| Notes |
I know what China Miéville's favorite word is. He uses it almost every chapter, as if it is a magic word that will make the already teeming, festering fictional city of New Crobuzon seem even more gritty and angst-ridden. The word is "desultory". He doesn't seem know what the word really means. He thinks it means "destitute" or "desolate" or "disenfranchised" or "desperate" or "disconsolate" or "dejected". The author has a PhD, taught English in Egypt, and he hasn't bothered to look up "desultory" in the dictionary. For shame.
How can I be so critical of this author's over(mis)use of a single word? Isn't that a little petty? Yes it is, because I could find little else wrong with this book. And, now that you know of its single flaw, I can safely recommend it.
The eponymous train station of this book is the center of New Crobuzon, but the story revolves around a rogue scientist, his beetle-head artist girlfriend (of a race of beetle-headed people), a flightless birdman, and an underground journalist. Along the way, they encounter surly cactus-people, fantastic and horrible creatures, and freakish criminals with animal and machine parts grafted to their bodies. Magic and science and religion blend into a strange and captivating melange in New Crobuzon. It sounds bizarre, but Miéville adroitly weaves the tale so vividly that, by the end of the book, I felt I knew the city streets by heart.
By then, I didn't care what "desultory" meant.
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