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Weirdness in The City &
The City
person in the other city makes Breach to take over the case. No matter how guilty is the killed
man, here the act of breaching becomes the highlighted flaw. As Borlu breaches he is taken
under control of Breach. The ones who are included to Breach structure never return. This is
another weird situation. Even a small act of breach breaks off a person from his family, city
and life. He has no chance to turn back to his normal life. Borlu’s breach uncovers the
mystery of Breach but not all the way. The reader becomes a little enlightened about the
structure of Breach. Citizens of each city are supposed to unsee the other city. However, as a
person is taken under surveillance by Breach he becomes freed from the laws and rules of the
city he belongs. In Breach the borders become meaningless. They can travel in each city
without any barrier. Borlu defines
his astonishment as;
I tried to unsee them but there could be no uncertainty: that source of smell I had been
unsmelling was our destination. ‘Walk’ he said, and he walked me through the
membrane between cities; I lifted my foot in Ul Qoma, put it down again in Bezsel,
where breakfast was. (Mieville, 2011, p.303).
The Breach has authority to move and to intervene in each city. “Everything I had been
unseeing now jostled into sudden close-up” (Mieville, 2011, p.303). Borlu is freed from the
boundaries, the sanction and fear of breaching. For the first time in his life, he sees and lives a
normal life. The freedom confuses him and he is frightened by the sense of freedom. The
weirdness of the rules becomes clearer. Borlu’s life turns into a new form. Breaching used to
be a terrible crime in the past. Now he travels in each city freely. The Breach used to be an
unseen, unknown force and it caused a terrible sense of fear in him. Now he has become a
part of this force. Some of the mysteries are unrevealed by the end of the novel.
3.
Conclusion
Miéville tries to give a mysterious atmosphere to
The City &The City. It can be suggested that
he succeeds to achieve the mysterious atmosphere at some places. It is a fact that the
weirdness in
The City &The City gives an attractive mood to the novel. In this respect,
Miéville reaches his purpose. However, the weirdness of the novel keeps the story at the
background. It is hard to classify
The City &The City in a certain form. Farley supports this
idea as; “Mr. Miéville specializes in what he bills as "weird fiction" fantastic tales that draw
on horror, science fiction and fantasy, but that don't fit comfortably into any of those genres”
(Farley, 2009). It is evident that the most striking feature of
The City &The City is the
weirdness. “The term "weird fiction" has its roots in the work of authors such as H.P.
Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote for the pulp magazine Weird Tales in the
1920s and 1930s” (Farley, 2009). Miéville is a weird fiction writer of twentieth century. But
his type has been questioned by Cheryl Morgan. Morgan asks Miéville; “Did you deliberately
set out to create a new genre?” Miéville
responds as;
It is true that I am conscious of writing in a tradition that blurs the boundaries between
three fantastic genres: supernatural horror, fantasy, and science fiction. I have always
been of the opinion that you can't make firm distinctions between those three.The writing
that I really like is what has been called "weird fiction." If people ask me what I write,
that is the label I give them. The weird fiction axis of people like Lovecraft, Lindsay,
Clarke Ashton Smith, and William Hope Hodgson exists at the intersection and you
really can't say that it is horror not fantasy, or fantasy not science fiction, or whatever. It
is about an aesthetic of the fantastic; you alienate and shock the reader. That's what I
reallylike (Morgan, 2001).
Firat Yildiz
266
Parla claims that there is no total harmony between a work of literature and a literary genre.
There is some difference, innovation, hybridity and sometimes there is revolt in the work of
literature against the genre (Parla, 2012, p.37). In this respect,
The City &The City can be
overviewed through Parla’s approach.
The City & The City is classified as weird fiction
however there is horror, fantasy and weirdness in it. Interestingly in an interview with
Morgan, Miéville suggests that; “what I do is give the books a political texture that is quite
realistic, cynical, and brutal” (Morgan, 2001). The world in
The City &The City is not a
fantastic one, however; it is hard to claim that there is any sort of realism in the setting and
actions that take place in the two cities. All aspects about two cities could be evaluated as
means of weirdness. “The cities have different airports, international dialling codes, internet
links. Cars navigate instinctively around one another; police officers cooperate but are not
allowed to stop or investigate crimes committed in the other city” (Moorcock, 2012). All
aspects of the life style are structured around weirdness. Two different cities share the same
environment. Moorcock tries to oversimplify this circumstance as follows; “Playing off the
current theoretical physicists' notion that more than one object can occupy the same physical
space, Miéville demonstrates a disciplined intelligence reminiscent of the late Barrington
Bayley (who specialised brilliantly in scientific implausibilities), helping us to hang on to the
idea that the city of Beszel exists in the same space as the city of Ul Qoma” (Moorcock,
2012). Even such a scientific explanation does not simplify the weirdness and impracticability
of the world that Miéville illustrated in
The City &The City. Moorcock suggests that; “Subtly,
almost casually, Miéville constructs a metaphor for modern life in which our habits of
"unseeing" allow us to ignore that which does not directly affect our familiar lives” (2009).
This interpretation is a rationalisation of the weirdness in the cities. It is clear that Miéville
aims to generate a weird story and he manages what he desires. Covering the weirdness with
different interpretations does not help
to conceal the weirdness in The City &The City.
References
I.
Farley, C. (2009, May 16). A (Strange) Tale of Two Cities.
The Wall Street Journal.
Retrieved December 20, 2015, from
http://www.wsj.com/
Lovecraft, H. P. (1973).
Supernatural Horror in Literature.
New York, Dover.
Mieville, C. (2009). Weird Fiction. In M. Bould, A. Butler, A. Roberts, & S. Vint (Eds.),
The
Routledge Companion to Science Fiction . London: Routledge.
Mieville, C. (2011).
The City &The City. London: Pan Books.
II.
Morgan, C. (2001, October 1). Interview: China Miéville. Retrieved December 20,
2015, from
http://www.strangehorizons.com/
Moorcock, M. (2012).
London peculiar and other nonfiction (A. Kausch, Ed.). Chicago: PM
Press.
Moorcock, M. (2009, May 30). The spaces in between. The Guardian. Retrieved December
15, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/
Parla, J. (2012).
Don Kişot’tan Bugüne Roman. İstanbul: İletişim Yay nc l k.
Simmons, D. (2013).
New Critical Essays on H. P. Lovecraft. London. Palgrave Macmillan.