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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

City of Saints & Madmen

12:40 / 31.10.06

Has anyone here read this book? I've been rereading it recently, and I musts say it is one of my favorite books of recent times. Wonderfully odd, it's a collection of fictional pieces (novellas, travel guides, medical case histories, encrypted messages, illustrations, etc.) all set in the city of Ambergris, which is sort of like a medieval city with motor cars, mushroom dwellers, giant squid, insidious fungus, and psychotic dwarves (as in little people, not the Tolkien kind). Anyway, he's an excellent prose stylist, his characters are great, his stories are great, and the way the view of the city comes together like a mosaic is simply magnificent. Highly recommended.

Closed for Business Time

14:28 / 31.10.06

I read this book over the summer after reading about him in an interview with China Mieville, who himself writes mighty interesting prose. Even though he's a bit heavy on the marxism IMHO - Mieville that is.
Vandermeer's brilliant! He reminds me a lot of Lovecraft in the way he uses the environment, both built and "natural", as the conductor of suspense and deviance. Much better for characterisation than Lovecraft too. I gots to check out Shriek soon, right after I finish reading the Wizard by that tower of power that is Gene Wolfe.

14:55 / 31.10.06

I just read my first Mieville book, Perdido Street Station. It was very good, though I think I prefer VanderMeer. I do see some similarities, though. They both obviously like Mervyn Peake.

Closed for Business Time

15:03 / 31.10.06

Ah... Peake's another great great GREAT writer. The Gormenghast books had me looking twice at my until-then-unshakeable conviction that Tolkien was/is the greatest purveyor of Brit 'fantasy' Lit. And he was an excellent illustrator as well! And funnily enough - Peake, Vandermeer and Mieville all rely on/excel in using architecture and space as loci for the evocation of strong emotions. Any thoughts on that?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:43 / 31.10.06

Never heard of this, but I may just have to add it to my "stuff to look for" list next time I go bookshopping (probably Friday...)

Mieville, Peake and Lovecraft comparisons are usually a good sign...

19:21 / 31.10.06

I'm not sure that I have much in the way of deep thoughts on the role of the architectural/locational in the three writers in question, but it's definitely one of the major factors in my grouping them together mentally.

Closed for Business Time

08:44 / 01.11.06

Dusto me old beauty,
Deep Thoughts are an unqualified pain in the arse most of the time anyway. They tend to work like anchors in cheesy action-at-sea movies - only ever there when you don't need them, and then just for dragging you down into the cold dark deadly wetness.

Hmmm..

Perhaps I'll try and say something semi-lucid about it myself first to start the game.

Lovecraft - indubitable master of scary places, first that I know of to introduce non-Euclidean geometry as a topos/locus/sign of deviance

Peake - the castle Gormenghast, one place standing in for the world, using geography and architecture as markers of thresholds to other "dimensions", in his case social and cultural more so than metaphysical/mythical as in Lovecraft

Vandermeer - Ambergris' sprawl for me reads as alive, both in terms of its history (rhizomatic gray caps' dwelling) and its "present". After reading City of Saints and Madmen I thought it shone through where Mieville picked up a lot of his ideas for New Crobuzon.

Ahh.. I'll have to wait until the coffee kicks in properly for me to say anything more intelligent. London's cold today and I had to wait 35 bleeding minnits for the bleeding 59 bus. aoaaoaoaoo...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:15 / 01.11.06

(off-topic, but if anyone's interested in the Lovecraft/architecture angle, Michel Houellebecq's "HP Lovecraft- Against The World, Against Life" has an entire chapter).

Kiltartan Cross

15:46 / 01.11.06

(slight digression)

Lovecraft - indubitable master of scary places, first that I know of to introduce non-Euclidean geometry as a topos/locus/sign of deviance

A case could perhaps be made for the presence (although not specifically) of non-Euclidean geometry in many European (and probably global, although I can't think of any examples straight off) traditional and folk tales. The henge whose stones cannot be counted; the fairy land which is almost, but not quite, next door, that sort of thing, Child Roland and Thomas the Rhymer.

(/digression)

I really look forward to reading this book.

18:57 / 01.11.06

I'd say as far as Ambergris is concerned, the locational aspect is sort of mirrored in the fact that you can wander from piece to piece and "explore the city" in your own way as you read. The fact that one of the most important pieces is a guide to Ambergris is one of the clearest signals about this. The first two Gormenghast books are interesting in the way that they confuse person and place. "Titus Groan" is all about Gormenghast while "Gormenghast" is all about Titus. In some ways, his identity is completely tied to his earl-ship. Which is what makes the third book so weird.

Oh, and to tie this to another thread, Dhalgren seems like another book we could throw in with regard to the importance of place in the narrative. I guess this all falls under the broad category of world-building, but as opposed to the sprawl of something like Lord of the Rings, these books all focus in. Perhaps showing you the universe in a grain of sand.

And the Houellebecq book is an interesting read. I'm a big McSweeney's fan, though I'm a little biased.

Kiltartan Cross

22:30 / 24.11.06

Just finished it, which should be fairly obvious to you lot. Liked it very much. The whole city feels like it's rotting, or steaming, or something; it seemed like the fictionalised, idealised view of New Orleans we (have been used to) see presented. Maybe. Felt like a lot of things, and felt like none of it could be taken as literally "true"; the narrator(s) remain suspect, ambiguous, biased, blinkered, whatever, throughout. Brilliant.

On a slight aside, I was impressed to see that Wiki have a list up of every single encounter of mankind with giant squid - they're so rare they can be listed! Bizarre things, squid, so they are.

16:30 / 25.11.06

Yeah, squid seem to be a perrenial topic for VanderMeer. Check out his story collection Secret Life for even more squidy goodness. And his newest novel Shriek: An Afterword revisits Duncan and Janice from City of Saints & Madmen.