The City & The City - Supernormal Reads

electronic resource

English language

Published Nov. 6, 2009 by Random House Publishing Group.

ISBN:: 978-0-345-51566-7
OCLC Number:: 430764801

(1 review)

When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.

Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into …

When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.

Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them and those they care about more than their lives.

What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.

Casting shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, The City & the City is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.

1 edition

ralentina reviewed The City & The City by China Miéville

A missed opportunity?

3 stars

The premise of The City and the City is fascinating: two overlapping cities functioning as separate countries, separated by a cross-hatched border. Residents are taught from a young age to unsee what happens in the other half, the separation policed by a mysterious higher power, Breach.

Knowing China Melville’s legendary status as a leftist author, I was expecting this to go in the direction of political satire, as the setting would lend itself so well to problematising borders, or perhaps more broadly our collective capacity to pretend not to see. Instead, I would firmly place the plot in the crime novel genre and, I must say, not in a particularly satisfying way. I did not find the characters fully fleshed-out or convincing, I did not think the twists were particularly well constructed, and I wasn’t dying to know who did it. I was also disappointed at how pro-cops the …

The premise of The City and the City is fascinating: two overlapping cities functioning as separate countries, separated by a cross-hatched border. Residents are taught from a young age to unsee what happens in the other half, the separation policed by a mysterious higher power, Breach.

Knowing China Melville’s legendary status as a leftist author, I was expecting this to go in the direction of political satire, as the setting would lend itself so well to problematising borders, or perhaps more broadly our collective capacity to pretend not to see. Instead, I would firmly place the plot in the crime novel genre and, I must say, not in a particularly satisfying way. I did not find the characters fully fleshed-out or convincing, I did not think the twists were particularly well constructed, and I wasn’t dying to know who did it. I was also disappointed at how pro-cops the book was, given my aforementioned expectations. Did I miss something?