Entries tagged “China Mieville”
Bringing 'Perdido Street Station' Down to Size
Posted on 18 February 2009 by James Cormier at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)
Tags: China Mieville, New Weird, Perdido Street Station, Reviews
The impromptu holiday break we took here at The Accidental Bard was not entirely ill-spent; from late December through early January I made my way through the strange and interesting pages of China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. Much has been made of Mr. Mieville and his once self-touted New Weird movement, and I was eager to discover what all the hype was about. I expected a taste of the weird, and was rewarded, despite a certain hesitation on my part.
Perdido Street Station packs a heady buzz; reading it feels like switching to booze immediately after drinking several cups of strong coffee. Mieville makes his city of New Crobuzon thrum and revel. You can feel it sweat and throb and shudder. The book's setting defines it, and the urban sprawl of the city through which the action takes place stands out as the author's most memorable character. Mieville's style is descriptive and organic; it follows the story's diffuse plot through New Crobuzon's grimy, troublesome heights and crannies, typically setting the scene in minute detail before moving on to the action. Chapters often began omnisciently, with an unknown, all-seeing narrator declaring the state of the city as it currently sits, describing its fear and anxiety level.
Full disclosure: I think I kind of wanted to dislike this book, due entirely to my reflexive distaste for China Mieville's public disdain for J.R.R. Tolkien and the majority of classic fantasy fiction. That said, I went into it with an open mind, and found it to be a challenging, enjoyable ride.
The problem with Perdido Street Station, if it has one, is not the writing, nor the setting, nor the narrative structure. The problem is that the story itself, in this form, sometimes comes off as more than it is. The grandeur of Mieville's setting, the vastness of the world he presents, and the diversity of characters he so fervently depicts create an instant presumption in the reader that this story must be important. It says: this is epic. But stripped of its edgy, fantastical trappings, Perdido Street Station is essentially a thriller, and it is only when it becomes clear that this is a medium-sized story set in a larger-than-life world that the quality of the novel shines through.
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