The City & the City

Probably the most clever detective story I’ve read to date. Unfortunately, it’s so clever, that it doesn’t always make for an easy read.

Loved this book! So many contemporary themes, and fused brilliantly with a neo noir crime mystery thriller genre! Satisfying ending, but the prose and premise are the reason you stay.

While this book focuses around a murder mystery the real highlight is the world building of the two cities that coexist and the laws that the citizens abide by. Fuels your imagination long after your eyes leave the page.

I like China Miéville a lot and same as in his other books, the main idea of the locale, the two cities coexisting together (no more details so I don't spoil it) doesn't disappoint. The mystery plot is OK but for me it didn't matter much, I just enjoyed a lot the way common actions are made to work in this mind bending backdrop.

Inspector Borlu of Beszel's Extreme Crime Squad investigates the murder of a woman whose body was found naked at a park, a mattress thrown on top of it. At first he believes it to be a local prostitute. However, as he investigates, things quickly get more complicated, and more dangerous for Borlu. While the body was found in the city of Beszel, Borlu realises the murder was done in the city of Ul Quoma. Ul Quoma is a city which occupies the same physical space as Beszel, but is 'unseen' by Beszel citizens. Likewise, those in Ul Quoma unsee the buildings and the people of Beszel. Anyone in Beszel caught interacting with Ul Quoma has committed breach, and will be taken by Breach, a silent and invisible police unbeholden to either city. No one comes back from breach. As Borlu continues to investigate the murder, he discovers the woman was involved with unificationists who want to unite the two cities into one. She also was fascinated by Orciny, a theoretical third city hidden in the forgotten areas between Beszel and Ul Quoma. As he continues to dig deeper, he is pulled deeper and deeper into an elaborate conspiracy. This isn't as convoluted as I've probably made it sound. Mieville's city fetish goes totally crazy this time around, and he's ended up with something very innovative. After hearing the synopsis of this book, I thought the idea sounded cool but I didn't think he'd really be able to pull it off. He does, and it's fascinating. The book remains a murder mystery throughout, while still being an exploration of the strange bi-city, although the mystery of the murder lags behind the mystery of what's really going on in the city (and the city and the city). You end up with something a little closer stylistically to The Bourne Identity than Sherlock Holmes for much of the book. That's not a good thing or a bad thing, just a thing. Is it as good as the Bas Lag books? No. The characters are underdone and the conclusion lacks the savory finish of Perdido Street Station or The Scar. I don't feel it's QUITE a four-star book because the plot and the characters lag so far behind the setting. The story here is nothing the least bit new, and the main character has very little personality. The word 'detective' alone probably conjures everything you need to know about this guy. So, without the setting, this book would be utterly blah. But the setting is, like I said, innovative and brilliant. If you're new to Mieville, I wouldn't suggest starting here. But, if you're already a fan, this is Mieville doing what he's good at. And his creativity is off the chain, as usual.

Heavy-handed metaphysical mystery (: there is another world - economic world, national world - visible but the vision suppressed). His usual incandescence is present, but under a shade: the prose is conventional, with spectacular Miévillian words like ‘topolganger’ (an identical-but-Other place) popping up only twice a chapter, rather than twice a page. Similarly scarce are his characteristic use of detail – protagonist Borlu is in an open relationship with a woman identified only as an economic historian. Hints of The Matrix’s ontological sensationalism and noir’s worn-out idioms, but it works because Mieville’s good enough (with ontology, but also generally) to redeem clichés. tC&tC twists repeatedly without losing credibility; the Cities’ omnimalevolent atmospheres make great noir. There’s even a rooftop showdown. An unfair consequence of extreme talent is that your ‘merely’ interesting, well-constructed books are marked down, judged by ghostly expectations.

My first introduction to China Miéville's work and what an introduction it was!

A compelling crime drama with splashes of conspiracy that was neatly wrapped by its succinct yet vivid writing.

The setting is truly the highlight of the book. Both cities are brimming with life With descriptions of buildings with its own characteristics, streets with their own flavours, as well as the many different lives that sprinkles each city. It is an omnipresent thing that follows you in every chapter, every page.

However, I do wish we could've gotten more depth with its characters. It could've made certain parts more impactful. It is not character-driven whatsoever and understandably so. Most of them merely serve to push the plot further, but it didn't feel like a huge hindrance on my overall experience reading it.

This was well written and I enjoyed it the way I enjoy police procedurals, since that's basically what it was. But I never quite bought into the worldbuilding, and am pretty much over stories that are predicated on murdered women.

3.5 stars. I was made to read this for a class, and I honestly was not super enthused? I don't read cop stories, period, not because ACAB or anything, just because I don't really have interest in reading about cops. This book, though, managed to suck me in because the setting was just that fascinating. The City and the City takes place in a city called Beszel, which is overlaid, crosshatched, and altered with the streets, citizens, laws, and places of a sister city, Ul Qoma. Despite both cities being, topographically, in the same spaces, they are separate areas, and if a person is in one city, the other one, essentially, does not exist, and must be unseen. It requires some suspension of disbelief, but the seeing and unseeing has interesting parallels between cities in our real world like Jerusalem or Berlin and a dystopian novel like 1984. Unfortunately, the setting and worldbuilding was the most interesting thing about this book. I couldn't care less about the characters, and the plot was interesting in that it interacts with the boundaries of the city. Def worth a read if you like detective fiction.

An invigorating read, highly eloquent and imaginative journey through 1 city divided by 2 (or more) countries.

China Mieville is a truely imaginative writer, with amazing linguistic abilities. This sci-fi detective novel of a small Balkan city reads like a historical thriller, and several times I had to check the world map to ensure that neither Besźel nor Ul Qoma really exist, as the descriptions of people, culture and politics feels vividly real, although completely impossible at the same time.
The characters are truly believable and the story fast paced and gripping.

Highly recommended

First time reading China Miéville. I will surely come for more. I really loved that this is in a way very traditional crime story that you can easily enjoy but at the same time the overarching twist of the City and the City is just super interesting and clever. That core idea and it's implications make the book almost anthropological study of the cities.

This book has some of my favorite worldbuilding I've read in a while, and that's where it really shines. Miéville creates a fascinating world where two city-states can legally exist in the same place at the same time without any supernatural explanations. In a sense, the story is almost a satire on weird archaic laws and traditions that just stick around because that's just how things are. The story itself is a pretty standard detective story operating within the strange laws and customs of this world, and if it wasn't for the setting the book would be pretty run of the mill. I have some issues with the books, but none were big enough to detract me from my overall enjoyment of the story. I look forward to reading more books from Miéville and experiencing the strange worlds he'd created.

Much like the eponymous locales of "The City & the City," this novel felt like the collision and intermeshing of several different genres and sub-genres, particularly: low, urban fantasy and gumshoe noir mystery. Similar to the habit of unseeing people in Besźel and Ul Qoma are brought up with, Mieville creates a strange world and difficult story that is initially difficult to comprehend or even appreciate, but slowly, as more of the story reveals itself, your mind wraps around the intricacies of the language employed by Mieville and the tantalizing morsels of plot being drip fed in measured out doses. Overall, I really enjoyed "The City & the City," though more for the fantasy flavor than the mystery aspect. I wanted to dive deeper into how and why Besźel and Ul Qoma came to be joined or cleaved and wished that the book had answered the question, but I understand that this wasn't the story Mieville wanted to tell. The simple whodunnit it turned out to be, not without its own deft plot twists and turns, was a bit of a letdown and left me wanting to explore the city and the city (and whatever interstices there are or are not) even further.

A great mind. I love Mieville. I don’t always out and out ‘get’ him, and his writing style can be a bit hard going, but - like Sinclair and Ballard - he does things to my head that I enjoy. An extrapolation on place, identity, and the ability to discount any physical reality that we have no investment in, this book speaks greatly of the willingness of individuals to cede moments - and in this book - grosstopical physicalities - to others. To unsee that which we are happy to abdicate and ignore. Mieville expands the intrinsic selfishness of human, to deliver a Balkan equivalent of pre-Glasnost Berlin.

Interesting concept. Slow plot, unclear at times, overall it was underwhelming.

** spoiler alert ** Mieville is still better at inventing worlds than at telling stories in them, but The City & The City is an intriguing visit to a strikingly-realized set of places. When the whodunit finally wraps up it doesn't have the grandeur of the setting (though, with the secrets revealed, I actually did like the ending); however, Mieville unfolds the two cities in a really engaging way while drawing on the trappings of a nior murder mystery, the occasional historical and 20th century pop culture reference (to either orient or disorient the reader?) and crossing it all with a Magic Eye puzzle.

Really loved this. Had a hard time putting this book down, and the cities will stay with me for a long time. A whole lot happened in the final chapters -- maybe a bit too fast to really have an impact -- but I loved the book as a whole.

I really wanted to like this, but the worldbuilding became too repetitive before I had even reached the halfway point. I suspect that the purpose of all the exposition may have been to try and make the premise feel more plausible. This wasn't really necessary for me, though, as there are already enough examples throughout history of civilizations split in two; geographically as in the case of Berlin, Palestine/Israel, or along racial lines as in the case of Apartheid or American racial segregation. As with The Name Of the Rose, this started out a great idea -- a fresh take on the whodunit -- but stretched much too long, losing the sense of suspense that makes these stories tick.

This book has about my favorite twist ever, and manages to be in a great world with a great story and great characters.

So this is the first of Miéville I've read, and I have to say it's made me keen to read more. This even though the book is very complicated, and the denouement had me frowning in confusion – I feel like the last quarter all unfolded too fast, or else that I wasn't taking enough time to read it. But regardless. This is more than a crime novel; it's an illustration of this weird concept Miéville has come up with, the uneasy coexistence of the cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma. These cities don't just intersect, but parts of them (the "crosshatched" areas) are parts of both, and citizens of each city go out of their way to "unsee" or "unsense" whatever's taking place in the other, lest they "breach" – the most grievous crime that exists in this society. It's really complicated, but as you read the novel it becomes clear how things work. It also becomes clear that the cities are kept apart as much by nationalism, capitalist ideology, as by geographical quirk; the fact that this setting is not quite divorced from our own world, and comments on social issues affecting our Eastern Europe as well as the one here, appealed to me. So for fans of fantasy or crime fiction (but preferably both) I really recommend this. Just to comment on the quality of the Kindle edition though, for some reason it always shows the name of Besźel as "Besel" (sometimes broken between the 's' and the 'e' over a line break), and the font had me thinking Ul Qoma was UI Qoma until about halfway through the novel. I can't really blame the publisher or the Kindle platform for my inability to decipher 'Ul Qoma', but misspelling 'Besźel'? Seriously? I guess Miéville depicted a place just too foreign for my Kindle, hey…

first 40% were a drag, after that it got interesting. i wanted more explanations about the world of the book. because the end of the book is quite a let down.

This book took far longer than it should have. Conceptually it is brilliant. China has the most fertile imagination I have come across since Neil Gaiman. However, as a narrator, there are failings. For many parts of the book I was literally pushing myself into reading it. Just for the ideas discussed in the book, I give it three stars. I know for a fact that in retrospect the book will be lauded by me, as I did with Perdido Street Station.

An irresistible concept -- the intertwined cities -- wrapped around a confusing detective story. Satisfying in the end, but looking back there was no resolution to the big question raised by the characters themselves, namely, how did the cities come to be this way?

So inventive and creative, and convoluted. Interesting, but not my favourite.