Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Mieville writes as a purveyor of the weird. More importantly he writes about grand settings through the eyes of small people with little or now actual power to influence their worlds. Perdido Street Station, one of his earlier works, resonates with these themes just as much as The City and The City or Kraken.

Others have called him a writer of the 'new weird' and I suppose you could call him that too, but I think it's to miss the point of his stories. He is a high concept writer. His early work was wreathed in paraphernalia but even in these ornament strewn texts he is nearly always writing about a single stunning idea. Where his books don't work is where he loses the idea in amongst the world building. Where his books do work (and I still think The City and The City is easily his best book) it's because the central conceit is allowed to breath and unfold without distraction. I think that is the mark of his maturing as a writer and seriously doubt he could have delivered TC&TC earlier.

The other mark of Mieville's writing is his focus on what, in other people's work, would be walk on players. It's as if Horatio and Hamlet swapped places and we see the entire play through Horatio's eyes. Sometimes this works but in The Kraken it didn't and where it failed it destroyed the heart of the narrative.

Perdido Street Station is about Isaac and remains about him. This is a good thing. In the end it's about Isaac, his own genius and the destruction he wreaks in following his heart's desire. A cautionary tale for an age so enamoured of living out ours dreams. It is full of the imagination let off the leash - which is brilliant - even if many of the ideas are never followed through. (This scatter shot approach to ideas is another of Meiville's themes, but a less satisfactory one)

I like this book. The story is winding and breathes. In an age where authors are encouraged to make the first page zing or risk being ignored it's great to have a book that rewards the effort of reading it, of taking the time to wallow in what it's building. New Crobuzon is a stinking hell hole of a place replete with images of cities as they must look to anyone who came upon them unknowing for the first time. Mieville transplants the ingenuity of humanity - its drive to survive, to prosper and to secure its future into the fabric of his tawdry behemoth and it flourishes as a result. I think that world building is difficult and here I cared less about odd inconsistencies and relished the decadent luxury of flavours conjured up by his writing.

Perdido Street Station is as much about being human, belonging and love as it is about living in a city and being yourself. I really enjoyed this.