To be honest, when I started reading The City and the City, I was expecting it to be similar to the novels we’ve read before. For me, it was more of a detector story which I didn’t find much enjoyment from. The idea that both cities are separated by cultural differences isn’t very science fiction for […]
The City & The City was very interesting to me. I love crime novels and loved that aspect of it. I however, was a little disappointed with the ending, and that Orciny wasn’t real because I also love fantasy novels. One thing I liked a lot about the book though was how it took place […]
The City & The City by China Mieville ends with the following passage: “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 […]
I thought that the ending of the book was very interesting. Orciny not being real was interesting I think it makes it a little more confusing and a less enjoyable of an ending. I thought that there could have been more of a description of why things were happening when Borlu is doing his investigation […]
As I was reading the end of China Mieville’s novel The City & The City I was so engrossed in the story that I couldn’t put the novel down. My favorite aspect of the novel is that at it’s core it is a great detective story. The ending of the novel was my favorite part. The […]
As I read the last section of this book, what stuck out to me is the crossing from Ul Qoma to Beszel where Yolanda gets shot (p. 231). The image is the closest thing I could find to fit the scene. The scene speaks to me like a movie where everything is happening so fast […]
I have finally completed the novel The City and the City by China Meiville and I have some things to say on how it ended. First of all, as I talked about in class today, I was disappointed that Orciny did not actually exist and was merely a fabrication to dupe Mahalia to help with […]
I have to say, after finishing China Miéville’s The City and The City, I was really impressed of how he represented the barriers that people face in our society today. For instance at the end of the novel, we find out that Breach is the one who controls the barrier between Besźel and Ul Qoma […]
So I like to do this really self-destructive thing called “reading the end of the novel before starting it from the beginning”. So I usually pick the last two chapters or so and just read them. Which is really not smart when I think about it because then it’s taking from the fun of reading […]
Its really striking that genrally the public in The City and The City chooses not to see the events ans establishments around them. It almost seems like a ridiculous idea at first, especially when its in relation to an entire city. At the same time as people we choose not to see things all the time. […]
What strikes me about this story is that it is not striking. In its two main aspects, this story seems to be neither here nor there. These aspects are its being a (1) detective story and (2) an ontological mystery of either one or two cities. We eventually find out that this ontological mystery is resolved when […]
How can one possibly not take in their entire environment? Constantly “unseeing” would be just impossible. It is in our human nature to observe and notice. But is it? In China Mieville’s novel The City & The City the art of unseeing is really brought to our attention. However, how much of this do we […]
I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading Mielville’s The City & the City. After the first chapter, I thought, “Okay, so it’s a murder mystery novel.” What raised more of a question than the murder itself was at the end of the first chapter when the investigator mentioned the elderly lady. “An elderly […]
The City & The City by China Mieville is proving to be thought provoking, but in a good way. Two cities (or is it really just one city?) are coexisting within the same geographical landscape yet completely separate. Confusing! What kind of makes this premise possible though is the idea of seeing and unseeing. Although the “two” […]
When I first started reading China Meiville’s novel The City & The City I was instantly drawn in because it had the backbone of one of my favorite genres of fiction: the detective story. Now to have a great detective story/mystery you need to have certain elements: 1. A shocking crime: We begin this novel with […]
Having read a large amount of the novel The City and the City by China Meiville, the concept of these two cities living in such close proximity to each other and each trying their hardest to ignore the others existence is just fascinating and baffling to me. We discussed in class on what is actually […]
As we discussed in class yesterday of how China Miéville considers his work to be “weird fiction,” I believe this relates to the hybrid genre we discussed briefly when examining Margaret Atwood. For instance, I mentioned that I attended a presentation for my fiction class about how writers can create their stories by combining mutliple genres into one story. […]
Forming an opinion on whether Besz and Ul Qoma are one in the same city (and their differences are only conventional) or two different cities (and their differences are real yet fantastic/mysterious) tells us something interesting about how we look at morality (bear with me here). Initially, most of us would be inclined to say that […]
This story is intriging to me. It reminds me of the old TV show Dragnet. For some reason Tyador reminds me of Harry Morgans character from the show. Sort of snarky and thorough. Tyador seems to know what he is doing and he seems interested in this case. I have a feeling that this case […]