- Cover for The City and the City - Cover by Ashley Wood
The City and The City by China Mieville (January 2010, Pan Books, 373 pp) is the new novel by the multiple award-winning author of the Bas-Lang trilogy.
Beszel
When a young woman's dead body is found dumped on a strip of waste ground in the middle-European city of Beszel, Inspector Borlu of the Extreme Crimes Squad is put in charge of the investigation. At first Beszel seems like any mittel-Europan city, an analog of Budapest perhaps, with its references to another city or district called al-Qoma. But then little strangenesses start to abound.
A woman that Borlu should not have seen; Borlu describes being "hemmed in by people not in my city, walking through areas crowded, but not cowded in Beszel." (p.44) It gradually becomes clear to the reader that al-Qoma is closer than at first it seemed, that in fact that they co-exist side by side, but can never acknowledge each other. The cities are physically contiguous, but through sheer indoctrination, the cities' inhabitents have learned to unsee each other.
Al-Qoma
The penalties for acknowledging the forbidden other city and populace are terrible, involving the shadowy organization or entity known as Breach. Whatever, whoever Breach is, it can make people disappear off the face of the earth. No one knows who may be selected for punishment, which makes them keener to obey the strictures against looking directly at someone in the other city.
When it looks as if the killing is linked to Al Qoma, Borlu at first tries to invoke Breach. Just when it seems that his presentation to the Oversight Committee has successfully resulted in transferring the case over, Borlu's application is rejected. Instead he must go to the other city himself, and liaise with his opposite number in al-Qoma, Inspector Datt. Al Qoma seems as much Turkish influenced as European; newer, brasher, while Mieville's prose hints that even the weather is different, harsher in one city than the other.
Unlike Beszel, Al Qoma is rich in archeological finds, including those known as pre-Cleavage, which pre-date the separation of the two cities, and the investigation takes Borlu into the world of archeological digs and academic politics.
The City and The City
The novel is split into three parts, Beszel, Ol-Qoma and Breach, each title taken from Borlu's situation. If there is a weakness to the novel it is that when the real nature of the Breach is revealed, the letdown is rather like that in The Wizard of Oz.
However, the plot is as complex as anything by John Le Carre, and Mieville is positively miserly with his revelations, which adds to the feeling of complexity. And Mieville pitches his narration near prefectly, striking a balance between making Borlu's situation perfectly ordinary -- as it would be to him, and piling on so much detail that the reader bogs down in it.
In fact there is so much detail and it's of such rich diversity that both Beszel and Al-Qoma seem almost as real as any European city, while the occasional strangeness doesn't detract from that. In truth, The City and The City, which takes its title from an imaginary historical text in the novel isn't really an SF novel at all, any more than Ursula K. Le Guin's Malafrena and Orsinian Tales. But that doesn't detract from the quality of the novel in any way.
China Mieville
After massive critical acclaim at the start of the last decade for Pedido Street Station and The Scar, the Bas-Lang trilogy rather ran out of steam with the bloated and less than involving Iron Council. However, after four years Mieville has returned with his first adult novel since then, and The City and The City will deservedly gain him many more fans.
Colin Harvey - Author six novels, and editor of four anthologies; professional reviewer since 2003, including six years at Strange Horizons. Member of ...
