The City & The City (2009)

by China Miéville

The central premise is behind The City & The City is provocative. My knee-jerk reaction was to reject the Beszel/Ul Qoma divide on grounds of silliness but Miéville’s insistence quickly moved me past this stage. Who hasn’t unseen an unsavory sight on the sidewalk? The more I turned the idea over in my head the more I bought into it, aided by the unfaltering and increasingly descriptive narrative account of those countries’ odd arrangement.

The writing, if a bit tiring at times with its (necessarily) repetitive idiosyncrasies, immerses you in an eastern European cityscape where you can hear (or unhear) the rickety tram on its tracks and smell the spiced air wafting over from the neighboring pastry shop.

I was propelled through the book by my desire to further understand the environment: the respective characters of Beszel and Ul Qoma, Breach, Orciny, and whatever pre-Cleavage society may have existed. The off-noir detective story was relatively unengaging and ended without any particular revelations. The novel served primarily as a vehicle for ambitious world building.

Inspector Borlú and the case of Mahalia Geary may fade into foggy memory before long but as I walk around my city and see or unsee people and buildings, picking and choosing my interactions, I will not soon stop pondering the question: which city am I living in?