(I posted my first entry in the Diary in early November. Shortly after that I went “away” from the internet for awhile. I apologize for disappearing.)
I read a lot of syfy, but my attempts to read China Mieville had come up against Perdido Street Station and Kraken and died. I like weird; I like new; I like edgy; I like speculative; I like world building; I like dark; I like suspenseful and mysterious, but I do not do well with body horror (The New Corbuzon) or the deeply silly (Kraken). My cousin suggested trying The City and the City however. I did and how glad I am!! So why do I love this book so much when I simply cannot get to Chapter 2 in Perdido Street Station? Mieville’s fiction is categorized as “new weird,” but the weird of this book is an old weird explained in a new way.
The City and the City is Mieville’s contribution to the detective noir genre and like the prototype, The Maltese Falcon, the actual mystery isn’t the point. The point is the world that the reader is plunged into while following Inspector Borlu as he tries to solve a murder.
Without being too specific and spoiler-y, this book had me examining my own ability to see or “un-see” things on a daily basis. As an example, I’ll use the un-housed that live on the edges of the business district near my house. I make a choice. I can look to see if the tent by the on-ramp survived the weekend, or I can let my eyes glaze over, listen to the radio, and focus on my needs for the day. Without making an overt political or sociological argument, Meiville examines how the choice to “un-see” could sustain whole worlds.
There was a British TV adaptation that aired in 2018. I checked it out but did not watch it because the magic of the book was how my mind reacted to the nature of the society that Borlu must negotiate. I didn’t think that actually “seeing” it visually on the screen, no matter how well done, would be able to replicate that experience. In the end, for me, The City and the City evoked the uncanny more than most supernatural beasties in scary books ever do. And after reading it, one can ask others what cities they thought of while reading it!