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Book review: The City & the City
Meh.
I didn't like it. I really wanted to - Pete loved it, Catherynne M Valente raved about it, and I devoured Perdido Street Station, but I just wasn't impressed with Mieville here.
The titular cities are really one city, split into two to accommodate the two different cultures that live there. I knew about that before I started reading the book, so there wasn't much of a surprise or mystery there. Pete said he was confused about it at first, but I got it right off the bat. Mieville's a Marxist and he's all about class division and strife. So I interpreted in terms of average people vs the homeless. At least here in New York, locals learn how to ignore beggers - You have to, because they're everywhere, and they're often very vocal. If you don't learn how to block them out, to "unsee" them, to use Mieville's term, you'll go crazy.
So that's how I viewed the conflict between the people of the two cities.
But because I know his political views and because that's how I interpreted it, the book was less a story and more just a soapbox for Mieville to yell his opinions. I lean toward socialism and I agree with a lot of Mieville's views, but damn, all I could see was Mieville bashing the ineffectual bureaucracies and organizes police forces that mark the 21st century. "See how ridiculous it is that we pretend that they aren't people? Look! We all live in the same world - We shouldn't pretend we don't. There are invisible walls that we maintain - that we fight to maintain with our lives!" And that's every chapter. "SEE WHAT I DID THAR? SEE HOW RIGHT I AM?"
So yeah. Disappointing.
I didn't like it. I really wanted to - Pete loved it, Catherynne M Valente raved about it, and I devoured Perdido Street Station, but I just wasn't impressed with Mieville here.
The titular cities are really one city, split into two to accommodate the two different cultures that live there. I knew about that before I started reading the book, so there wasn't much of a surprise or mystery there. Pete said he was confused about it at first, but I got it right off the bat. Mieville's a Marxist and he's all about class division and strife. So I interpreted in terms of average people vs the homeless. At least here in New York, locals learn how to ignore beggers - You have to, because they're everywhere, and they're often very vocal. If you don't learn how to block them out, to "unsee" them, to use Mieville's term, you'll go crazy.
So that's how I viewed the conflict between the people of the two cities.
But because I know his political views and because that's how I interpreted it, the book was less a story and more just a soapbox for Mieville to yell his opinions. I lean toward socialism and I agree with a lot of Mieville's views, but damn, all I could see was Mieville bashing the ineffectual bureaucracies and organizes police forces that mark the 21st century. "See how ridiculous it is that we pretend that they aren't people? Look! We all live in the same world - We shouldn't pretend we don't. There are invisible walls that we maintain - that we fight to maintain with our lives!" And that's every chapter. "SEE WHAT I DID THAR? SEE HOW RIGHT I AM?"
So yeah. Disappointing.