Peeking into the rock

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.

Are any of my Bay Area folks going to Potlatch and would like to share driving and/or a room? I might be able to afford it if so. ($119/day room, with either two large beds -- $60 each: $50 contvention fee: and whatever it costs to drive to Seatttle, split among however many drivers: that's not too bad)

I had a very good time at Potlatch the last time it was in San Francisco. I get the impression it has settled in Seattle permanently. Or maybe it's alternating between Seattle and Portland now? Anyway, it's farther away and I have a hard time allowing myself to do things like that when the nice fellow doesn't get to.

I have a little voice this morning but I'm still wobbly, possibly from not eating much for a couple days. I still don't feel like eating. Zak lent me some of his precious codeine syrup (it can be hard to get in the US, though I think my doctor would have no problem prescribing it for a cough like mine) so my ribs are getting a little rest. But I still ache when I cough. Oh, and I have now lost 43 pounds. Which puts me back on schedule, oddly.

Anyway. Potlatch, anybody?