The City and the City Part 30

There were many minutes of silence between us. "There are people I'd like to call," I said.

HE WAS RIGHT. I imagined myself in Besel now, unseeing the Ul Qoma of the crosshatched terrain. Living in half of the s.p.a.ce. Unseeing all the people and the architecture and vehicles and the everything in and among which I had lived. I could pretend, perhaps, at best, but something would happen, and Breach would know.

"It was a big case," he said. "The biggest ever. You'll never have so big a case again."

"I'm a detective," I said. "Jesus. Do I have any choice?"

"Of course," he said. "You're here. There's Breach, and there's those who breach, those to whom we happen." He did not look at me but out over the overlapping cities.

"Are any volunteers?"

"Volunteering's an early and strong indication that you're not suited," he said.

We walked towards my old flat, my press-ganger and I.

"Can I say good-bye to anyone? There are people I want to-"

"No," he said. We walked.

"I'm a detective," I said again. "Not a, whatever. I don't work like you do."

"That's what we want. That's why we were so glad you breached. Times are changing."

So the methods may not be so unfamiliar as I feared. There may be others who proceed the traditional Breach way, the levering of intimidation, that self-styling as a night-fear, while I-using the siphoned-off information we filch online, the bugged phone calls from both cities, the networks of informants, the powers beyond any law, the centuries of fear, yes, too, sometimes, the intimations of other powers beyond us, of unknown shapes, that we are only avatars-was to investigate, as I have investigated for years. A new broom. Every office needs one. There's a humour to the situation.

"I want to see Sariska. You know who she is, I guess. And Biszaya. I want to talk to Corwi, and Dhatt. To say good-bye at least."

He was quiet for a while. "You can't talk to them. This is how we work. If we don't have that, we don't have anything. But you can see them. If you stay out of sight."

We compromised. I wrote letters to my erstwhile lovers. Handwritten and delivered by hand, but not by my hand. I did not tell Sariska or Biszaya anything but that I would miss them. I was not just being kind.

My colleagues I came close to, and though I did not speak to them, both of them could see me. But Dhatt in Ul Qoma, and later Corwi in Besel, could tell I was not, or not totally, or not only, in their city. They did not speak to me. They would not risk it.

Dhatt I saw as he emerged from his office. He stopped short at the sight of me. I stood by a h.o.a.rding outside an Ul Qoman office, with my head down so he could tell it was me but not my expression. I raised my hand to him. He hesitated a long time then spread his fingers, a waveless wave. I backed into the shadows. He walked away first.

Corwi was at a cafe. She was in Besel's Ul Qomatown. She made me smile. I watched her drinking her creamy Ul Qoman tea in the establishment I had shown her. I watched her from the shade of an alley for several seconds before I realised that she was looking right at me, that she knew I was there. It was she who said good-bye to me, with a raised cup, tipped in salute. I mouthed at her, though even she could not have seen it, thanks, and good-bye.

I have a great deal to learn, and no choice but to learn it, or to go rogue, and there is no one hunted like a Breach renegade. So, not ready for that or the revenge of my new community of bare, extracity lives, I make my choice of those two nonchoices. My task is changed: not to uphold the law, or another law, but to maintain the skin that keeps law in place. Two laws in two places, in fact.

That is the end of the case of Orciny and the archaeologists, the last case of Inspector Tyador Borlu of the Besel Extreme Crime Squad. Inspector Tyador Borlu is gone. I sign off Tye, avatar of Breach, following my mentor on my probation out of Besel and out of Ul Qoma. We are all philosophers here where I am, and we debate among many other things the question of where it is that we live. On that issue I am a liberal. I live in the interstice yes, but I live in both the city and the city.

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READER BEWARE! Spoilers follow in this interview with China Mieville, and those who wish to fully enjoy The City & The City The City & The City-and indeed this interview, as well-are strongly advised to read no further until they have finished the novel.

A Conversation with China Mieville Random House Reader's Circle: In many ways, In many ways, The City & The City The City & The City represents a departure for you in subject and style, but before we get to that, I'd like to focus on a central element of this book that has been a consistent and characteristic component of your fiction right from the start: that is, the city ... and more, the fantastic city. Why this intense engagement with cityscapes both real and imaginary, and how has that engagement evolved over time, from the London of your first novel, represents a departure for you in subject and style, but before we get to that, I'd like to focus on a central element of this book that has been a consistent and characteristic component of your fiction right from the start: that is, the city ... and more, the fantastic city. Why this intense engagement with cityscapes both real and imaginary, and how has that engagement evolved over time, from the London of your first novel, King Rat King Rat, to New Crobuzon, UnLondon, and, finally, the cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma?

China Mieville: It's a bit of a lame answer, but truthfully I just don't know. I've always lived in cities and always found them tremendously exciting places to live, but also loved how they get refracted through art. There's such a long, powerful, and brilliant tradition it would be more surprising if I wasn't pulled that way, I think. It's a bit of a lame answer, but truthfully I just don't know. I've always lived in cities and always found them tremendously exciting places to live, but also loved how they get refracted through art. There's such a long, powerful, and brilliant tradition it would be more surprising if I wasn't pulled that way, I think.

The evolution is probably something other people are better placed than me to judge. But it feels like after the unrestrained splurge-and I don't say that as a self-diss, I know it certainly doesn't work for all readers, but I do think there are things you can do with a lack of self-discipline that you can't do with more discipline-of Perdido Perdido, which was a kind of chaotic homage to cities in a very rococo way, I've got, relatively suddenly with The City & The City The City & The City, more interested in something of a more restrained, maybe even melancholic urban sense. Of course, as soon as the next book comes out, that might change again.

RHRC: The use of language in this novel is notably sparer than in any of your previous books. How much of that is due to the demands of the story and perhaps even of the genre of the police procedural, which provides a certain structure to the novel, and how much is a natural progression of your style? The use of language in this novel is notably sparer than in any of your previous books. How much of that is due to the demands of the story and perhaps even of the genre of the police procedural, which provides a certain structure to the novel, and how much is a natural progression of your style?

CM: Each book demands a particular voice-I don't think this is a progression in the sense of an ineluctable movement in this direction. I think it's enormously possible I'll move back and forward between more and less baroque prose. But 1) there are things you can do with a restrained prose that you can't with lusher prose-and vice versa; 2) it was a first-person narrative, and if you have an interior monologue of that kind of verbal indulgence you immediately create a rather unlikely, or mediated or foppish or something narrator. Nothing wrong with that in principle, but that wasn't what I wanted to do. Because yes, 3) this was to do with wanting to be completely faithful to certain noiresque police procedural protocols. Each book demands a particular voice-I don't think this is a progression in the sense of an ineluctable movement in this direction. I think it's enormously possible I'll move back and forward between more and less baroque prose. But 1) there are things you can do with a restrained prose that you can't with lusher prose-and vice versa; 2) it was a first-person narrative, and if you have an interior monologue of that kind of verbal indulgence you immediately create a rather unlikely, or mediated or foppish or something narrator. Nothing wrong with that in principle, but that wasn't what I wanted to do. Because yes, 3) this was to do with wanting to be completely faithful to certain noiresque police procedural protocols.

RHRC: The City & The City The City & The City is certainly not a traditional fantasy novel. It's also very different from your previous fantasy novels. In fact, apart from the central conceit, the argument could be made that it's not fantasy at all. And that conceit-of the two cities, Beszel and Ul Qoma, sharing physical but not legal or social s.p.a.ce-can be interpreted both in fantastic or science fictional terms and in realistic, psychological terms. Did you set out to write a novel that was itself crosshatched-a term you've adopted from the graphic arts-in terms of genre? Would you consider this an example of slipstream or interst.i.tial fiction? is certainly not a traditional fantasy novel. It's also very different from your previous fantasy novels. In fact, apart from the central conceit, the argument could be made that it's not fantasy at all. And that conceit-of the two cities, Beszel and Ul Qoma, sharing physical but not legal or social s.p.a.ce-can be interpreted both in fantastic or science fictional terms and in realistic, psychological terms. Did you set out to write a novel that was itself crosshatched-a term you've adopted from the graphic arts-in terms of genre? Would you consider this an example of slipstream or interst.i.tial fiction?

CM: I consider it a crime novel, above all. The question of whether or not it's fantasy doesn't have a stable answer; it's to do with how it's read, what people get out of it, and so on. Certainly I was very I consider it a crime novel, above all. The question of whether or not it's fantasy doesn't have a stable answer; it's to do with how it's read, what people get out of it, and so on. Certainly I was very aware aware of genre, and of the fantastic, and there's a certain kind of (I hope good-natured) teasing of readers about the whether-or-not-ness of a fantastic explanation for the setting. And other issues, I think, about the drive to world-creation, and the hankering for a certain kind of hermetic totality that you see in fantasy, and so on. Not I hope that that stuff is heavy-handed, but it's there in my mind. I don't mind whether other people think the book's "splipstream," or "interst.i.tial," or whatever. I think of it as within the fantastic tradition, but for me that's always been a very broad church. Whether it's fantasy in the narrower sense, I don't much mind. Certainly I'm not abjuring the term-it would be ungrateful and ridiculous for me to distance myself from a set of reading and writing traditions, and from a set of aesthetics and thematics that have furnished my mind since forever. of genre, and of the fantastic, and there's a certain kind of (I hope good-natured) teasing of readers about the whether-or-not-ness of a fantastic explanation for the setting. And other issues, I think, about the drive to world-creation, and the hankering for a certain kind of hermetic totality that you see in fantasy, and so on. Not I hope that that stuff is heavy-handed, but it's there in my mind. I don't mind whether other people think the book's "splipstream," or "interst.i.tial," or whatever. I think of it as within the fantastic tradition, but for me that's always been a very broad church. Whether it's fantasy in the narrower sense, I don't much mind. Certainly I'm not abjuring the term-it would be ungrateful and ridiculous for me to distance myself from a set of reading and writing traditions, and from a set of aesthetics and thematics that have furnished my mind since forever.

RHRC: Lately I've been thinking a lot about the idea that noir fiction and the fiction of the fantastic spring from common roots, and however far they may seemingly have diverged from each other, that commonality is still there, waiting to be evoked. That certainly seems true of Lately I've been thinking a lot about the idea that noir fiction and the fiction of the fantastic spring from common roots, and however far they may seemingly have diverged from each other, that commonality is still there, waiting to be evoked. That certainly seems true of The City & The City The City & The City.

CM: I wholeheartedly agree. I've said before that I'm interested in the incredibly creative and fecund disingenuity of the realist crime novel, that pretended realism of what is, I think, at its best, a kind of dream fiction masquerading as a logic puzzle. All the best noir-or at least I should say the stuff I like most-reads oneirically. Chandler and Kafka seem to me to have a lot more shared terrain than Chandler and a true-crime book. There's a bunch of books that are more explicitly exploring the shared terrain of the fantastic and the noir around at the moment, but I think that's a kind of uncovering as much as anything. I wholeheartedly agree. I've said before that I'm interested in the incredibly creative and fecund disingenuity of the realist crime novel, that pretended realism of what is, I think, at its best, a kind of dream fiction masquerading as a logic puzzle. All the best noir-or at least I should say the stuff I like most-reads oneirically. Chandler and Kafka seem to me to have a lot more shared terrain than Chandler and a true-crime book. There's a bunch of books that are more explicitly exploring the shared terrain of the fantastic and the noir around at the moment, but I think that's a kind of uncovering as much as anything.

RHRC: The practical geography of Beszel and Ul Qoma, as a shared terrain with various available and unavailable modes of navigation, reminded me of the black and white squares of a chessboard, whose use is moderated by an essentially arbitrary but nevertheless strictly enforced set of rules. I know you have a longstanding interest in games and gaming, and I wonder how much that interest influenced the development of this book. The practical geography of Beszel and Ul Qoma, as a shared terrain with various available and unavailable modes of navigation, reminded me of the black and white squares of a chessboard, whose use is moderated by an essentially arbitrary but nevertheless strictly enforced set of rules. I know you have a longstanding interest in games and gaming, and I wonder how much that interest influenced the development of this book.

CM: Not so much at a conscious level. Consciously the organizing metaphor at a cartographic level was, as you've said, pen-and-ink artwork-cross-hatching. Draw lines one way-you have a shadow. Draw them the other way-you have another shadow. Overlay them-you have a deeper shadow. I think of Beszel and Ul Qoma as distinct layers of a shaded totality. At the social/political/ juridical, etc., level, the organizing principle was less to do with games and more to do with the nature of taboos-enormously powerful, often enormously arbitrary, and (crucially) regularly quietly broken, without undermining the fact of the taboo itself. That last element, I think, is sometimes underestimated in the discussions of cultural norms, where they are both a.s.serted and breached. Both those elements are foundational. Not so much at a conscious level. Consciously the organizing metaphor at a cartographic level was, as you've said, pen-and-ink artwork-cross-hatching. Draw lines one way-you have a shadow. Draw them the other way-you have another shadow. Overlay them-you have a deeper shadow. I think of Beszel and Ul Qoma as distinct layers of a shaded totality. At the social/political/ juridical, etc., level, the organizing principle was less to do with games and more to do with the nature of taboos-enormously powerful, often enormously arbitrary, and (crucially) regularly quietly broken, without undermining the fact of the taboo itself. That last element, I think, is sometimes underestimated in the discussions of cultural norms, where they are both a.s.serted and breached. Both those elements are foundational.

RHRC: As I began to catch on to the unique nature of Beszel and Ul Qoma, I was reminded of the short story "Reports of Certain Events in London," which appeared in your collection As I began to catch on to the unique nature of Beszel and Ul Qoma, I was reminded of the short story "Reports of Certain Events in London," which appeared in your collection Looking for Jake Looking for Jake. Was that in any way a starting point for The City & The City The City & The City? Was there a particular moment in which the idea for this book took form, or did it evolve slowly, over time?

CM: Several people have made that connection. It wasn't something that occurred to me, but I can certainly see why people would think so, and they-you-may have a point. Though you could make a case that it's a kind of negative influence in some ways-in its stress on fluid, predatory, unknowable geography, the short story is the anti-this. Several people have made that connection. It wasn't something that occurred to me, but I can certainly see why people would think so, and they-you-may have a point. Though you could make a case that it's a kind of negative influence in some ways-in its stress on fluid, predatory, unknowable geography, the short story is the anti-this. The City & The City The City & The City is as much about bureaucracy as anything. The basic idea for the setting of the cities is something I'd been chewing over for several years. I kind of mentally auditioned various stories to see which would suit it best, which would showcase it but not heavy-handedly, not at the expense of narrative. That was the idea. is as much about bureaucracy as anything. The basic idea for the setting of the cities is something I'd been chewing over for several years. I kind of mentally auditioned various stories to see which would suit it best, which would showcase it but not heavy-handedly, not at the expense of narrative. That was the idea.

RHRC: Your work has always had a strong element of the surreal to it, but it struck me that in this novel you are veering away from the Daliesque-hybrids of insect and human, or a man with an occupied birdcage for a head-toward a less extravagant brand of surrealism, one rooted less in the exotic imagery of dreams and nightmares than in quotidian images from the waking world-here I'm thinking of the influence of Bruno Schulz, whom you cite in your acknowledgments. What accounts for this s.h.i.+ft? Your work has always had a strong element of the surreal to it, but it struck me that in this novel you are veering away from the Daliesque-hybrids of insect and human, or a man with an occupied birdcage for a head-toward a less extravagant brand of surrealism, one rooted less in the exotic imagery of dreams and nightmares than in quotidian images from the waking world-here I'm thinking of the influence of Bruno Schulz, whom you cite in your acknowledgments. What accounts for this s.h.i.+ft?

CM: I don't like Dali, though of course you can't ever escape his visual influence. I like Andre Breton's dismissive nickname for him-Avida Dollars. But in terms of the sort of vaguely postdecadent curlicued baroque of his images, as compared to the subtler dreams of Schulz or Kafka, yes, I see that s.h.i.+ft. What accounts for the s.h.i.+ft, however, is an impossible question to answer. I've loved Schulz for a long time-like lots of people of my generation I came to him via the Quay Brothers' film I don't like Dali, though of course you can't ever escape his visual influence. I like Andre Breton's dismissive nickname for him-Avida Dollars. But in terms of the sort of vaguely postdecadent curlicued baroque of his images, as compared to the subtler dreams of Schulz or Kafka, yes, I see that s.h.i.+ft. What accounts for the s.h.i.+ft, however, is an impossible question to answer. I've loved Schulz for a long time-like lots of people of my generation I came to him via the Quay Brothers' film Street of Crocodiles Street of Crocodiles-and Kafka, and a whole tradition of (very broadly) eastern European fantastic fiction and art, as well as a great love of the landscape of Prague, for example; and I wanted to write something inspired by that. Why the s.h.i.+ft? I'm less breathless than I used to be. I'm older. I wanted to try something new. I wanted to write a homage to those traditions (and to the extraordinary prose of high noir). I wanted to write a book that my mother would have loved.

RHRC: In addition to Schulz, you acknowledge Raymond Chandler, Franz Kafka, Alfred Kubin, and Jan Morris. The first two I'm familiar with, and their influence here seems plain, but I'm not familiar with either Kubin or Morris, and I daresay that will be true for many of your American readers as well. What is your debt to them? In addition to Schulz, you acknowledge Raymond Chandler, Franz Kafka, Alfred Kubin, and Jan Morris. The first two I'm familiar with, and their influence here seems plain, but I'm not familiar with either Kubin or Morris, and I daresay that will be true for many of your American readers as well. What is your debt to them?

CM: Kubin was an Austrian writer and artist, and his book Kubin was an Austrian writer and artist, and his book The Other Side The Other Side, was a kind of Expressionist investigation of urban anxiety and the compulsions to create and populate cities of the mind-whatever dangers that brings-the fallacious safety of a transplanted metropolitan state in a kind of remote hinterland, was a big influence. Jan Morris is more of an argumentative influence. She wrote a book called Hav Hav, which is the revisiting several years on of her book Last Letters from Hav Last Letters from Hav, about a journey to an imagined country. I admired the book but had a very frustrated argument with it. Books are always obviously having conversations with other books, and some times they're amiable and sometimes not. The City & The City The City & The City is having a respectful but pretty argumentative conversation with is having a respectful but pretty argumentative conversation with Hav Hav. In part, I never felt Hav Hav had enough of an ident.i.ty, because she so stressed its nature as a syncretic port-and I greatly admired her abjuring of a kind of essentialist "indigenousism"-that in fact it felt mostly like a group of minorities meeting against an opaque and colorless backdrop. They never seemed to gestalt into anything bigger. I seem to be in a minority in this feeling, but when I realized that I'd been thinking about the book a lot as I wrote had enough of an ident.i.ty, because she so stressed its nature as a syncretic port-and I greatly admired her abjuring of a kind of essentialist "indigenousism"-that in fact it felt mostly like a group of minorities meeting against an opaque and colorless backdrop. They never seemed to gestalt into anything bigger. I seem to be in a minority in this feeling, but when I realized that I'd been thinking about the book a lot as I wrote The City & The City The City & The City, even thinking about it in frustration, it seemed only appropriate to give it a shout-out.

RHRC: Some readers and critics will no doubt be tempted to see this novel as an allegory of the relations between the West and the Muslim world, due to the resemblance between the city name of Ul Qoma and the terrorist group Al Qaeda. And many other allegorical readings are possible based on various political, social, and s.e.xual divisions and/or cross-hatchings. Do you have any sympathy with such readings? Some readers and critics will no doubt be tempted to see this novel as an allegory of the relations between the West and the Muslim world, due to the resemblance between the city name of Ul Qoma and the terrorist group Al Qaeda. And many other allegorical readings are possible based on various political, social, and s.e.xual divisions and/or cross-hatchings. Do you have any sympathy with such readings?

CM: Personally I make a big distinction between allegorical and metaphoric readings (though I'm not too bothered about terminology, once we've established what we're talking about). To me, the point of allegorical readings is the search for what Fredric Jameson calls a "master code" to "solve" the story, to work out what it's "about," or, worse, what it's "really about." And that approach I have very little sympathy with. In this I'm a follower of Tolkien, who stressed his "cordial dislike" of allegory. I dislike it because I think it renders fiction pretty pointless, if a story really Personally I make a big distinction between allegorical and metaphoric readings (though I'm not too bothered about terminology, once we've established what we're talking about). To me, the point of allegorical readings is the search for what Fredric Jameson calls a "master code" to "solve" the story, to work out what it's "about," or, worse, what it's "really about." And that approach I have very little sympathy with. In this I'm a follower of Tolkien, who stressed his "cordial dislike" of allegory. I dislike it because I think it renders fiction pretty pointless, if a story really is is written to mean something else-and I'm not suggesting there's no place for polemical or satirical or whatever fiction, just that if it's totally reducible in a very straight way, then why not just say that thing? Fiction is always more interesting to the extent that there's an evasive surplus and/or a specificity. So it's not saying there are no meanings, but that there are more than just those meanings. The problem with allegorical decoding as a method isn't that it reads too much into a story, but that it reads too little into it. Allegories are always more interesting when they overspill their own levees. Metaphor, for me, is much more determinedly like that. Metaphor is always fractally fecund, and there's always more and less to it. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that in no way do I say some of those readings aren't valid (though I must say I have very little sympathy for the East versus West one, which is explicitly denied in the text more than once), but that I hope people don't think the book is "solved" by that. I don't think any book can be so solved. written to mean something else-and I'm not suggesting there's no place for polemical or satirical or whatever fiction, just that if it's totally reducible in a very straight way, then why not just say that thing? Fiction is always more interesting to the extent that there's an evasive surplus and/or a specificity. So it's not saying there are no meanings, but that there are more than just those meanings. The problem with allegorical decoding as a method isn't that it reads too much into a story, but that it reads too little into it. Allegories are always more interesting when they overspill their own levees. Metaphor, for me, is much more determinedly like that. Metaphor is always fractally fecund, and there's always more and less to it. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that in no way do I say some of those readings aren't valid (though I must say I have very little sympathy for the East versus West one, which is explicitly denied in the text more than once), but that I hope people don't think the book is "solved" by that. I don't think any book can be so solved.

RHRC: Of course, you go much further than simple cross-hatching and actually enter into the s.p.a.ces between Beszel and Ul Qoma, as well as the s.p.a.ces disputed by them, into what I'm going to call "territories of superposition," after the principle of quantum superposition. Here we're in the realm of the Breach and also of the invisible city of Orciny, which may or may not be a myth. Were the Breach and Orciny always part of the novel, or did you only become aware of their existence, so to speak, through circ.u.mstantial evidence as you were writing about the two "visible" cities? Of course, you go much further than simple cross-hatching and actually enter into the s.p.a.ces between Beszel and Ul Qoma, as well as the s.p.a.ces disputed by them, into what I'm going to call "territories of superposition," after the principle of quantum superposition. Here we're in the realm of the Breach and also of the invisible city of Orciny, which may or may not be a myth. Were the Breach and Orciny always part of the novel, or did you only become aware of their existence, so to speak, through circ.u.mstantial evidence as you were writing about the two "visible" cities?

CM: Breach was always part of it, because the two main cities presumed their borders, which presumed the policing. Orciny sort of emerged later. There was no reason to stop there. Once you've realized you can do a shtick about more and more hidden cities in more and more interstices, you're into a potential Breach was always part of it, because the two main cities presumed their borders, which presumed the policing. Orciny sort of emerged later. There was no reason to stop there. Once you've realized you can do a shtick about more and more hidden cities in more and more interstices, you're into a potential mise-en-abyme mise-en-abyme, and I could have had fourth, fifth, sixth rumored cities, etc., at ever-decreasing scales.

RHRC: The Breach and Orciny are similar in many ways-indeed, at one point, the possibility is raised that they are the same thing-but in the end, readers are taken into the Breach, while Orciny remains unknown. What's striking to me about this process is that the revelation is a bit deflating. And not only here: again and again in this novel, when you come to a revelatory moment, at which a more traditional fantasy would open outward, into the unreal or the supernatural, you bring things back to the real, in all its harsh particularity. In that sense, couldn't this novel be considered an antifantasy? The Breach and Orciny are similar in many ways-indeed, at one point, the possibility is raised that they are the same thing-but in the end, readers are taken into the Breach, while Orciny remains unknown. What's striking to me about this process is that the revelation is a bit deflating. And not only here: again and again in this novel, when you come to a revelatory moment, at which a more traditional fantasy would open outward, into the unreal or the supernatural, you bring things back to the real, in all its harsh particularity. In that sense, couldn't this novel be considered an antifantasy?

CM: By all means. There's a long and honorable tradition of anti -fantasies, of which some of the most invigorating, to me, are by M. John Harrison. And yes, I think you're absolutely right that this is part of that lineage. And I don't even mind the term "deflating." I think it's fair and it was, so far as it goes, quite deliberate. Now obviously I know that won't work for all readers, and I know, in fact, that some readers have disliked the book for precisely that point. That's fair enough. But to me, that hankering for the opening-out, the secrets behind the everyday, can sometimes be question-begging. Of course I have it, too-I'm a fantasy reader, I love that uncanny fracture and whatever's behind it-but surely it's legitimate and maybe even interesting not merely to indulge that drive but to investigate it, to prod at it, and yes, maybe precisely as part of that, to frustrate it. By all means. There's a long and honorable tradition of anti -fantasies, of which some of the most invigorating, to me, are by M. John Harrison. And yes, I think you're absolutely right that this is part of that lineage. And I don't even mind the term "deflating." I think it's fair and it was, so far as it goes, quite deliberate. Now obviously I know that won't work for all readers, and I know, in fact, that some readers have disliked the book for precisely that point. That's fair enough. But to me, that hankering for the opening-out, the secrets behind the everyday, can sometimes be question-begging. Of course I have it, too-I'm a fantasy reader, I love that uncanny fracture and whatever's behind it-but surely it's legitimate and maybe even interesting not merely to indulge that drive but to investigate it, to prod at it, and yes, maybe precisely as part of that, to frustrate it.

RHRC: Yet at the same time, you also encourage speculation in the fantastic-most notably, I think, in the archeological artifacts recovered from the Ul Qoman dig, a bizarre mix of primitive objects and what seems to be the remnants of an advanced technology. Yet at the same time, you also encourage speculation in the fantastic-most notably, I think, in the archeological artifacts recovered from the Ul Qoman dig, a bizarre mix of primitive objects and what seems to be the remnants of an advanced technology.

CM: Well it's certainly the case that the book never forecloses the possibility of any fantastic elements. The strange properties of the archeological physics, for example-it's not proven, but nor is it falsified. I was interested not so much in the aspects of possible magic-though certainly that question mark is there-but in the question of opaque logic. There is clearly, to the investigators, a logic to this seemingly impossible coagulum of material culture; that's why they're investigating it. But it's a logic that escapes them; it's something they can't pa.r.s.e. Even if you have no way into it, that seems to me importantly different from something having no logic at all. Well it's certainly the case that the book never forecloses the possibility of any fantastic elements. The strange properties of the archeological physics, for example-it's not proven, but nor is it falsified. I was interested not so much in the aspects of possible magic-though certainly that question mark is there-but in the question of opaque logic. There is clearly, to the investigators, a logic to this seemingly impossible coagulum of material culture; that's why they're investigating it. But it's a logic that escapes them; it's something they can't pa.r.s.e. Even if you have no way into it, that seems to me importantly different from something having no logic at all.

RHRC: Your narrator and main character, Tyador Borlu, is rational, a skeptic, but also enough of a romantic to be seduced by mysteries-in other words, a familiar type from noir fiction. But he's also very much a product of his peculiar environment. Even before this case, and his close encounter with the Breach, his life abounds in interst.i.tiality, from his relations.h.i.+ps with women to his preference for the wonderfully named Your narrator and main character, Tyador Borlu, is rational, a skeptic, but also enough of a romantic to be seduced by mysteries-in other words, a familiar type from noir fiction. But he's also very much a product of his peculiar environment. Even before this case, and his close encounter with the Breach, his life abounds in interst.i.tiality, from his relations.h.i.+ps with women to his preference for the wonderfully named DoplirCaffes DoplirCaffes, where Jews and Muslims sit side by side in a microcosm of the two surrounding cities. Geography really is destiny, isn't it?

CM: A familiar type from noir, and also from a thousand other things, including the real world. Interst.i.tiality is a tremendous buzzword, and it can be quite easy to locate it at all levels. One of the reasons for the kind of microcosmic foreshadowing of the relations.h.i.+p between the cities in the A familiar type from noir, and also from a thousand other things, including the real world. Interst.i.tiality is a tremendous buzzword, and it can be quite easy to locate it at all levels. One of the reasons for the kind of microcosmic foreshadowing of the relations.h.i.+p between the cities in the DoplirCaffes DoplirCaffes, etc., was precisely to undercut any seeming portent about them. Sure, they're rather extraordinarily doubled, meaning there'll be interstices and gray areas, etc., etc., but that's just an unusually extrapolated version of the kind of thing that goes on all the time, at all levels. That was the idea. Interst.i.tiality is a theme that is simultaneously genuinely interesting and potentially quite useful, and also a terrible cliche, so if you're going to use it, it helps to be at least respectfully skeptical about the wilder claims of some of its theoretical partisans, I think.

RHRC: The Cleavage, the event that separated Beszel and Ul Qoma in a past all but lost to history, remains, like Orciny itself, shrouded in mystery. Was it a science fictional event, a catastrophic phenomenon of quantum physics that sent parts of a single ur-city into congruent and occasionally intersecting dimensions? Or is the Cleavage to be understood purely in psychological terms? Does it matter how readers interpret this aspect of the book? The Cleavage, the event that separated Beszel and Ul Qoma in a past all but lost to history, remains, like Orciny itself, shrouded in mystery. Was it a science fictional event, a catastrophic phenomenon of quantum physics that sent parts of a single ur-city into congruent and occasionally intersecting dimensions? Or is the Cleavage to be understood purely in psychological terms? Does it matter how readers interpret this aspect of the book?

CM: The event that separated Beszel and Ul Qoma or possibly joined them together. Cleave being one of those magic, camply semiotically rich words which means two exactly opposite things. And of course I'm not going to answer the question! If it even has an answer-on which I couldn't possibly comment. I know what The event that separated Beszel and Ul Qoma or possibly joined them together. Cleave being one of those magic, camply semiotically rich words which means two exactly opposite things. And of course I'm not going to answer the question! If it even has an answer-on which I couldn't possibly comment. I know what I I think, and you've mentioned it before, in terms of the generic status of the book, but it would be quite unhelpful I think for me to dictate terms for the reader. All the information the story requires is there. think, and you've mentioned it before, in terms of the generic status of the book, but it would be quite unhelpful I think for me to dictate terms for the reader. All the information the story requires is there.

RHRC: Orciny first seems like a myth, then real, then a hoax-and yet it's never really disproved. Indeed, Bowden's extraordinary attempt to walk out of the cities, at once utterly mundane and thoroughly uncanny, seems to show that Orciny does exist, at least in potential. Orciny first seems like a myth, then real, then a hoax-and yet it's never really disproved. Indeed, Bowden's extraordinary attempt to walk out of the cities, at once utterly mundane and thoroughly uncanny, seems to show that Orciny does exist, at least in potential.

CM: Yes. This, I guess, is all part of that teasing thing I was talking about before. They disprove nothing in the absolute, only that a prime suspect for the commission of these crimes (a city), turns out not to be guilty of these crimes in this case. Of course, that said, there's also been a poking around with the ideas of why that might be such an appealing possible solution, why the drive to that kind of explanation. Yes. This, I guess, is all part of that teasing thing I was talking about before. They disprove nothing in the absolute, only that a prime suspect for the commission of these crimes (a city), turns out not to be guilty of these crimes in this case. Of course, that said, there's also been a poking around with the ideas of why that might be such an appealing possible solution, why the drive to that kind of explanation.

RHRC: Do you have any plans to return to Beszel and Ul Qoma, perhaps to explore their shared prehistory? Do you have any plans to return to Beszel and Ul Qoma, perhaps to explore their shared prehistory?

CM: Possibly. The conceit of the book, at least for me, was that there are indeed several other stories set in Beszel-and possibly involving Ul Qoma-featuring Tyador Borlu, and that they'd come before this. That this particular book was the last of his adventures. The novel was originally subt.i.tled "The Last Inspector Borlu Mystery." But I was told in vigorous terms by everyone involved in producing the book that it would confuse readers, who would see it, decide to start with the first of the series, and leave the shop without anything when they couldn't find that earlier volume. So I took the subt.i.tle off. But for me, it's still there, invisible. Possibly. The conceit of the book, at least for me, was that there are indeed several other stories set in Beszel-and possibly involving Ul Qoma-featuring Tyador Borlu, and that they'd come before this. That this particular book was the last of his adventures. The novel was originally subt.i.tled "The Last Inspector Borlu Mystery." But I was told in vigorous terms by everyone involved in producing the book that it would confuse readers, who would see it, decide to start with the first of the series, and leave the shop without anything when they couldn't find that earlier volume. So I took the subt.i.tle off. But for me, it's still there, invisible.

RHRC: It must have been hard, as you were writing the novel, to avoid moments of inadvertent breaching. How did you train yourself to unsee and unhear? And what was the personal impact of that? Did your perceptions of London change? It must have been hard, as you were writing the novel, to avoid moments of inadvertent breaching. How did you train yourself to unsee and unhear? And what was the personal impact of that? Did your perceptions of London change?

CM: My perceptions didn't really change: the whole of the book was predicated on my thinking about those urban perceptions, so while I might have been slightly more conscious of them, they were still as they had been. However, part of the thing about the setup is that it is, precisely, very hard, indeed impossible, to avoid moments of breach. You My perceptions didn't really change: the whole of the book was predicated on my thinking about those urban perceptions, so while I might have been slightly more conscious of them, they were still as they had been. However, part of the thing about the setup is that it is, precisely, very hard, indeed impossible, to avoid moments of breach. You cannot cannot train yourself to successfully and sustainedly unsee and unhear-you do them all the time, but they also fail, repeatedly, and you cheat, repeatedly, in all sorts of small ways. The book mentions that several times. It is absolutely about absolute fidelity to these particular urban protocols, exaggerations or extrapolations of the ones that I think are all around us all the time in the real world; but it's also about cheating them, and failing them, and playing a little fast and loose, which I think is an inextricable part of such norms. train yourself to successfully and sustainedly unsee and unhear-you do them all the time, but they also fail, repeatedly, and you cheat, repeatedly, in all sorts of small ways. The book mentions that several times. It is absolutely about absolute fidelity to these particular urban protocols, exaggerations or extrapolations of the ones that I think are all around us all the time in the real world; but it's also about cheating them, and failing them, and playing a little fast and loose, which I think is an inextricable part of such norms.

Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion

1. In the accompanying interview, China Mieville says that he considers The City & The City The City & The City "a crime novel above all." Do you agree with his a.s.sessment? Why or why not? "a crime novel above all." Do you agree with his a.s.sessment? Why or why not?

2. Try to think of the novel primarily in science fictional or fantasy terms instead of as a crime novel. Is there any evidence that the novel falls into either of these categories? How would looking at the novel from these perspectives change your perception of the story?

3. Do you think Mieville wants readers to come at his story from a variety of directions? How would this be related to the idea of cross-hatching as it appears in the novel?

4. In the interview, Mieville also states that "each book demands a particular voice." How would you describe the voice that he uses to tell the story of Beszel and Ul Qoma-the voice of Tyador Borlu? Do you think it was the best choice? What other voices could he have used to tell the story, and how would that choice have changed the novel? For example, imagine how the story would be different if it had been told from the point of view of Borlu's Ul Qoman counterpart, Qussim Dhatt, or his a.s.sistant, Lizbyet Corwi?

5. Mieville calls the crime novel "a kind of dream fiction masquerading as a logic puzzle." What do you think he meant by that, and how does The City & The City The City & The City measure up to that definition? measure up to that definition?

6. So much of The City & The City The City & The City revolves around the idea of Breach-which is both a noun and a verb in the context of the book. Yet despite the unique social structure binding and separating Beszel and Ul Qoma, readers have no trouble understanding the concepts of Breach or breaching. Why should such a fantastical notion seem so familiar to us? Are there areas in your own life-social lacunae, if you will-in which something a.n.a.logous to the rules of Breach are observed? For example, do you practice "unseeing" in your daily life? revolves around the idea of Breach-which is both a noun and a verb in the context of the book. Yet despite the unique social structure binding and separating Beszel and Ul Qoma, readers have no trouble understanding the concepts of Breach or breaching. Why should such a fantastical notion seem so familiar to us? Are there areas in your own life-social lacunae, if you will-in which something a.n.a.logous to the rules of Breach are observed? For example, do you practice "unseeing" in your daily life?

7. Is the power that Breach exercises arbitrary and absolute, or are there limits in place that are respected by everyone involved? Is there a real-life a.n.a.logue to Breach in the United States?

8. Is Tyador Borlu a trustworthy narrator, or are there moments when he misleads readers ... and himself? Identify some of these moments, and decide whether they are purposeful or not. Are these moments related to breaching, and if so, how?

9. Did you read this novel as an allegory about the post-9/11 relations.h.i.+p of the West and the Islamic world? Would such a reading be justified? Why or why not? Do you think this novel encourages a particular reading, or is it open to a variety of interpretations?

10. Why do you think Mieville, in the interview, calls this novel an anti-fantasy? What does that term suggest to you? Do you agree that it describes The City & The City The City & The City?

11. Mieville is both stingy and tantalizing in conveying information about the artifacts uncovered at the Bol Ye'an dig in Ul Qoma. What do you make of this aspect of the novel, perhaps its only truly fantastic element? How do you account for the existence of these artifacts?

12. Do you think the Cleavage-the epochal event that once upon a time separated (or joined) Beszel and Ul Qoma-is best understood and interpreted as having been a physical event or a social/psychological one? What evidence can you find to support either of these positions? Are there clues to Mieville's own belief on this point?

13. What about Orciny? Is the question of its existence answered definitively in the novel?

14. As an exercise, take the room in which you are meeting and a.s.sign parts of it to Beszel and parts to Ul Qoma. Now divide your group into citizens of the two cities. Try and hold your book club meeting without breaching. How long before a breach occurs?

15. Imagine that you are in the position of Mahalia Geary's parents, who travel to Beszel after her murder looking for justice and for answers. Would you have acted differently than Mr. Geary in that situation? How would you have approached it?

16. At the end of the novel, when Bowden is using his knowledge of both cities to escape Borlu's pursuit, he seems poised to walk out of the cities unapprehended. Yet he ends up surrendering to Borlu-why?

17. What do you think happens to Bowden once he has surrendered and vanished into the Breach?

18. Knowing what you know about Borlu-or Tye, as he has now become-do you think he'll be content to remain an avatar of Breach?

READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM.

KRAKEN.

by China Mieville PUBLISHED BY DEL REY BOOKS.

An everyday doomsayer in sandwich-board abruptly walked away from what over the last several days had been his pitch by the gates of a museum. The sign on his front was an old-school prophecy of the end: the one bobbing on his back read FORGET IT.

Inside, a man walked through the big hall, past a double stair and a giant skeleton, his steps loud on the marble. Stone animals watched him. "Right then," he kept saying.

His name was Billy Harrow. He glanced at the great fabricated bones and nodded. It looked as if he was saying h.e.l.lo. It was a little after eleven on a morning in October. The room was filling up. A group waited for him by the entrance desk, eyeing one another with polite shyness.

There were two men in their twenties with geek-chic haircuts. A woman and man barely out of their teens teased each other. She was obviously indulging him with this visit. There was an older couple, and a father in his thirties holding his young son. "Look, that's a monkey," he said. He pointed at animals carved in vines on the museum pillars. "And you see that lizard?"

The boy peeped. He looked at the bone brontosaurus that Billy had seemed to greet. Or maybe, Billy thought, he was looking at the glyptodon beyond it. All the children had a favorite inhabitant of the Natural History Museum's first hall, and the glyptodon, that half globe armadillo giant, had been Billy's.

Billy smiled at the woman who dispensed tickets, and the guard behind her. "This them?" he said. "Right then everyone. Shall we do this thing?"

He cleaned his gla.s.ses and blinked while he was doing it, replicating a look and motion an ex had once told him was adorable. He was a little shy of thirty and looked younger: he had freckles, and not enough stubble to justify "Bill." As he got older, Billy suspected, he would, Di Caprio-like, simply become like an increasingly wizened child.

Billy's black hair was tousled in a halfheartedly fas.h.i.+onable style. He wore a not-too-hopeless top, cheap jeans. When he had first started at the centre, he had liked to think that he was unexpectedly cool-looking for such a job. Now he knew that he surprised no one, that no one expected scientists to look like scientists any more.

"So you're all here for the tour of the Darwin Centre," he said. He was acting as if he thought they were present to investigate a whole research site, to look at the laboratories and offices, the filing, the cabinets of paperwork. Rather than to see the one and only one thing within the building.

"I'm Billy," he said. "I'm a curator. What that means is that I do a lot of the cataloguing and preserving, stuff like that. I've been here awhile. When I first came here I wanted to specialise in marine molluscs-know what a mollusc is?" he asked the boy, who nodded and hid. "Snails, that's right." Mollusca had been the subject of his masters thesis.