(less a review than an impression)

I have my brother Greg to thank for putting me onto China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station, which was first published fifteen years ago (pardon me, accordingly, if this content is old news in these precincts), and which I completed during my homeward commute this afternoon. While the story is at times dauntingly complex for that kind of distracted reading, and while the opening chapters seemed at times like heavy lifting, I was taken by the sheer atmosphere of the tale, set in a fantastical teeming metropolis called “New Crobuzon” (New? I’m put in mind of P.G. Wodehouse’s quip about being interned in Upper Silesia early in WWII: “If this is Upper Silesia, what on earth must Lower Silesia be like?”), where multiple species live and work and fuck in such surroundings as might have resulted had Ron Paul, Jules Verne, Charles Dickens, H.R. Giger and the city fathers of Calcutta done the urban planning, with substantial input from Union Carbide, Exxon and Monsanto regarding land use and environmental remediation policies. A brilliant, unorthodox scientist inadvertently releases a kind of plague upon the city, which is already abundantly provided with vicissitudes, whereupon he, his chums, and a few allies of convenience attempt some remediation of their own. The city’s political bosses and its criminal underworld also work to this end, albeit at cross purposes to our hero. Also, there’s a very large spider thingie that communicates in free-associative surrealist poetry, and is crazy about scissors. And there’s a brief appearance by the Ambassador of Hell, played by Laird Cregar. It’s a compelling feat of world-building, and a ripping yarn. Warmly recommended,

cordially,