I started reading Perdido Street Station by China Miéville a week ago. It's apparently pretty well-known, so I imagine some of you have read it too. I've only had time to read last Tuesday and today so I'm still on chapter 3. Also, when worldbuilding is dense, I tend to go back alot to get details in order. I have previously read the author's The City & the City but, so far, this actually reminds more of Jeff Vandermeer's Ambergris trilogy, my favorite fiction book to date.
I feel that having a dictionary on hand might be helpful though.
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I've been wanting to read Perdido Street Station but haven't had the chance yet. I loved The City and The City though.
Quote from: Carlüs Éovart Vilaçafat on May 15, 2024, 08:08:01 AMI've been wanting to read Perdido Street Station but haven't had the chance yet. I loved The City and The City though.
Yeah, that one is great. I have a theory that I've been wanting to run by someone. It isn't fully formed and I've never actually reread the book to check for holes. I think maybe the "strange physics" ascribed to Besźel and Ul Qoma doesn't actually exist but that people (residents, foreigners, and even Breach) act like, and mostly genuinely believe, they do. What do you think?
By the way, have you read
Unholy Land by Lavie Tidhar? It was published several years after
The City & the City and, while not that much alike, makes similar use of the word "crosshatch."
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It's funny that you have that theory because I wondered that exact same thing! The way that citizens of each city are trained to ignore the citizens and parts of the other, and it seems like pieces of each city are adjacent to one another but, if I remember right, no part of one city takes up the same space as the other.
For instance I don't remember anyone mentioning a building that was in Besźel and was in the same spacial location as a different building in Ul Qoma. So it very well could be a situation of "cultural delusion" which would explain why the process to visit is so strenuous, because they have to impress that delusion onto the foreigners.
But like you said, I want to read it again through that lens to see if it holds up.
No I haven't heard of Unholy Land by Lavie Tidhar, I'll have to add it to my ever growing reading wish-list lol
Quote from: Bentxamì Puntmasleu on May 15, 2024, 03:40:56 PMI think maybe the "strange physics" ascribed to Besźel and Ul Qoma doesn't actually exist but that people (residents, foreigners, and even Breach) act like, and mostly genuinely believe, they do. What do you think?
... isn't that 100% obvious from the text? Are you reading it in some weird translation? Because it's pretty obvious there are no "strange physics", the two-cities-in-one is just a shared cultural delusion.
The Hittite translation was adequate but someone must have spilled something on it. A lot of the pages were stuck together and discolored, which made it difficult to read. Also, I'm not so good at picking up subtext.
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Maybe I'm dense, but it wasn't obvious to me either lol