You Should Read The City & The City

the city and the City by China mievel has one of the most interesting and weird settings in recent memory the Twin Cities of beijel and alkoma except instead of these Twin Cities simply existing in close geographical proximity to each other they actually overlap the borders between the two cities are woven into each other you can find buildings in beijel neighbored by buildings in okoma and vice versa certain streets exist in both cities but have different names depending on if the street is considered to be in beijel or in all coma so why are they even considered two different cities aren't they just the same city you would think so except that there's a strange law in the Twin Cities that people who are in beijel must not interact with anything that is in all coma and vice versa the law is so strict that supposedly if you're in beijel and are caught gazing at a person or a landmark who is in Old coma then that's supposedly enough to constitute an illegal breach of the city's borders this law is enforced by the mysterious and Powerful organization known as breach who disappear anyone who unlawfully crosses the border between both of the Cities so even though beijel and alkoma buildings and landmarks are right next to each other and even though bejel and all coma citizens walk right by each other in the streets everyone in the Twin Cities is constantly pretending that they aren't right next to each other beijel and or coma residents and infrastructure is supposedly distinguishable by differences in architectural and fashion styles and citizens of the Twin Cities learn the skill of unseeing recognizing at a glance what they're not supposed to be looking at and then toad totally ignoring it to the point where it may as well not exist for them the culture of unseeing and not interacting with the counterparts in the other city is so ingrained into the Society of the Twin Cities that even though an outside Observer would earnestly tell you that everyone is in only one city that treating this place as two places is absolutely absurd it kind of is functionally to cities simply because that's what the people who live there treat it as the book explores the Twin Cities Through The Eyes of Inspector borlu a detective who has lived in the city of beijel his whole life and is forced to confront the borders between the cities when he is assigned to the case of a murdered woman all evidence seems to suggest that she was murdered in okoma but that the body was dumped in beijel it's a pretty straightforward murder mystery whodunit story and if that's all the book had to offer then it would still be fun in the same way that an episode of a murder mystery TV show is fun and worth a recommendation to fans of that genre but what elevates this novel is that it uses that murder mystery story as the driving vehicle to explore this setting borlu's investigation takes him on an adventure through both cities as there is one legal border crossing where breach allows people to cross from one city to the other through his eyes we witness the function philosophy and politics of the Twin Cities and in my opinion exploring this setting is the main appeal of the novel and I was very satisfied with the Panorama of the Twin Cities that this novel provides the city and the city has an incredibly intelligent and refreshing approach to its setting in this way for all intents and purposes it's set in the real world with the exception that the Twin Cities themselves are fictional despite having no mythical creatures fantasy races aliens magic advance technology nor even the sniff of anything Supernatural I find the Twin Cities to be a far far more interesting and bizarre setting than that of most fantasy and sci-fi stories I've read recently for me this novel reignited The Joy that I used to feel when exploring fantasy and sci-fi settings as a teenager back when those two genres were new and fresh to me and it made me want to seek out more novels that explore unique fictional places if simply hearing me describe the setting of this novel is enough to have you intrigued then you should absolutely pick up this book if you typically enjoy Urban fiction that is about giving a panoramic view of urban settings then you'll definitely enjoy this one if you're a fan of murder mystery stories then this is one of the stranger stories out there that you will most likely enjoy however if you're not intrigued by the setting and you don't also typically enjoy Urban fiction or murder mysteries then there's not much else that this novel has has to offer that you can't get better elsewhere so if you choose to seek this book out I encourage you to try finding it at a local library local independent bookstore or using one of the online retailers that I recommend a list of which you can find in the description that's the review and now I want to try something new for this channel this is the first video in a planned series called you should read which is a series of short spoiler-free recommendation videos but I'm also planning on starting a companion series called book club book club will essentially be my more detailed thoughts about the novel covered in you should read complete with full story spoilers however I also want to give you all the chance to read the novel beforehand and share your thoughts if you've read the city and the city then please give me your thoughts in the comments section of this video or send them to my business email with the subject line book club the city and the city in addition to my own more detailed thoughts about the novel I will also feature the most interesting thoughts and opinions that I get sent as well as offer some friendly discussion in response I want to give everyone who sees this video in January a chance to acquire and read the novel for themselves and to submit feedback so my current plan is to release the companion book club video for the city and the city in either April or early May so I'll make the cut off to send in your feedback the 10th of April to give enough time for people who need to get the novel shipped to them or who might be busy and not have that much time they can spend reading every day or who are just slow readers like me your comments can be just a sentence a paragraph or several paragraphs depending on what you want to say now depending on the volume of comments and the type of feedback I get submitted I may not feature everyone's comments so please don't write very very long and detailed analyzes only because I don't want anyone to put a huge amount of effort into something that I end up not featuring in the companion video I will be selecting the comments that get featured myself so this should go without saying but I'll say it anyway I won't be featuring any comments that contain abuse bigotry harmful misinformation or any other kind of unpleasantness absolutely feel free to criticize the novel if you didn't like it that won't disqualify your comment from being featured but you know just be mindful that this is a casual book reading series and that comes with a certain Vibe if you would like your thoughts to be anonymized for any reason then send them to my business email shown on screen and listed in the description and specify at the beginning of your message that you would like to remain anonymous is this going to be a regular thing yes my current plan is to release one you should read per month for at least the next few months and then also release the companion book club videos around three to four months after the counterparts have been released so you can expect a second you should read in February and in March and then in April you should hopefully get both a you should read and the first book club video which will be on the city and the city so if you would like to join in but can't commit to reading a book in the next couple of months for whatever reason or if my recommendation didn't make it sound like the book was for you don't worry about it because there will hopefully be plenty of opportunities to join in in the coming year is this replacing your video essays no I still plan on releasing long video essays hopefully at least one this year in fact however video essays are notoriously difficult to get done in a timely fashion especially for small creators like me so this is my attempt at trying to create smaller content that I can reliably release more frequently it's also a great way to feature all the books I read that I would love to recommend to you all but that I don't necessarily want to make a 30 minute to an hour long video about I also just love recommending books to people my favorite part of this channel is honestly hearing that people have read a book based on my recommendation and enjoyed it so this series is my way of hopefully making that happen more often how will patrons be charged for these videos my patrons won't be charged for any of my you should read videos before April however starting in April when the first book club video releases I will be switching my patreon from charging per video to charging per month and the patreon will then be funding all the content on my channel including my longer video essays which I will be working on in the background I've never been comfortable charging per month considering that my video is released so infrequently but assuming I am able to sustain this series and I'm reasonably confident that I am I'll be much more comfortable charging per month that being said I realize that the switch from per video to per month is a significant change so I'm announcing it now several months in advance of when it actually happens to give patrons plenty of time to decide if they want to change their support based on the new plan what kinds of books will you feature in this series you'll just have to wait and find out see you in February

Channel: CloudCuckooCountry

Views: 7,415

Keywords: China Mieville, The City and The City

Id: i2FSMg7fCWw

Length: 10min 5sec (605 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 09 2023