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2012 Book Review #10: Perdido Street Station
Title: Perdido Street Station
Author: China Mieville
Genre: Steampunk horror
Thingummies: 5
Synopsis: A flightless criminal begs a renegade scientist to give him back his wings, while the scientist's insect-headed lover takes a dangerous commission that could make or break her, quite literally. Seemingly harmless acts have unfortunate ramifications, threatening to bring their dazzling, stinking, horrifyingly beautiful city to its knees.
Thoughts: My first impulse was to say that Mieville's writing is lovely and graceful, only it isn't. It's lyrical and precise and incredibly evocative, but his choices of subject matter are anything but lovely. He speaks of the mundane and of the supernatural in the same breath, both of them in their vivid, naturalistically horrific glory. Forgotten beggars in trash-strewn streets mingle with criminals condemned to be transformed into more "useful" forms in a city where stepping in the wrong patch of sewage might make you spontaneously start speaking in ancient tongues or gradually fade away altogether.
I went on a brief kick of 80s horror last year, and was profoundly disappointed by much of it. This is what those novels were trying to be. The disturbing elements are suitable nightmare fodder, from biological punishments taken far out of proportion to the crime to serial killers with deep ulterior motives to monsters that literally eat your dreams and your soul. But the horrors are self-consistent and well-planned--each element makes perfect internal sense in the world of Bas-Lag and nothing is thrown in merely for shock effect. The ramifications--physical, emotional, and moral--are examined thoroughly and fully mined for their appropriate impact. The characters find themselves condemned to increasingly awful decisions in the name of expediency, and no one walks away without paying a cost. And all of it is tightly wrapped in that formidable, amazing prose.
The characters are not particularly likeable--but then, the villains are not entirely hateful, either. I'd say that they are all refreshingly human, except that many of them are not human at all. Nonetheless, the city of New Crobuzon is painted entirely in varing shades of gray.
Spoilers below.
This may be one of the most merciless books I can remember reading. Not just in the horrific deaths of minor characters--plenty of books manage that. What I found particularly merciless is that each of the major characters gets exactly what they wished for, in the most soul-killing way possible. Isaac gets to be the rebel bad-boy scientist, who makes the world-changing discovery and frightens the establishment. Lin takes the place of her pampered, mindless brothers. Yagharak becomes a complete individual, beholden to no one, by joining another society altogether. Derkhan gets to be a unlauded savior. Even Motley gets his statue of liminality, forever frozen on the transition between incomplete and complete. Each finds, in the old-school fairy tale way, that they had not really wanted what they asked for, far too late.
One thing I find slightly amusing, which I'm going to of course perpetuate here--I walked into this book knowing very little besides the fact that some of the characters literally deal with the lords of Hell itself. The scant sentences on the back of the book reconfirm this, mentioning Hell out of all the varied settings and characters introduced throughout the book. The actual scene involving Hell, though, shows up in the middle for maybe three or four pages, and is entirely a red herring. It's a memorable scene, I will admit. But there's something to be said about an author who creates a situation in which petitioning the lords of Hell seems like a viable solution and then it turns out that even Hell can't help them.
I can't say that it was a pleasant book. But it was a fascinating, engrossing, almost intoxicating one. The very smells of the city waft off the page. And while I would never want to live there, I nonetheless could not look away.
Author: China Mieville
Genre: Steampunk horror
Thingummies: 5
Synopsis: A flightless criminal begs a renegade scientist to give him back his wings, while the scientist's insect-headed lover takes a dangerous commission that could make or break her, quite literally. Seemingly harmless acts have unfortunate ramifications, threatening to bring their dazzling, stinking, horrifyingly beautiful city to its knees.
Thoughts: My first impulse was to say that Mieville's writing is lovely and graceful, only it isn't. It's lyrical and precise and incredibly evocative, but his choices of subject matter are anything but lovely. He speaks of the mundane and of the supernatural in the same breath, both of them in their vivid, naturalistically horrific glory. Forgotten beggars in trash-strewn streets mingle with criminals condemned to be transformed into more "useful" forms in a city where stepping in the wrong patch of sewage might make you spontaneously start speaking in ancient tongues or gradually fade away altogether.
I went on a brief kick of 80s horror last year, and was profoundly disappointed by much of it. This is what those novels were trying to be. The disturbing elements are suitable nightmare fodder, from biological punishments taken far out of proportion to the crime to serial killers with deep ulterior motives to monsters that literally eat your dreams and your soul. But the horrors are self-consistent and well-planned--each element makes perfect internal sense in the world of Bas-Lag and nothing is thrown in merely for shock effect. The ramifications--physical, emotional, and moral--are examined thoroughly and fully mined for their appropriate impact. The characters find themselves condemned to increasingly awful decisions in the name of expediency, and no one walks away without paying a cost. And all of it is tightly wrapped in that formidable, amazing prose.
The characters are not particularly likeable--but then, the villains are not entirely hateful, either. I'd say that they are all refreshingly human, except that many of them are not human at all. Nonetheless, the city of New Crobuzon is painted entirely in varing shades of gray.
Spoilers below.
This may be one of the most merciless books I can remember reading. Not just in the horrific deaths of minor characters--plenty of books manage that. What I found particularly merciless is that each of the major characters gets exactly what they wished for, in the most soul-killing way possible. Isaac gets to be the rebel bad-boy scientist, who makes the world-changing discovery and frightens the establishment. Lin takes the place of her pampered, mindless brothers. Yagharak becomes a complete individual, beholden to no one, by joining another society altogether. Derkhan gets to be a unlauded savior. Even Motley gets his statue of liminality, forever frozen on the transition between incomplete and complete. Each finds, in the old-school fairy tale way, that they had not really wanted what they asked for, far too late.
One thing I find slightly amusing, which I'm going to of course perpetuate here--I walked into this book knowing very little besides the fact that some of the characters literally deal with the lords of Hell itself. The scant sentences on the back of the book reconfirm this, mentioning Hell out of all the varied settings and characters introduced throughout the book. The actual scene involving Hell, though, shows up in the middle for maybe three or four pages, and is entirely a red herring. It's a memorable scene, I will admit. But there's something to be said about an author who creates a situation in which petitioning the lords of Hell seems like a viable solution and then it turns out that even Hell can't help them.
I can't say that it was a pleasant book. But it was a fascinating, engrossing, almost intoxicating one. The very smells of the city waft off the page. And while I would never want to live there, I nonetheless could not look away.