Nesacat
The Cat
The Tain
I' glad this tale is as short as it is. It's impact is tremendous for being pared down to the essentials. There are no surplus words or sentences or paragraphs. Everything that was said was essential and mattered. I could imagine Mieville sitting there and paring it down until it was lean and hit hard.
I started this novella and didn't stop until the end. Again, my love for this story stems from old memories and beliefs. The Borges references aside, mirrors play a big role in Eastern myth and superstition. Many won't sleep with beds facing mirrors and if there is no choice, then the mirrors are covered at night. It is said that mirrors are doorways and at night, all that lives behind the mirror may slip out and use your sleeping body if it can see and get to you. Mirrors are hung above doorways of homes and shops to ward away evil spirits. It is believed that they do not care to see themselves as they can be trapped by the mirror.
And for the longest time, I've been fascinated by mirrors. They show us everything in opposites and sometimes out of the corner of your eye, you are sure there's something else. Something not quite right, that was maybe a second off in timing. Bathroom mirrors especially. The space of time when you bend down to the sink and cannot see the mirror. Who knows what might be happening.
Reflections, like shadows, are something we all take for granted. It's there. It's always there. It's a slave almost with no mind of its own. It can only mimic. Terror, horror; those things come from elsewhere. The mugger on the street, the terrorist on a plane, the drunk driver; the cat burglar, the rapist or killer. We know how to watch for those. In one way or another we are attuned to these terrors. But our reflections? Those are never unexpected, never shocking. It is there is every shiny surface, in every sliver of glass. It's a constant anywhere in the world. Faithful and familiar to the point of perhaps being totally ignored.
And perhaps this is where the true terror lies. That something so mundane should actually have a life of it own and hate us with all it's heart. That it would spend all the years of human civilisation nursing that hatred, waiting to break out and revenge itself upon us, its unknowing torturers. They have been compelled to do or suffer whatever we have done when we have looked at our reflections. It was a humiliation and a punishment for them, and became infinitely worse once humanity discovered the tain, the silvering on the back of mirrors.
"Every house became Versailles. Every house a hall of mirrors."
Mass-production of the source of their pain made the last few centuries a source of particular bitterness for them, and so they found a way to break free from their mirror-world into our own, where they created the havoc which engulfs London.
The familiar now becomes a fearful thing. Fear becomes an almost physical thing in a city stripped of all that made it a home and a sanctuary. I was constantly aware of how watchful Sholl has to be, how much his few possessions mattered, and how much has been stripped away from everyday life since the cataclysm which changed everything.
There's the striking image of a city where nothing reflects - not the Thames, not shop windows, not even puddles on the pavement. There are brief, surreal glimpses of disembodied hands or lips, partial reflections given autonomous life.
The imagos reminded me of how much there is around us all the time that we forget to give any attention. They say that the observer shapes the world around her. By observing a particle, we can force it to collapse to a particular location, but that doesn't mean we actually care where it is.
We collectively reshape the world around us, but how rarely do any of us stop to see what we've created. But what if the world is observing us? If the woman in the mirror could talk, how wanting would she tell me I am?
Then again, if I look closely at her, what do I see? She is empty, a shell without substance. But isn't she just like me? According to The Tain, she started out free, but was cursed to abandon her own nature to conform to human society. Which side of the mirror am I on?
Thank you kindly GOLLUM and j.d.
I'm reading Ramsey Campbell's Cold Print now among other things but I do have Mieville's Scar and was wondering if that could be read without having read Perdido Street Station.
I' glad this tale is as short as it is. It's impact is tremendous for being pared down to the essentials. There are no surplus words or sentences or paragraphs. Everything that was said was essential and mattered. I could imagine Mieville sitting there and paring it down until it was lean and hit hard.
I started this novella and didn't stop until the end. Again, my love for this story stems from old memories and beliefs. The Borges references aside, mirrors play a big role in Eastern myth and superstition. Many won't sleep with beds facing mirrors and if there is no choice, then the mirrors are covered at night. It is said that mirrors are doorways and at night, all that lives behind the mirror may slip out and use your sleeping body if it can see and get to you. Mirrors are hung above doorways of homes and shops to ward away evil spirits. It is believed that they do not care to see themselves as they can be trapped by the mirror.
And for the longest time, I've been fascinated by mirrors. They show us everything in opposites and sometimes out of the corner of your eye, you are sure there's something else. Something not quite right, that was maybe a second off in timing. Bathroom mirrors especially. The space of time when you bend down to the sink and cannot see the mirror. Who knows what might be happening.
Reflections, like shadows, are something we all take for granted. It's there. It's always there. It's a slave almost with no mind of its own. It can only mimic. Terror, horror; those things come from elsewhere. The mugger on the street, the terrorist on a plane, the drunk driver; the cat burglar, the rapist or killer. We know how to watch for those. In one way or another we are attuned to these terrors. But our reflections? Those are never unexpected, never shocking. It is there is every shiny surface, in every sliver of glass. It's a constant anywhere in the world. Faithful and familiar to the point of perhaps being totally ignored.
And perhaps this is where the true terror lies. That something so mundane should actually have a life of it own and hate us with all it's heart. That it would spend all the years of human civilisation nursing that hatred, waiting to break out and revenge itself upon us, its unknowing torturers. They have been compelled to do or suffer whatever we have done when we have looked at our reflections. It was a humiliation and a punishment for them, and became infinitely worse once humanity discovered the tain, the silvering on the back of mirrors.
"Every house became Versailles. Every house a hall of mirrors."
Mass-production of the source of their pain made the last few centuries a source of particular bitterness for them, and so they found a way to break free from their mirror-world into our own, where they created the havoc which engulfs London.
The familiar now becomes a fearful thing. Fear becomes an almost physical thing in a city stripped of all that made it a home and a sanctuary. I was constantly aware of how watchful Sholl has to be, how much his few possessions mattered, and how much has been stripped away from everyday life since the cataclysm which changed everything.
There's the striking image of a city where nothing reflects - not the Thames, not shop windows, not even puddles on the pavement. There are brief, surreal glimpses of disembodied hands or lips, partial reflections given autonomous life.
The imagos reminded me of how much there is around us all the time that we forget to give any attention. They say that the observer shapes the world around her. By observing a particle, we can force it to collapse to a particular location, but that doesn't mean we actually care where it is.
We collectively reshape the world around us, but how rarely do any of us stop to see what we've created. But what if the world is observing us? If the woman in the mirror could talk, how wanting would she tell me I am?
Then again, if I look closely at her, what do I see? She is empty, a shell without substance. But isn't she just like me? According to The Tain, she started out free, but was cursed to abandon her own nature to conform to human society. Which side of the mirror am I on?
Thank you kindly GOLLUM and j.d.
I'm reading Ramsey Campbell's Cold Print now among other things but I do have Mieville's Scar and was wondering if that could be read without having read Perdido Street Station.
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