Perdido Street Station

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• Perdido Street Station

  Review-a-Day Saturday, April 14th, 2007 Voice your opinion about this review by posting a comment on the Powells.com blog Perdido Street Station by China Mieville Put On Your Thinking Cap A review by David Hannon China Mieville has a B.A. in social a ... (read full critics)

  powells published on Mon, 6 Sep 2010

10 Reviews

• 2 people find this helpful

  

  I'm really ambivalent about this intriguing effort of Mieville. The story line is a trifle slow, but the writing and characterization is richly textured and beautiful.

  It's more - a work of art. Mieville engages you, makes you really interact with his novel, challenges you as a reader, and l ... (continue)

  I'm really ambivalent about this intriguing effort of Mieville. The story line is a trifle slow, but the writing and characterization is richly textured and beautiful.

  It's more - a work of art. Mieville engages you, makes you really interact with his novel, challenges you as a reader, and leads you down a dark and uncertain path. Definitely worth the read, but don't be surprised if you can't decide whether you actually like this book or not.

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  guaddess said on Aug 3, 2007 | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  Really Weird Stuff

  I'll try to write this review in English, even though it's not my native language. Perdido Street Station is the best fantasy novel I have read in a very long time, if not ever. And it is made of really, really weird stuff. Forget elves, dwarfs and all the standard Tolkien cliches, there is none of ... (continue)

  I'll try to write this review in English, even though it's not my native language. Perdido Street Station is the best fantasy novel I have read in a very long time, if not ever. And it is made of really, really weird stuff. Forget elves, dwarfs and all the standard Tolkien cliches, there is none of those here. Instead you will find a bleak, distopian, odd world which seems the result of a very disturbing feverish dream. And if you share my taste for really imaginative products of speculative fiction you'll love it. This novel is a study on transitions, on hybrid zones, on how the very disparate can make a perfect whole, ultimately on the beauty of the mongrel. As Derkhan, the true witness of the story says, "There is some mighty godsdamned weird stuff going on here".

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  Vatara said on Sep 22, 2010 | Add your feedback

• 

  Miéville, China (2000). Perdido Street Station. New York: Del Rey. 2003.

  Devo ringraziare pubblicamente Il barbarico re, assiduo frequentatore di queste pagine, per avermi fatto conoscere questo autore (ho letto anche, e recensirò tra poco, Embassytown, l’ultimo suo romanzo, un capolavoro).

  China ... (continue)

  Miéville, China (2000). Perdido Street Station. New York: Del Rey. 2003.

  Devo ringraziare pubblicamente Il barbarico re, assiduo frequentatore di queste pagine, per avermi fatto conoscere questo autore (ho letto anche, e recensirò tra poco, Embassytown, l’ultimo suo romanzo, un capolavoro).

  China Miéville è inglese, è nato nel 1972 e – per quanto incredibile – il suo non è un nom de plume. Il che la dice lunga sui suoi genitori. Laureato a Cambridge (BA in antropologia sociale) e addottorato alla London School of Economics (MA e PhD in relazioni internazionali), Miéville è impegnato in politica con la formazione marxista del Socialist Workers Party (si è anche candidato alle elezioni nel 2001, senza molto successo: 459 voti, l’1,2% degli elettori del suo collegio londinese).

  Questi sarebbero soltanto pettegolezzi se non aiutassero a capire meglio i romanzi di Miéville: China è un creatore di mondi e in questo il materialismo storico è molto utile, perché orienta a dare uno spessore, una profondità alle relazioni sociali che fanno da contrappeso importante allo sviluppo della vicenda (che pure, in un romanzo “di genere”, è essenziale).

  In questo monumentale romanzo siamo in una megalopoli (New Crobuzon) sul pianeta Bas-Lag. In questo “altrove” la tecnologia è vagamente post-vittoriana (e qui l’essere marxisti aiuta molto) e ricorda vagamente il filone steampunk cui appartengono The Difference Engine di William Gibson e Bruce Sterling e The Diamond Age di Neal Stephenson). Soltanto che questo mondo è popolato, oltre che da umani, da una serie di altre specie aliene interessanti e di essere pluridimensionali. Ma non vi voglio confondere le idee, né rovinarvi la lettura.

  Il ‘protagonista del romanzo è uno scienziato reietto e questo consente a Miéville alcune considerazioni interessanti sull’accademia e sulla natura della ricerca (il riferimento è alle posizioni sul Kindle):

  [...] how much “analysis” was just description—often bad description—hiding behind obfuscatory rubbish. [488]

  “See, if you think that matter and therefore the unified force under investigation are essentially static, then falling, flying, rolling, changing your mind, casting a spell, growing older, moving, are basically deviations from an essential state. Otherwise, you think that motion is part of the fabric of ontology, and the question’s how best to theorize that. You can tell where my sympathies lie. Staticists would say I’m misrepresenting them, but fuck it. [2884]

  The process of explaining his theoretical approach was consolidating his ideas, making him formulate his approach with a tentative rigour. [2900]

  After only two weeks of research, something extraordinary happened in Isaac’s mind. The reconceptualization came to him so simply that he did not at first realize the scale of his insight. It seemed a thoughtful moment like many others, in the course of a whole internal scientific dialogue. A sense of genius did not descend on Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin in a cold shock of brilliant light. Instead, as he gnawed the top of a pencil one day, there was a moment of vaguely verbalized thought along the lines of or wait a minute maybe you could do it like this … [3669]

  La complessità della società di New Crobuzon resta sullo sfondo di una vicenda appassionante e con forti tinte horror, ma non per questo è uno degli aspetti meno rilevanti del libro. La fantascienza, al suo meglio, ci ha sempre aiutato a pensare alla contingenza del reale e alla pluralità del possibile, e questo è vero anche per Miéville. Come è anche vero (la lezione dello straniamento brechtiano) che vedere vicende umane/troppo umane incarnate in protagonisti e società aliene ci aiuta a coglierne l’assurdità e l’intollerabile ingiustizia.

  Non posso dire molto di più senza rovinarvi il piacere della scoperta. Fatevei coraggio, davanti alle oltre 1000 pagine, e leggetelo.

  * * *

  Olrtre a quelle che ho già introdotto nel corpo della recensione, ho qualche altra piccola perla da proporvi (faccio sempre riferimento alla posizione sul Kindle):

  Vermishank was not fat, but he was coated from his jowls down in a slight excess layer, a swaddling of dead flesh like a corpse’s. [3272]

  “Davinia?” he answered. His voice was a masterpiece of insinuation. In one word he told his secretary that he was surprised to have her interrupt him against his instructions, but that his trust in her was great, and he was quite sure she had an excellent reason for disobeying, which she had better tell him immediately. [4555]

  But for the most part, as long as payments were made and violence did not spill out of the rooms in which it had been paid for, the militia kept out. [5681]

  [...] as their skin became parchment and their blood ink. [6615]

  It is a work of such beauty that my soul wept. [6763]

  My sustenance is information. My interventions are hidden. I increase as I learn. I compute, so I am. [7748]

  [...] there was no moral accounting that lessened the horror of what she was doing. [9884]

  ” [...] Whichever, the Council don’t care about killing off humans or any others, if it’s . . . useful. It’s got no empathy, no morals,” Isaac continued, pushing hard at a resistant piece of metal. “It’s just a . . . a calculating intelligence. Cost and benefit. It’s trying to . . . maximize itself. It’ll do whatever it has to—it’ll lie to us, it’ll kill—to increase its own power.” [10474]

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  Boris Limpopo said on Oct 23, 2011 | Add your feedback

• Perdido Street Station

  This book blew my mind. For someone who has spent much of their life reading bog standard fantasy, this was a real eye-opener. The book shows a vast imagination in linking typical fantasy and horror tropes with a modern urban sensibility. On one level, you just think wow, what has Mieville create ... (continue)

  This book blew my mind. For someone who has spent much of their life reading bog standard fantasy, this was a real eye-opener. The book shows a vast imagination in linking typical fantasy and horror tropes with a modern urban sensibility. On one level, you just think wow, what has Mieville created (and it seems so obvious that why hasn't someone else come up with it before), and on an other level you read into the political subtexts and the criticisms of capitalist government, organised crime, their linkage and so on.
  Anyone who has any interest in speculative fiction, in fact anyone who has any interest in any kind of fiction at at all should read this book.

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  Andy said on Dec 13, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  This sociological steampunk novel starts as though intended as an examination of life in a standard developed "alt. fantasy" melting pot, but inexplicably degenerates into serviceable urban dungeon crawling.

  The best Planescape(TM) book you'll ever read, provided you're willing to overlook the co ... (continue)

  This sociological steampunk novel starts as though intended as an examination of life in a standard developed "alt. fantasy" melting pot, but inexplicably degenerates into serviceable urban dungeon crawling.

  The best Planescape(TM) book you'll ever read, provided you're willing to overlook the convenience of the half-Douglas Adams, half-Albert Einstein concept of "crisis energy".

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  calebuck said on Oct 19, 2009 | Add your feedback

• *** This comment contains spoilers! ***

  

  beautiful, unpredictable, sceneries are easily visualized. characters are uncommon, though very "real", each one in his or her own way. nothing happens "for story's sake", you can easily believe every page of it.
  so sorry for the way it ended... i wish i could fly so badly, i wanted so much the Ga ... (continue)

  beautiful, unpredictable, sceneries are easily visualized. characters are uncommon, though very "real", each one in his or her own way. nothing happens "for story's sake", you can easily believe every page of it.
  so sorry for the way it ended... i wish i could fly so badly, i wanted so much the Garuda to go back in the sky!!!!

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  Chiara L'Onironauta said on Oct 11, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

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Book Details

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• English Books
• Mass Market Paperback 640 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0345459407
• ISBN-13: 9780345459404
• Publisher: Del Rey
• Pub date: Jul 29, 2003
• Dimensions: 1097 mm x 710 mm x 194 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Paperback, Hardcover, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages 和書, Libros en Español, Libri Italiani, Česká kniha, Polskie Książki

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• China Miéville Fan Club (15)
• The Collective (146)

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