The City And The City

I'm still not sure how I really feel about The City and the City. I definitely enjoyed it, and I think it's a really interesting experiment that probably only Mieville could have pulled off - but it didn't grip me like his New Crobuzon novels. I can imagine that from Mieville's perspective it would have been a dark, different and interesting writing experience, but Mieville doesn't need to prove that he's dark, different and interesting...you can tell that just by looking at his photo!

Long story short, I enjoyed it, though I didn't feel particularly compelled to keep reading, and I can't help wishing that he'd written another New Crobuzon book instead.

Stephen Palmer said:
But I think The Scar is his finest so far. If a book could kick you in the mouth - in a good way - this one could. And would.
Click to expand...

YES! I think the genius of The Scar is beyond description - but you just came pretty damn close.
 
This is the first book of China Mieville's I have read and I must say I was very impressed. A stunning concept and a compelling story. There was a real sense of background, of history, woven into the narrative and the characters.

I realise now I have been rather slow to discover Mieville's work but I shall be making up for lost time!
 
The City & The City is the best crime fiction I've read since The Yiddish Policemen's Union and that was one of the best I've ever read. I don't actually read too many books in this style, and the latter book is only four years old, but Mieville's book was still really a good read. The thing that I thought was really cool about Breach was that it could be seen as either a group of people and places that exist simply because everyone in Ul Qoma and Beszel choose to unsee them or as an actual supernatural entity regardless of the source of its power. I tended towards the latter (although it becomes harder towards the end somewhat as you are introduced to and learn more about Breach) because I kept thinking of all the situations where it would be impossible to ignore various sights and sounds.
 
I downloaded this to my Kindle yesterday and I'm on Chapter 4 at the moment. It's certainly intriguing, this being the first China book for me I just have to get used to his way of writing. It always take me a few chapters to really get into a book anyway, but so far I'm liking the mystery of it all.
 
Finished it today! Utterly brilliant, interesting concept and well worth the read. I'll be getting his other novels soon! :)
 
This is my take on it - from my SFF blog: http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.com/

China Miéville has been establishing a reputation as a high-quality writer with a very varied SFF output. I have so far picked up three of his books. Un Lun Dun is an intriguing, Alice in Wonderland kind of fantasy which I reviewed here a couple of years ago. It is an entertaining tale which I enjoyed despite it being aimed at younger readers. Next up was Perdito Street Station, a darker, adult story also set in a fantastical city. However, after reading 70 pages or so (with another 800 still to go), it had failed to grip me: I didn't care about the characters and decided that I had other books I'd rather be reading, so I stopped. As a result, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I picked up The City and the City.

What I found was something very different from the previous two: a story set in the present day in an imaginary Middle Eastern country, consisting mainly of one large city. It is a murder mystery, featuring and told by Inspector Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad of the city of Besźel. So far, so mundane - but this is no ordinary city. I can't say more without a few spoilers, so if you like everything to be a surprise you had better stop reading now. I will just conclude this paragraph by saying that this book has my strong recommendation.

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What is peculiar about the city, as the reader soon begins to realise, is that for reasons lost in history it is two organisationally, culturally and linguistically very different cities occupying the same physical fabric. They even have different names: Besźel and Ul Qoma. This doesn't mean the city is carved into sectors like Berlin during the Cold War; while some parts are purely Besźel and others Ul Qoma, these sections are scattered at random throughout the city and the remainder is mixed, with Besźel and Ul Qoma buildings intermingled. Stranger still, the inhabitants of each city are conditioned from childhood only to see the buildings and people of their own city. They can recognise the differences easily enough; the buildings are of different architectural styles and the people dress differently and have different gestures and body language, as well as speaking different languages. It is absolutely forbidden to interact with, acknowledge or even look directly at people or buildings in the "other" city (a crime known as "breach") and the inhabitants learn to "unsee" the other city, ignoring anyone or anything which is not theirs. This draconian rule is enforced by a shadowy and much feared organisation simply called "Breach"; enforcement officers who dress and behave in such a way that they are "unseen" by the inhabitants of both cities, until they suddenly emerge to arrest anyone guilty of breach. The two cities interact in only one place, Copula Hall, which is also the "virtual border" between them. Inhabitants of either city can obtain permission to visit the other, but they have to be trained first to "see" the city they are visiting; which means that for the duration of the visit, they "unsee" their own city.

This bizarre situation can make the life of a police officer like Borlú very complicated, so when a visiting American student, working on an archaeological dig in Ul Qoma, turns up dead in Besźel, he knows he's in for trouble. Working with his Ul Qoman opposite number he tries to get to the bottom of a complex and murky case, complicated by the apparent involvement of Orciny, a legendary third city "unseen" by the other two, and with the threat of Breach constantly hanging over him.

This novel is really unclassifiable and it may well not appeal to all SFF fans, but the extraordinary conception of the two cities gripped my imagination and I found the story fascinating on two levels: if this author ever tires of writing SFF, he could make a good living in crime fiction. For once, I was sorry when the book ended (it is quite short by Miéville's standards, at only 370 pages). It is rare to find something so completely different and it will undoubtedly prove to be one of the highlights of my reading year.
 
Here's my review of The City and the City

This book arrived on my shelves enveloped in controversy. Ithad just been awarded two science fiction awards, nominated for more, and yetjournalists were asking if it was really science fiction or just a crime novelwith added dimensions. If I thought it was akin to when Margaret Atwood is indenial of her obvious-to-most science fiction writing, then I’d be wrong: Chinainsists that everything he writes is science fiction and that any discussion ofsuch niceties is ‘silly’. But it isn’t silly when he wins awards set aside forscience fiction works.

Reading the blurb, I was both pleased and gutted. Pleasedanyway because I relish China’s love of the art of writing. I am not one whothinks the author should be invisible and there are phrases China uses thatmakes me stop and admire his skill. Pleased also because of the premise: twocities occupy the same physical space and yet the occupants of one city‘cannot’ see those of the other; nor their buildings and vehicles. I was guttedbecause it seemed to me this is a story where parallel universes meet at acity-size intersection, and I wanted to write such a story. The two cities, Beszeland Ul Qoma, have different architecture, language and social mores yet shareknowledge of the rest of the world. So they all know who Tom Hanks is, and can travelto the same Britain, Canada and the US. The notion of parallel universes and a possibleintersection is certainly a concept within the bounds of Quantum Physics andhence science fiction. For an undeclared reason it is illegal for the citizensof either city to see each other. It appears that if this happens they commit abreach of protocol and a particularly powerful body called Breach punishesthem. This becomes complicated because how can someone drive along a road thatis in both cities but has to unsee vehicles and buildings belonging to theother city? Accidents happen and Breach swoops. To me there are manycontradictions in this aspect of the plot – it is too easy for naughty childrento throw stones at windows of either or both cities, committing Breach all overthe place. CCTV is referred to but the logical consequences aren’t. That is:how can anyone view a photograph of the city without noticing cars, people andbuildings from the other city?

But wait. First let’s praise where it is due.

Mostly, this is an extraordinarily well-crafted crime storywith three main characters – police from the two cities – who are alive andcredible. You can tell who is talking from their speech patterns andmannerisms, faultless. Love the idea that a policeman from one city is neededto help solve a murder that takes place in the other. The victim is crucial tounravelling the mystery of the two cities and it seems there are groups eagerto keep the secret. China does a terrifically moving job of making the twodetectives distrust then come to admire each other, in their own way.Brilliant. Generally, an author has his work cut out to describe one uniquecity so that the reader believes they are there, but here two cities arecreated in the same spot. Excellent and original. I would have liked more fleshon the character of the protagonist, Borlu. We are told he has two women, whodon’t know each other but we feel more for his assistant. There are times whenhe should be scared stiff yet isn’t. When his Breach officer is shot, he shouldhave been worried that the other Breach would suspect him but he seems to beunaware. I like his character though I think I made up more than was revealedin the novel.

You need to have a good imagination to appreciate The City & The City and to keephaving one to the end. It isn’t a light read even though it is fast paced. I’dlike to say that I walk about my own city (Chester) wondering if I am inanother parallel city but hadn’t noticed before. Yes, we all go through lifehalf blind to architectural niches in a too-familiar town, but it isn’t thesame. The inhabitants of both cities in TC&TC have been indoctrinated frombirth to unsee the other and know they have been. This is hard to take on – itlacks credibility in a modern society with TV and international travel evenwith a tough Breach enforcement.

If having two different cities occupying the samegeographical space isn’t hard enough there may be another, Orciny, which wasthere before the two started. There is a hint that an alien force created theconditions for Beszel and Ul Qoma to develop separately and unseeing from theancient original. If anyone discovers the truth there could be disastrousconsequences – in my imagination and with Quantum Mechanics in mind, I thoughtperhaps the true knowledge of each other might snuff out one or both. Ratherlike a Schrödinger Cat experiment. Because of Breach and indoctrination, suchthoughts are outlawed, but there are factions. Great geopolitics here, withgroups wanting unification, others demanding either Beszel or Ul Qoma as thetrue city.

Before I say why the ending disappointed me, I have topraise the writing. Breach are specially trained security – they areexpressionless, reinforced to make them different to the normal police ofeither city. “Their faces were without anything approaching expressions. Theylooked like people-shaped clay in the moments before God breathed out.”

Phrases I wished I’d written: “Silence went through theroom, leaving itself behind.” “...was addressed to me, prisoner, condemned,consultant.” The juxtaposition of opposites there very well done, and when youread it in context, apt.

Maybe it is because I jumped to the parallel QM conclusiontoo early and eagerly waited for such an exposition, I was becoming anxiousnear the end. By half way I’d written it differently – I’d have had the messingwith the seeing / unseeing of and by the citizens of each city create a suddencoming to a mathematical point, an elimination of one or both. In the end,nothing so exciting (for me) happened. It kind of fizzled out as if Chinadidn’t know how to finish the novel – an outrageous point of view I know, andimprobable. Right from the start, the QM aspects kept the book firmly asScience Fiction. Then, in the last few pages we find that it was all a con. Noparallel dimensions, no QM, Breach and the indoctrination is all that keeps thetwo cities going. What? That to me is far too contrived. I cannot believe adual system kept in place by force and culture like that. Fair enough,Apartheid kind of did, but in an obvious way, not with unseeing and all the contradictionsthat throws up. I am disappointed at the end, but I would struggle to say thenovel isn’t Science Fiction. In manyways it is with the original concepts, alt history, and possibilities.

The City & TheCity is a great crime story for readers with intelligence and admiration oflateral thinking. Maybe it is worthy of the Clarke Award, but I hope it isn’t asign that future Science Fiction will follow suit. Not that I want all my SFreading to have aliens and rockets, but I don’t want to watch a film of Raiders of the Lost Ark to end with a‘sorry there was never an Ark in the first place’ either.
 
Interesting take on it, Geoff. Yes, I agree the basic premise is highly improbable and takes a lot of swallowing, but I'm prepared to accept almost any premise provided that the story builds on it in a consistent way - which this most certainly does.

I never had the feeling that it had anything to do with parallel universes or quantum mechanics; I thought it was more along the lines of religious belief, in which "true believers" are able to hold on to daft ideas regardless of clear evidence to the contrary.

The magic of this unique story is still with me. I have revamped and extended my "all-time top 25 SFF novels" on my blog, and The City and the City is in there.
 
It is a unique one, and, yes, the initial premise is hard to swallow. But think of the intellectual knots religious people and madmen get themselves tied up in. I think there's quite a strong "religious" (in the sense of faith without reason) foundation to this novel. One to re-read, for sure.
 
It has been a while since I read the book (2½ years, given the date on my first posts in this thread), and I then tended to the view that there was nothing multidimensional about the twin city. But I don't think Miéville was one hundred percent clear on this, and so the book's "reality" may be different.

In fact, it's more than likely that Besźel and Ul Qoma are affected by some sort of Allegory Field....
 
As i started this book, I really had trouble imagining the realm, but when i finished, i felt like i had just read the most brilliant piece of fiction ever...

China Mieville, please dont ever stop writing...
 
I really dug this book. Mieville does a great job of weaving a fantastic and yet utterly believable world. Well, worlds.
 
Loved this book until the end. Then I got confused, and felt like things got garbled and unclear. I'm still not sure what exactly happened. I think I need to give this one another read.
 
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