Iron Council

Iron Council by China Mieville     576 pages

"Following Perdido Street Station and The Scar, acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey hardcover debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries us back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon—this time, decades later.

It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places.
In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope.
In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon’s most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council. . . ."

This is the summary from Goodreads, which I'm using because I have no idea how to summarize the plot of this book in a way that makes any sense at all.

Most people I talk to about China Mieville's books either love his books (like I do) or they don't like them at all. I have never met someone who has read one and said "meh, he's ok." This book is one that makes more sense if you have read the other books mentioned, although they don't give you too much to go on. If I tell someone about Mieville's books, I tend to say, "you just have to lean back and relax into the story. Just go with it because he's never really going to explain anything and your mind will just go with the flow if you let it."

The first time I read this book, I felt it was weaker than Perdido Street Station and The Scar. I hadn't picked it up for a few years, but my re-read this time felt the same way. While I like some of the concepts here, especially the one character who is able to make increasingly complex golems, I found the story just never quite caught me in the same way as some of his other books. I wanted to love it, but just didn't. It has a lot of the politics that you expect if you'd read his book. It has the complex characters and storylines and interesting (and flawed) characters. But . . . there's something about it that just does always come together smoothly. So, worth a re-read, but not my favorite.

Perdido Street Station

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville.  623 pages.

I try not to do this, but this time, I'm using the Goodreads summary of this book:  "Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies the city of New Crobuzon, where the unsavory deal is stranger to no one--not even to Isaac, a gifted and eccentric scientist who has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before encountered. Though the Garuda's request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger. Soon an eerie metamorphosis will occur that will permeate every fiber of New Crobuzon--and not even the Ambassador of Hell will challenge the malignant terror it evokes."

Honestly, I don't know if I could summarize what this book is about, because it's about so many things: love, and science, and horror and desperation, and (perhaps) hope.  You can look at the summary above and think, "A Garuda?  What's that?"  The garuda isn't the only creature you're meet here.  New Crobuzon is a city of many races and species, including Khepri, Cactacae, humans, and many, many others.

This is one of my favorite books, and one that I have re-read many times.  I have found that when I talk to people about China Mieville's books, he seems to be a somewhat polarizing author; either people really like his work, or they don't.  I haven't found many people who have a middle-of-the road opinion.   With this book, the first in the "Bas-Lag" series, Mieville doesn't explain a lot.  Instead, you just start with the viewpoint of Yagharek, a garuda who comes seeking the help of Isaac, a scientist who dabbles in all kinds of theories. And, the story progresses from there.  You're plunged into a world you don't know anything about, full of characters and things that aren't explained.  When I tell people about this book, I say, just sit back and relax into the story. Don't worry about what things are; just let the story wash over you and draw you in.  You'll figure it out as you go along.

Or maybe not.  Just because I love this book (and admittedly, have a huge author crush on China Mieville.  The first time I met him at a signing, I thought I was going to pass out because my heart was beating so hard), I have met people who can't get through this book.  And that's fine, of course.

I think one of the things I love most about this book is Mieville's writing style.  He can combine the most interesting words into fluid phrases that shape a place, or a character, into being.  I read one review on Goodreads where someone wrote,
"I was warned about the linguistic complexity of this story. It is true -Mieville's prose can be dense and complicated and at times deliciously pompously pretentious, studded with adverbs and adjectives. Usually I would contemptuously and exasperatedly shrug my shoulders and walk away from that. 

However, Mieville does something amazing with his fascinating language and melodic flow of narration (especially Yagharek's interludes), making me love it in a perversely masochistic way while reaching for the dictionary."  (reviewer Nataliya)

Definitely.  I feel like every time I read this book, I see something new, or understand another part of the story that I hadn't quite grasped before.  His books aren't easy reads, giving you smooth storylines and characters you love. Instead, I find that his books challenge me to stretch my brain around ideas, and imagine the worlds and people he creates, and then challenge myself, asking if I truly do understand just what he's writing about.  He's a fantastically intelligent person and is actively involved in left-wing politics in the United Kingdom.  He published his PhD thesis on Marxism and international law as a book.  I find that his world view and political background do work their way into his stories, but I never feel like I'm being beaten over the head with his views.  Instead, I find myself immersed in a world filled with fantastical, awful, amazing things and characters, where I just savor my reading.  And if there are some politics mixed in there, fine with me.  

The Last Days of New Paris

The Last Days of New Paris by China Mieville.  205 pages.

I usually have no problem writing a summary of a book. However, this time, I am bowing out and giving in to using Goodreads.  "1941. In the chaos of wartime Marseilles, American engineer—and occult disciple—Jack Parsons stumbles onto a clandestine anti-Nazi group, including Surrealist theorist André Breton. In the strange games of the dissident diplomats, exiled revolutionaries, and avant-garde artists, Parsons finds and channels hope. But what he unwittingly unleashes is the power of dreams and nightmares, changing the war and the world forever.

1950. A lone Surrealist fighter, Thibault, walks a new, hallucinogenic Paris, where Nazis and the Résistance are trapped in unending conflict, and the streets are stalked by living images and texts—and by the forces of Hell. To escape the city, he must join forces with Sam, an American photographer intent on recording the ruins, and make common cause with a powerful, enigmatic figure of chance and rebellion: the Exquisite Corpse."

See what I mean --- I don't think I could write anything that explains this any better.  Because, frankly, I feel like I'm not sure, after finishing this book, if I could adequately explain this book.  The story asks the question:"Can living artwork die? Can it live before it dies?"     In this book, yes. Living artwork, in all its strange beauty, can live (and attack).  I usually love this author's books, but this one took me a while to get through.  While I know some about the Surrealist art movement, and recognized some of the art and artists, I felt compelled to keep looking things up.   And, feeling like somehow, I just wasn't quite smart enough for this book.  I feel like if I were more grounded in my art history, I would have found the book to be more moving, or emotionally compelling.  As it was, I found the book fascinating, but much like a piece of art that I think I like, but can't quite explain why.  

So, good book, but an odd book.  If this is the first time you've heard of this author, I would recommend starting with a different book of his.   If this book sounds fascinating to you, then you might want to read this from the New Yorker.  And this from NPR.  Especially the first paragraph of that NPR article.

And, I feel like it's appropriate to add this here -- one of my favorite works of art, which happens to be by Rene Magritte, a surrealist artist.    This is called "Time Transfixed," and it hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.  I used to go to the Art Institute and search it out, just to visit one of my favorites each time I went there.

This Census-Taker by China Mieville

This Census-Taker by China Mieville.  206 pages (in the edition I read, which was a galley).

This is Mieville's newest book, a novella-length story about a boy who is left alone with his father, an angry (and perhaps demented) man.  The book begins, "A boy ran down a hill path screaming.  The boy was I.  He held his hands up and out in front of him as if he'd dipped them in pain and was coming to make a picture, to press them down to paper, but all there was on him was dirt.  There was no blood on his palms."   The boy has witnessed a traumatic event, but is confused about the details. Has his father killed his mother?  And when a stranger knocks on his door, is he friend of foe?

This book has been blowing up on the Internet lately, and I've been finding it everywhere from NPR to The Huffington Post, Slate, and beyond.  NPR calls it "A Quiet Book With A Murderous Heart."   Definitely read that article on NPR if you have time; it's a bit of a love letter.  

This story is like a mystery wrapped in a fairy tale wrapped in the kind of story you just can't classify.  Does that make sense?  You never get a clear sense of place, although you have bits and pieces.  There is a town.  The boy and his parents live on a hill.  Things have a post-apocalyptic tinge to them, but that's not the point of it all.  The thing is:  you are left to puzzle out if there has been a killing or a leaving, and then who it really is who knocks on the door.

Typical of this author, many things are never explained.  There are shadowy hints, and there's a bit of magic (the keys the boy's father makes, for example, which don't unlock doors, but instead make things happen).   Seeing things through the eyes of this boy, you can't always be sure of what's true, or what's real; it has to be enough that it is real and true to him.

Really, the NPR article written by Jason Sheehan puts it more beautifully than I ever could.  "This Census Taker is a small, quiet and gentle book with murder at its center. It's a beautiful chocolate that you bite into and find filled with blood. It is Miéville at his most sparse, his most controlled and restrained — giving us a world defined by a broken carburetor, the sound of a walk being swept, a pantry full of mushrooms and spiders, the distant flickering of neon. And while the blind spots of the boy at its heart — the things he does not know, the questions he does not ask — may drive you crazy, the questions that Miéville leaves itching in your brain at the turn of the final page are almost as interesting as the (few) truths that have been uncovered."

Beautifully written, this book takes the reader into a place that I found to be uncomfortable and strangely appealing.  I am a huge fan of this author, and that is what I enjoy about many of his books (the ones I have read over and over again, and savor each time).  I like that things aren't explained and the worlds aren't comfortable, and the story can be a bit sinister or unnerving, and I love how the author's writing and use of language transports me as I turn the pages.