've been very keen on going back to reread it), it's more than just taboos and societal norms. There can be consequences, very big consequences, if you don't unsee, or if you attempt to cross over from one city into the other.

But those consequences are within the realm of cultural norms.

Nudity is a taboo in our culture. If I choose to leave my house naked and take a stroll around town, I will face serious consequences - at the very least, I will have gained a criminal record and made to pay a fine. But out society is quite liberal. A few weeks ago, the newspapers here in England were all reporting a story about a British couple jailed in Dubai for kissing in public. Another recent news story is about two men in Malawi who have been sentences for 14 years in prison because they said in admitted in public to being in a gay relationship. These are all cases of state-sanctioned enforcement of cultural taboos. The same is true of this story, though the nature of the enforcement is both closely related to the nature of the taboo and a major plot point so I don't want to discuss it in detail. I don't think that contradicts anything I said above.

[DKT]

Point taken. I guess it's the nature of the enforcement I'm thinking about, but you're correct that it's not a contradiction.

I may PM you off list, because I'm interested in continuing the discussion, but I don't want to get to spoilery in this thread.

[CryptoMe]

I agree that the whole two cities is very well done throughout the book, and entirely consistent. On top of that, contrary to eytanz's conjecture, I found it quite logical and straightforward to follow.

My problem is that, not only is this kind of behaviour contrary to human nature (as eytanz perceptively pointed out), but it is also completely unenforceable. How do you know if someone "unsaw" something they weren't supposed to notice? How do you know if the person walking past you is truly a citizen of your city and not just dressed in the outward appearance of it? How would you know if people from opposite cities are meeting in secret if no one admits to it? There are just so many ways of breaking this taboo that it becomes untenable. And, as with any silly law, people are always going to find ways to go around it.

[stePH]

What - as far as I know - makes The City And The City unique is that there is no explanation for the behavior of the two cities except cultural taboos. It is a novel of speculative sociology and psychology, where a situation is presented where the rules of the world are exactly like ours, except that the inhabitants of one geographic region are all behaving in a way that is unknown to any culture in the real world. This can be taken as a type of fantasy (esp., if like CryptoMe, you believe that the behavior in the novel is simply contrary to actual human nature), but the book makes it very clear that there is nothing supernatural involved, just societal norms.

Then I suppose the comparison to draw would be with C.J. Cherryh's Wave Without a Shore (which I have not yet read.)

[edit]Just remembered that when listening to the review, I thought back to a comment from Cherryh about the "Invisibles" in her novel: "Think of all the homeless that we don't 'see'."

[CryptoMe]

Then I suppose the comparison to draw would be with C.J. Cherryh's Wave Without a Shore (which I have not yet read.)

Oh.  I *loved* Wave Without a Shore when I read it as a 16-year old...  I think I have to go read it again now.

[Unblinking]

This was a quality review and I hope you keep them coming!  This sounds like an interesting book.  I've only read one book by Mieville--Perdido Street Station, which I liked overall, though it had plenty of flaws.  I wrote a review for that one a few months back:
http://www.diabolicalplots.com/?p=553

I think it's okay to post that link here.  I don't want to be too annoyingly self-promotional, but Perdido was mentioned in this review, and people might be interested in hearing more about it.