Book Review
Aug. 25th, 2010 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariThe Scar
by China Mieville
I was blown away by this book, as much as I was by Perdido Street Station. China Mieville may be one of the best writers ever. This novel takes place in the same world as Perdido Street Station, but it is set in vastly different geographical areas and does not share any characters with the earlier book (except for a brief passing mention). The main character, Bellis Coldwine, is a translator on her way to the colonies, in flight from a very dangerous situation in New Crobuzon. Yet she is already looking forward to the time when she can eventually return to her home. However, her ship is captured by pirates, and she finds herself press-ganged into a new life in the secret pirate city of Armada. Armada is a nomadic city made from a huge flotilla of refitted and built up ships, alternately drifting and traveling on the vast sea. Bellis' intense desire to escape Armada and return to New Crobuzon results in her becoming involved in the schemes and conspiracies of several individuals and factions in Armada.
The Scar was one of the most fascinating and engrossing books I have read in a while. Everything in it was so interesting. There were strange creatures, intricate explorations of magic and speculative physics, complex and compelling characters, and a plot full of surprises. Mieville also makes elegant use of scars and scarring as a metaphor and a motif throughout the book. I did occasionally find Bellis a bit too aloof and self-centered at times, but I never got tired of her.
The Scar is not just a title, or a set of motifs, it is also a place. In a remote place in a treacherous and distant ocean, there is a rip in reality, a chasm that spews possible energy. This makes all the possibilities of an event present simultaneously - the most likely ones are more strongly present, the less likely are more faint. Throughout most of the book, two of Armada's most powerful leaders are driving the city towards the Scar, the culmination of a decades-long project. They are hoping to tap the possible energy and gain untold power for Armada. However, because of an unusual warning the city receives shortly before reaching their destination, Armada turns back.
The ending of the book is thus left rather open-ended, and the nature of the final events in the story left me unsure of what had actually happened. It's a little bit like "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" meets "Heart of Darkness" meets Schrodinger's Cat. There is something very unsatisfying about it all.
However, there is also something completely elegant and brilliant about the ending. Armada was journeying towards and very nearly reached The Scar, which emits possibilities, allowing them to exist simultaneously in their varying degrees of likelihood. And the open-endedness, the ambiguities of the ending do pretty much the same thing in a literary way. And that is incredibly satisfying in a very different and unusual way. Wow.
by China Mieville
I was blown away by this book, as much as I was by Perdido Street Station. China Mieville may be one of the best writers ever. This novel takes place in the same world as Perdido Street Station, but it is set in vastly different geographical areas and does not share any characters with the earlier book (except for a brief passing mention). The main character, Bellis Coldwine, is a translator on her way to the colonies, in flight from a very dangerous situation in New Crobuzon. Yet she is already looking forward to the time when she can eventually return to her home. However, her ship is captured by pirates, and she finds herself press-ganged into a new life in the secret pirate city of Armada. Armada is a nomadic city made from a huge flotilla of refitted and built up ships, alternately drifting and traveling on the vast sea. Bellis' intense desire to escape Armada and return to New Crobuzon results in her becoming involved in the schemes and conspiracies of several individuals and factions in Armada.
The Scar was one of the most fascinating and engrossing books I have read in a while. Everything in it was so interesting. There were strange creatures, intricate explorations of magic and speculative physics, complex and compelling characters, and a plot full of surprises. Mieville also makes elegant use of scars and scarring as a metaphor and a motif throughout the book. I did occasionally find Bellis a bit too aloof and self-centered at times, but I never got tired of her.
The Scar is not just a title, or a set of motifs, it is also a place. In a remote place in a treacherous and distant ocean, there is a rip in reality, a chasm that spews possible energy. This makes all the possibilities of an event present simultaneously - the most likely ones are more strongly present, the less likely are more faint. Throughout most of the book, two of Armada's most powerful leaders are driving the city towards the Scar, the culmination of a decades-long project. They are hoping to tap the possible energy and gain untold power for Armada. However, because of an unusual warning the city receives shortly before reaching their destination, Armada turns back.
The ending of the book is thus left rather open-ended, and the nature of the final events in the story left me unsure of what had actually happened. It's a little bit like "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" meets "Heart of Darkness" meets Schrodinger's Cat. There is something very unsatisfying about it all.
However, there is also something completely elegant and brilliant about the ending. Armada was journeying towards and very nearly reached The Scar, which emits possibilities, allowing them to exist simultaneously in their varying degrees of likelihood. And the open-endedness, the ambiguities of the ending do pretty much the same thing in a literary way. And that is incredibly satisfying in a very different and unusual way. Wow.
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Date: 2010-08-26 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-26 03:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-27 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-27 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-26 09:43 pm (UTC)If your copy of Iron Council is on loan, I can hand off my copy at the September game.
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Date: 2010-08-26 11:30 pm (UTC)No worries about the book. I'm content to wait. Reading Mieville is a bit like eating great baklava - so wonderful, but also so rich that you wouldn't want to eat it every day or even every week.