Mieville's universes are mutilated. The Scar and Perdido Street Station are stories of a wounded world. The City and the City is the story of a town cut in two.
Mieville has also a taste for realism, or so it seems. His characters are all dealing with every day needs. Feed, drink, fuck, sleep. Bad days at work. Inner dilemmas, fear, cowardice. Confusion. Betrayal. Unrewarded heroism. Decisions made in a state of emergency, with incomplete information. Mistakes. Angers and frustrations. However strange, his eras are always our times, his places somehow our world.
Beyond this realism, Mieville writes cross genre novels. Perdido Street Station was a mixture of steampunk, fantastic and anticipation. The City and the City is a detective novel as well as a dystopia, set in alternative history. The detective novel of our times, some say, is like the knight romance of the 12th century: it embodies the quest for the truth. 900 years ago, to find it one could only follow the hidden path marked for him by God and overcome Its tests. Today one can only sets to solve a mystery for which there are too few clues.
In The City and the City Mieville's hero Borlù finds little truth. Together with him we learn that a young student got killed for seeking the truth. That the taboo organising life in the twin cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma is carefully maintained by some hidden power calling itself Breach. That Breach is breaching everyday in order to keep the taboo safe and going. But how did this taboo come into existence, how it manages to survive the modern world with its open access to information, what real benefits are gained from this situation, all this is hardly developed.
The City and the City might be Mieville's shortest novel so far. It is also a novel of little content. The characters are overall quite forgettable. Borlù reminds me of Pepe Carvalho in that he seems to sink into hopelessness and depression as he progresses in his inquiry. His findings lead him nowhere: there is nothing he can do to bring the culprits to court. The plot is a known mix of solving crime, exposing social backgrounds and unveiling political conspiracies. The fictional geo-politico-strategical net built by Mieville could be inspired by many situations: today's Jerusalem, Berlin in the 70's, current Koreas or even any modern city where rich and poor populations seem to live side by side and ignore each other's presence.
In The City and the City, Mieville has little to say to us that we do not already know. Actually he has only one thing to say: we might be able to sew back together what was once mutilated, but that mending, that accession to a more complete life, will not restore any ancient order. It will set us apart, apart from the people we know, apart from our old self, our past. This however, Mieville says with such a force that the story stays in the mind like a parable; it changes the way we look at our own world.
Mieville has also a taste for realism, or so it seems. His characters are all dealing with every day needs. Feed, drink, fuck, sleep. Bad days at work. Inner dilemmas, fear, cowardice. Confusion. Betrayal. Unrewarded heroism. Decisions made in a state of emergency, with incomplete information. Mistakes. Angers and frustrations. However strange, his eras are always our times, his places somehow our world.
Beyond this realism, Mieville writes cross genre novels. Perdido Street Station was a mixture of steampunk, fantastic and anticipation. The City and the City is a detective novel as well as a dystopia, set in alternative history. The detective novel of our times, some say, is like the knight romance of the 12th century: it embodies the quest for the truth. 900 years ago, to find it one could only follow the hidden path marked for him by God and overcome Its tests. Today one can only sets to solve a mystery for which there are too few clues.
In The City and the City Mieville's hero Borlù finds little truth. Together with him we learn that a young student got killed for seeking the truth. That the taboo organising life in the twin cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma is carefully maintained by some hidden power calling itself Breach. That Breach is breaching everyday in order to keep the taboo safe and going. But how did this taboo come into existence, how it manages to survive the modern world with its open access to information, what real benefits are gained from this situation, all this is hardly developed.
The City and the City might be Mieville's shortest novel so far. It is also a novel of little content. The characters are overall quite forgettable. Borlù reminds me of Pepe Carvalho in that he seems to sink into hopelessness and depression as he progresses in his inquiry. His findings lead him nowhere: there is nothing he can do to bring the culprits to court. The plot is a known mix of solving crime, exposing social backgrounds and unveiling political conspiracies. The fictional geo-politico-strategical net built by Mieville could be inspired by many situations: today's Jerusalem, Berlin in the 70's, current Koreas or even any modern city where rich and poor populations seem to live side by side and ignore each other's presence.
In The City and the City, Mieville has little to say to us that we do not already know. Actually he has only one thing to say: we might be able to sew back together what was once mutilated, but that mending, that accession to a more complete life, will not restore any ancient order. It will set us apart, apart from the people we know, apart from our old self, our past. This however, Mieville says with such a force that the story stays in the mind like a parable; it changes the way we look at our own world.
