The City and the City, Part Two

I have other reading to do before the weekend and I knew the day would be a wash for writing anyway because of dental work, so I finished The City and the City. I am relieved to say it's actually pretty good most of the way through despite the kneejerk women-fridging. I have a lot of thoughts about it, but one thought is that the unfortunate interview and frankly bizarre discussion questions packaged in this edition aren't doint the book any favors. I do feel sorry for Mieville, because in the interview he sounds like he knows that everything he says in this is going to come off pompous and inflated, and he wishes he could do it differently and can't figure out how. And the questions -- suffice to say if I joined a book club and somebody thought we ought to structure our discussion around those questions, I'd quit. They sound just like the very worst study questions ever foisted on K-12 students.

But the book itself. I love the premise. The protagonist's fate is the only one possible from the very beginning of the book, which is slightly disappointing, because when I realized that was going to happen early on I was fairly confident that Mieville would take another path as he did when it became obvious what was going on with the third city and that was not it. And I wasn't satisfied with the particulars of some of the politics. But I did love the richness of detail, the fine distinctions between the cities that are nested in the same geography, stuff about material culture, and so forth. I suspect the metro system in Ul Qoma is based on the one in Prague, which is pleasant for me because it's the only really foreign city I know at all and I'll talk your ear off about the amazing metro stations. And even though it's jolting and hurts the brain, the way that he has more cultural hints pointing at the Central Asian end of Europe, while at the same time giving a Baltic feel to the landscape and the architecture, is actually more satisfying, at least to me, than it would have been if it felt like he was rendering a specific real region. It felt more real to me, as if instead of being an imperfect shadow of a real thing, it was its own thing with its own gravity and solidity.

As usual when a Westerner writes in an Eastern setting, there was a hint of condescension also. It may be unavoidable.

I'm a bad audience for crime fiction. All of its conventions annoy me. It's just how it is: some people like to read high fantasy, some people like crime fiction, some people like Regency romances, and here lately I'm kind of a grumpy old lady about everything. But I've never been a good audience for crime novels, and to be fair to everyone I usually just stay away. Most of my biggest complaints about this book derive from exactly this fact. And then most of the things I like about it derive from its complicated reality and its thickly layered detail.

nothing much getting done today or tonight

Aside from reading and a little housework, day wiped out by dentistry. Also night. Very annoying that quite minor procedures now seem to trigger weeks-long freakouts in my mouth. So for a while this evening I was in that kind of pain that makes you want to throw up, and now the tramadol has truly kicked in and I'm too druggy to be useful.

It's not the actual dental work. All that happened was my temporary crowns were pulled off quite easily, and the permanent (titanium!) ones put on. It's hard to describe this, but the teeth and innards of mhy mouth actually feel quite good: it's the nerves in my lower jaws that have gone nuts. It's the upper teeth that were worked on. It's always like this. I think it might be a reaction to the anesthetic. But not doing tghe anesthetic is not a viable alternative because my jaw nerves freak out like that when I have a little thing done without anesthetic too.

It will pass, in three or four weeks. This time I'm prepared with a Tramadol prescription.

I do love having precious metal teeth -- two gold and three platinum, now. No porcelain or resion teeth for me. Theyh just crack into little bits sooner rather than later, even with my fancy-dancy mouth guard. My mother didn't actually live to be my age, but at the age she did live to, she had like five teeth still actually in her head, and a verhy complicated ujpper plate to take up the slack. So dentistry's come a long ways in what it can do for people. Though my not smokng may have something to do with it too.

On another front, last Friday I did a dance I've been avoiding beczause of having to slide-turn and drag the feet in a way that was giving me trouble. And I had no trouble. After four years I can sayh I'm finally actually learning to dance.

On a still further front, apparently comfort food is now parsnip gratin with a sauce made of chicken drippings and a bunch of vegetable and citrus peels and ends, deeply reduced and strained and chicken added to it.