The novel “The City & the City” by China Miéville was published for the first time in 2009. It won the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the BSFA Award, and the Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis.
When the body of a disfigured woman is discovered in the slums of Beszel, the city police inspector Tyador Borlú is called to begin investigations into what is clearly a murder. Soon, the case turns out to be complicated because the victim is identified as Mahalia Geary, a foreign student engaged in controversial archaeological research because they concern the history of Beszel and Ul Qoma, the two cities that occupy the same geographical area.
Some clues suggest that Mahalia Geary was killed in Ul Qoma and this means that Inspector Tyador Borlú must invoke the Breach, the superior authority that has the power to investigate crimes involving both cities. However, the cities governments reach a different agreement leading to a continuation of the investigation, which brings further problems because it’s connected to decidedly unorthodox theories about the two cities and the existence of other entities.
“The City & the City” is a detective story / procedural which has a very particular setting since it’s set in the two cities Beszel and Ul Qoma, which exist in an undefined place in Eastern Europe where they occupy the same area. They remain artificially separated because the citizens of each of the two cities consciously “unsee” inhabitants and vehicles of the other. The infringement of this law is managed by the Breach, a superior authority that has jurisdiction in both cities.
A good part of the novel is used by China Miéville to develop that setting with all the peculiarities that derive from the two cities’ situation. Their citizens share the same geographical area, yet they’re very different from various points of view, also because citizens tend to remark the differences in many ways also related to daily life.
Many details related to that situation are continually remarked by the author throughout the story, and this is an integral part of the plot because that situation heavily influences it. Following the investigation by Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Beszel police, the reader can slowly understand, through those many details, what it means to live in that situation. This also includes terms invented by China Miéville to describe some elements of the two cities and life in one of them.
What happens between Beszel and Ul Qoma is the opposite of an integration, in the sense that citizens make a conscious effort to keep them separate and to distinguish themselves from their neighbors. From this point of view, the laws and customs of the two cities are stronger than any wall. For citizens, the act of unseeing is something that is taught from their childhood and practiced throughout their life. For foreign tourists and students, specific training is necessary because as long as they reside in a city they too will have the obligation to unsee the inhabitants and vehicles of the other.
Sometimes the investigation seems like an excuse to tell about events related to the division between Beszel and Ul Qoma. Mahalia Geary was working on historical research that was controversial because it was connected to the origin of the division between the two cities, an event that is far from clear. This deepens the worldbuilding, but inevitably makes it even heavier. “The City & the City” is a case in which the setting is an absolute protagonist. This means that the reader must be prepared to read a novel in which each event is told in function to that setting with continuous details about it.
The centrality of the setting and its descriptions tends to slow down the pace of the narration. The characters are a bit sacrificed, also because only Tyador Borlú is present in the whole novel.
“The City & the City” is labeled as weird but it’s a difficult novel to frame in a specific genre. It’s a detective story / procedural and due to the truly unique but also mysterious setting it’s also labeled as science fiction and fantasy. This is a case where labels are limiting. I recommend it to anyone who finds the basic idea of the two cities intriguing.
