There is a very deliberate sort of chaos in Perdido Street Station. Everything about it is designed to force square pegs into the rounder, well-worn holes of our expectations for fantasy and horror. Its pages are occupied by fantastical races, but their separation from humanity is stark and marked. There are no beautiful elves or noble dwarves found in New Crobuzon, but there are frog-like vodyanoi and beetle-headed khepri and culturally alien bird-folk and inconveniently spiny cactus people and…and…and…
There is a very deliberate sort of chaos in Perdido Street Station. Everything about it is designed to force square pegs into the rounder, well-worn holes of our expectations for fantasy and horror. Its pages are occupied by fantastical races, but their separation from humanity is stark and marked. There are no beautiful elves or noble dwarves found in New Crobuzon, but there are frog-like vodyanoi and beetle-headed khepri and culturally alien bird-folk and inconveniently spiny cactus people and…and…and… My review
Ooh, I’m reading this right now! I’m not going to read the rest of yours till I’ve written mine, but I’m already wondering how the hell to write a summary of this dense, intense book. “Deliberate sort of chaos,” indeed.
Oooh, I’ll keep an eye out for your review when it goes up. No one I know in the real world has read it, so I’m starved for discussion.
Aw, the link isn’t working for me. I wanted to read the review, I fucking loved this book and want to talk about how utterly strange Mr. Miéville’s brain is with somebody.
Amanda – I fixed coryo’s link to the review. Try now.
Woo! Thanks!
You’re a champion, mswas. I’m worthless at these bloggy sorts of whatsits, so look forward to more cleaning up after me in the future!
I finally finished my review so I went and read yours. You totally nailed it, especially that ‘deepening sense of worseness.’ It took me a while to get into too. The Scar was the first China book I read, and it takes place in the same world, but doesn’t have much overlap. There’s a third one too, right? Have you read The Scar?
That ending with Yag – YIKES. Don’t want to spoil it for anybody else, but I definitely wasn’t sure how to feel about all that.
Amanda is right – how does one dude have all this weirdness in his brain?
This is my first experience with Miéville. I haven’t decided which to read next, but I think there are three or four total that take place in Bas-Lag.
And yeah, the ending made me feel suuuper uncomfortable. This was definitely not a book for fans of convenient, pat conclusions. Ultimately, it ended as it began: tense and unsettling.