hardcover, 312 pages
English language
Published Dec. 18, 2009 by MacMillan.
I didn't know anything about the author and might have put the book down as a run-of-the-mill murder mystery, but it was my only book over a holiday trip and I kept coming back. Slowly it seeped in - this is lovingly crafted detective noir novel with one strange, nearly impossible premise. The more I read the better I liked it, all the way to the end.
enjoyed this so much that as soon as I finished, I started over from the beginning.
Oy. Finally finished this one after a few months on hiatus. I really liked Mieville's other books that I've read so far. I ended up liking this one, but the style of it was just a bit dense because the characters speak and think in stream of consciousness...which is ironic, because it's really how real people sometimes speak and think.
The concept is pretty decent: two cities, somewhere in what might be Eastern Europe, occupy the same physical space, but they don't get along. Citizens can see activity in the other space, but it's illegal to acknowledge that it was seen. Spend too much time staring into the other city, or accidentally (or purposefully) step into the other space, and the transgressor is taken away by Breach, a CIA-like organization tasked with keeping the boundaries of the two cities apart.
The plot revolves around the possibility of a THIRD city …
Oy. Finally finished this one after a few months on hiatus. I really liked Mieville's other books that I've read so far. I ended up liking this one, but the style of it was just a bit dense because the characters speak and think in stream of consciousness...which is ironic, because it's really how real people sometimes speak and think.
The concept is pretty decent: two cities, somewhere in what might be Eastern Europe, occupy the same physical space, but they don't get along. Citizens can see activity in the other space, but it's illegal to acknowledge that it was seen. Spend too much time staring into the other city, or accidentally (or purposefully) step into the other space, and the transgressor is taken away by Breach, a CIA-like organization tasked with keeping the boundaries of the two cities apart.
The plot revolves around the possibility of a THIRD city lying somewhere unseen, and what happens to people who believe in it's existence. A young exchange student is murdered in one city and dumped in the other, which begins an investigation that must span both cities, and which leads to the question of the existence of this mysterious third city, whether it exists or not, and if it does, who might want it to stay hidden.
There's a lot of made-up politics here, combined with a police investigative drama, which is really secondary to the characters of Ul Quoma and Beszel, the two overlapping cities. Pretty much every scene deals with the cooperative police inspectors having to walk a fine line between getting the answers they need, and violating the divide between the cities and invoking Breach. It's a good read for those who like their urban environments as first-rate characters, although the odd cadence of the language of the characters and the prose itself in some places might lead to less immersion then an idea like this one deserves.
Being a linear-thinking individual, I had a lot of trouble envisioning the world created by Mieville. It was an engaging story. Most appreciated how it made me reflect on the ways and the things that people choose to see and un-see in this world.
If [a:Raymond Chandler|1377|Raymond Chandler|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1206535318p2/1377.jpg] and [a:Philip K Dick|5178267|Philip K Dick|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] wrote a book together it would be very similar to [b:The City & the City|4703581|The City & the City|China Miéville|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266894982s/4703581.jpg|4767909] (if you throw a little [a:George Orwell|3706|George Orwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1175614486p2/3706.jpg] into the mix). [a:China Miéville|33918|China Miéville|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1243988363p2/33918.jpg] calls his novels fantasy/weird fiction and this is no different, though I think I would consider it more Science Fiction. There is a complex plot full of twists and turns in an even more complex couple of cities. These cities are confusing and very hard to navigate, you feel like a complete alien in them and China doesn’t help you along with this part of the journey; in this aspect it can be a very hard book to read.
But stick to it! The City & The City has a lot to offer; a complex mystery in a homage to Chandler, a foreign country with strike …
If [a:Raymond Chandler|1377|Raymond Chandler|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1206535318p2/1377.jpg] and [a:Philip K Dick|5178267|Philip K Dick|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] wrote a book together it would be very similar to [b:The City & the City|4703581|The City & the City|China Miéville|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266894982s/4703581.jpg|4767909] (if you throw a little [a:George Orwell|3706|George Orwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1175614486p2/3706.jpg] into the mix). [a:China Miéville|33918|China Miéville|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1243988363p2/33918.jpg] calls his novels fantasy/weird fiction and this is no different, though I think I would consider it more Science Fiction. There is a complex plot full of twists and turns in an even more complex couple of cities. These cities are confusing and very hard to navigate, you feel like a complete alien in them and China doesn’t help you along with this part of the journey; in this aspect it can be a very hard book to read.
But stick to it! The City & The City has a lot to offer; a complex mystery in a homage to Chandler, a foreign country with strike rules (Orwell) and the science fiction style that leaves you pondering about life and our world (Philip K Dick). This book is brilliant and I would recommend it to anyone that is a fan of mysteries or fantasy or sci-fi. You won’t be disappointed; if you can make it past the first few chapters, which is the hardest part of the book to read.
Just not into it. Seems like a half-thought-out fever dream turned into a hasty book. I wanted China to redeem himself after (despicable) UnLunDun but unfortunately Perdido St Station is a long way away from this one.
A fast paced, noir police procedural novel that just happens to take place in a fantastical city. Or, rather, in two impossibly conjoined cities somewhere in the vicinity of the former Yugoslavia. It sets up all sorts of resonances about cultural conditioning, belonging to groups, and long-cherished political resentments. It also performs the neat trick of making you cheer against the side that actually makes the most sense.
