REVIEW: The City & The City - China Miéville

• Year first released:  2009
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9780345497512
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Ballantine Books
• My rating (out of 5):  3

The City & The City is one of those books that tries very hard to defy classification. I borrowed it from the library, where it was labelled as a fantasy. I can't agree with this genre, though. I've also seen it referred to as a sci-fi in several places - definitely also a fallacy. I suppose that, primarily, we could call it a mystery - the plot, at least, is a crime drama - but the setting of the book is unlike anything else you've come across in a mystery - enough so, that somehow calling the book a mystery feels misleading. Rather, the setting would fall squarely into the realm of magic realism...except that there's nothing actually magical or supernatural about it.

Confusing, I know.

Now then. Since the main conceit of the book revolves around this setting, I'll attempt to describe it for you:

There's really no easy way to explain it - and Miéville takes almost the entirety of the book to slowly work through the intricacies of this setup - but The City & The City takes place in two cities: the average, everyday, European city of Besźel; and the higher-class, cleaner (and also European) city of Ul Qoma.

The catch to all of this, you ask?

Besźel and Ul Qoma occupy the same space geographically. They have most of the same streets, parks, even buildings. A person walking on the sidewalk might be in one city, or he might be in the other. There is no separating wall, no change in climate, no distance between them.

The only separation between the two cities are psychological and legal. The citizens of each city are taught to completely ignore all of the facets of the other city - the other citizens, the other buildings, the other trees. They must, by law, "unsee" (or "unhear," "unsmell," etc.) every single aspect of the other city. And "breaching" this ignorance is a crime that comes with severe penalties.

Travelling into the other city is an intricate, time-consuming affair. A passport must be secured and an intense orientation process completed. The irony is that, in order to "travel" to the other city, one must drive all the way to and through a border checkpoint and, for all intents and purposes, make a u-turn. Now that you've "entered" the other city, though - even though you're literally still driving on the same street you were before the border crossing - all of your "unseeing" must be done in reverse: you must ignore all of the people and buildings and landmarks you're used to, and instead focus only on these elements of the other city.

A small example: partway through the book, the main character, Tyador (who is a police officer in Besźel), must cross into Ul Qoma. There, he begins working with an Ul Qoman detective. At dinner one night, the two discover that they live just down the street from each other. Having "unseen" each other all their lives, though, they were never aware of the other's existence - nor even the existence of the other person's house.

Weird.

Of course there's nothing even remotely similar to this in our world to which we might compare the cities. As a reader, the concept takes some getting used to. It is certainly one that requires you to activate your suspension of disbelief. And if for no reason other than exploring this fascinating idea - seeing all the explanations for it, all the little details and ways in which it plays out - it's worth suspending it.

This is the world of The City & The City. After all that description, I'm sure I don't need to tell you how deeply imaginative the entire thing is; it is, without a doubt, the best part of the book.

This statement, though, is actually good and bad. Miéville clearly went to incredible lengths to create such a phenomenal world, only to populate it with average characters and a mildly above average murder mystery. It almost feels as though the twin-city setting of City is too good to have been spent on all of the other elements that go into the book.

To be fair, the parts of the murder mystery which directly tie into the twin cities are certainly unique and interesting. The way the investigation has to proceed, the limits of the detective's authority, the legal loopholes that are exploited by various characters - these items are fascinating, and show just how much thought and care Miéville put into the book. They're just not quite enough to make up for the other elements of the book as a whole.

I hope I'm not making the book sound like a complete loss. The twin-city concept alone made it worth reading. If Miéville were to write another book that takes place in Besźel/Ul Qoma, I would absolutely check it out. I just hope that, in such a case, the plot would be more up to speed with the phenomenal setting.