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realexplodingcat) wrote2004-03-09 10:41 pm
realexplodingcat) wrote2004-03-09 10:41 pm
"Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville 2000
This book has been calling to me for years. Haunting me. I first saw it on the list of nominations for the Hugo Award in 2002. I think I also saw the author's King Rat on a previous award list. The titles and the author's name intrigued me. I never even saw a copy of this book until a few months ago, but it's always been in the back of my head as something I should read. When I first held it, it felt...compelling. Something I needed to read. I almost didn't want to read it in order to savor that anticipation. But I read it. It was exactly what I was hoping for. A dense, richly imagined tale about a fantasy metropolis. Cities fascinate me, real and unreal alike.
Perdido Street Station is the best example of urban fantasy I have read. The story takes place in the fictional city of New Crobuzon, which I would consider to be the novel's central character. New Crobuzon is a living, breathing city unlike any literary urban setting I have encountered. Like a real city, it attracts people from around the world. Its population consists of different people from all over Mieville's fictional world, bringing the city to life with diverse cultures and communal struggles to survive in dangerous and unpredictable location.
At the center of this vast city lies the Perdido Street train station, the novel's namesake. While the station itself doesn't play a direct role in the plot, it is an important central motif. All the unique sections of the city, divided along cultural and economic lines, are connected through the rail lines at the heart of the city--Perdido Street Station. The novel's plot travels through the city like a hobo riding the rails, taking the reader to all corners of the metropolis. If there's one flaw in the novel (and I'm sure there is more than one), then it would be the sometimes sluggish pace that is caused by the narrative's occasional habit of wandering away from the primary plot to explore parts of the city through tangentially related subplots. But, if you consider the city the main character, then Mieville is within his rights to allow the story to do that.
While New Crobuzon is the true main character of the novel, the primary human character that drives the plot is a scientist named Isaac, who compares himself to Perdido Street Station. If the different branches of scientific thought (physical, social, and occult) are like distinct sections of a city, then Issac considers himself the central train station of that city. Rather than specialize in one discipline, Isaac has his eye on all disciplines and finds his life's work in the places where different sciences meet.
His unique approach to solving problems attracts the attention of Yagharek, a strange humanoid-bird creature from a distant land. Yagharek is guilty of a mysterious crime for which he was punished by having his wings torn off. Now, a flightless bird, he leaves his homeland to seek a cure in New Crobuzon. If anyone can figure out how to give him flight again, it is Isaac. Inspired by a large sum of money and curiosity about solving the problem, Isaac scours the city searching for possible ways to make Yagharek fly. His research and experimenting eventually leads to an accidental catastrophe that threatens to destroy New Crobuzon. The plot really gets moving when Isaac and a motley collection of companions must try to stop this menace from destroying the city.
A discovery in the city's trash dump, which I won't reveal, gives Isaac what he needs to make real progress in saving the city. However, I will say that the discovery is another manifestation of the Perdido Street Station motif. Another manifestation is a crime boss, whose body, a blob of organic matter with all kinds of disparate appendages and orifices and organs jutting out of it (rather like the architecture of the city he in which he lives), is a physical embodiment of the motif.
The book itself is also an example of this motif. A character in the novel named Derkhan, an art critic, defines art as "something you choose to make...it's a bringing together of everything around you into something that makes you more human." This novel fits that description. Mieville brings together elements of horror, science fiction, fantasy, humor, and literary fiction. Where all those genres meet is Mieville's novel. His book is the central train station in the city of genre literature.
Perdido Street Station is the best example of urban fantasy I have read. The story takes place in the fictional city of New Crobuzon, which I would consider to be the novel's central character. New Crobuzon is a living, breathing city unlike any literary urban setting I have encountered. Like a real city, it attracts people from around the world. Its population consists of different people from all over Mieville's fictional world, bringing the city to life with diverse cultures and communal struggles to survive in dangerous and unpredictable location.
At the center of this vast city lies the Perdido Street train station, the novel's namesake. While the station itself doesn't play a direct role in the plot, it is an important central motif. All the unique sections of the city, divided along cultural and economic lines, are connected through the rail lines at the heart of the city--Perdido Street Station. The novel's plot travels through the city like a hobo riding the rails, taking the reader to all corners of the metropolis. If there's one flaw in the novel (and I'm sure there is more than one), then it would be the sometimes sluggish pace that is caused by the narrative's occasional habit of wandering away from the primary plot to explore parts of the city through tangentially related subplots. But, if you consider the city the main character, then Mieville is within his rights to allow the story to do that.
While New Crobuzon is the true main character of the novel, the primary human character that drives the plot is a scientist named Isaac, who compares himself to Perdido Street Station. If the different branches of scientific thought (physical, social, and occult) are like distinct sections of a city, then Issac considers himself the central train station of that city. Rather than specialize in one discipline, Isaac has his eye on all disciplines and finds his life's work in the places where different sciences meet.
His unique approach to solving problems attracts the attention of Yagharek, a strange humanoid-bird creature from a distant land. Yagharek is guilty of a mysterious crime for which he was punished by having his wings torn off. Now, a flightless bird, he leaves his homeland to seek a cure in New Crobuzon. If anyone can figure out how to give him flight again, it is Isaac. Inspired by a large sum of money and curiosity about solving the problem, Isaac scours the city searching for possible ways to make Yagharek fly. His research and experimenting eventually leads to an accidental catastrophe that threatens to destroy New Crobuzon. The plot really gets moving when Isaac and a motley collection of companions must try to stop this menace from destroying the city.
A discovery in the city's trash dump, which I won't reveal, gives Isaac what he needs to make real progress in saving the city. However, I will say that the discovery is another manifestation of the Perdido Street Station motif. Another manifestation is a crime boss, whose body, a blob of organic matter with all kinds of disparate appendages and orifices and organs jutting out of it (rather like the architecture of the city he in which he lives), is a physical embodiment of the motif.
The book itself is also an example of this motif. A character in the novel named Derkhan, an art critic, defines art as "something you choose to make...it's a bringing together of everything around you into something that makes you more human." This novel fits that description. Mieville brings together elements of horror, science fiction, fantasy, humor, and literary fiction. Where all those genres meet is Mieville's novel. His book is the central train station in the city of genre literature.
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If you can get in the mindset to enjoy the scenery, then maybe you won't mind the slow build up. It eventually gets to a unique and interesting plot.
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Perdido
If anything The Scar (a not really sequel) is even better it flows more and still has the same feel.
But ya gotta love that Weaver!
Scissors anyone?
Agent L.
Re: Perdido
I'm looking forward to The Scar. I hear it contains a floating pirate city. Can't go wrong with pirates.