I just wrapped up reading The City and the City by China Mieville, and it was a great read. The basic idea is that it takes place in two different city-states that are directly on top of each other, but are kept separate by its citizens "unseeing" the other city. It follows a police detective in one city trying to solve a murder, without committing "breach" by looking into the other city.
It was a gripping, fast read, and I am enamored of the allegory for the ills of nationalism.
Major spoilers below the "read more" link.
OK. It's really interesting how I both really enjoyed the book, but got to the end wanting more or a different ending! I think as much as I myself got fooled into thinking of Breach as supernatural, I think the reveal that they are just sort of a illuminati and are not Orciny is the correct one, particularly as an allegory for nationalism.
Because how I broke the two sessions of reading, the ramp up to the climax of the mass breach and lockdown felt so fast, and I was a bit sleepy so it's possible I missed some of the details. That's not a complaint, it made for gripping scenes, but the progression felt natural, Yolonda being killed felt so frustrating and Tyador choosing to extravagantly breach to essentially force meeting Breach was such a good character-driven choice.
Like I said, I personally was sad that the mass breach didn't "work", but that's me personally, I think as a point, explicitly made about how the people within nations through their identification with the nation and involvement in the organs that enforce it are just as much if not even more responsible for their continued existence than the shadowy cabals of the world that benefit from their existence.
I did lose a bit of the plot of the mystery, like Bowden's motivations felt very reasonable, but I didn't quite get how much the company was involved or if the company was literally attempting to set up a US invasion of the cities (that I guess didn't happen?). I'm chalking that up to me more than anything.
I really did enjoy it, it is such a great concept and it is executed excellently, and I could read it and just very clearly see a movie version, though a movie version would have the hard case of having to have a lot more monologue describing the internal thoughts of Tyador, and I think the book handles that better as a medium.
But a sort of perverse reading I kind of like, though it feels I'm being a bit peevish: Have you ever heard anyone joke that Star Wars: A New Hope could be read as Rebel Alliance propaganda? I want to read this book as Breach propaganda.
Especially reading them as the sort of liberals who are locked into the idea that the world has its issues, it is fine as-is, it just needs some evolving or reform. I don't know much of Mieville's politics, but from what I've generally heard about him, I doubt that's his point.
Instead I think that's where I accept that the needs of a story may impact the coherence of a particular political allegory being explored through it. Or perhaps even more, the ending should feel bittersweet to anti-nationalist leftists like me, because existing in a world of nation-states is bittersweet.
I also think its treatment of the US and Americans are so on point, and made me begin to think of ways to read it as the cities representing American society and in particular, the racial segregation of society. And with that in mind, the utter disregard and confusion most of the American characters show to the ways of Ul Qoma and Besz could be an attempt to wonder about what things of US society we are so used to existing and being upheld that are absolutely nonsensical outside of our context. I don't think it's rich enough to read it that way, but it's a possible way to look at it.
Oh yeah, the topicality of it is definitely on point, and I think the allegory between Israel and Palestine is very strong, but also not exact and Besz and Ul Qoma are definitely different enough from those places and have a very different relationship that I think such a reading would fall apart pretty quickly unless you settle into the sort of asshole American reading of the situation as "savages fighting over their false gods (not like me)".
And I don't think that would be Mieville's point, though I just learned he's British so...
So to summarize, I really did enjoy it! It's a book I'll definitely recommend to others, and was a very quick read, well written, and an exciting speculative allegory.
