A flawed masterpiece. That is China Miéville's Perdido Street Station. The second novel from a relatively young author, it evidences both a hell of a lot of talent and not a lot of restraint or forethought. Miéville cites M John Harrison as one of his major influences, and it shows; while Harrison kept his page count down, Miéville lets his infectious enthusiasm run free and we get a 700 page book (in my edition), which unfortunately really begins to feel its length at around page 500. But before I get into the flaws, I will go over the strengths.
It's immediately obvious from the first page that Miéville has a strong style, and given the length of the book this is admirable. A fluid and verbose style of this sort takes a lot of time and careful editing to keep consistent, so usually authors of longer books opt for something more streamlined; not so with Miéville. It’s clear he is very much in love with the English language. The prose flows quite well, and he uses consonance and assonance to great effect. He is not shy of unusual words, and will occasionally raise eyebrows with his vocabulary (though not to the extent of, say, Gene Wolfe or Clark Ashton Smith). His adverb use is occasionally a bit clumsy, but this is a minor quibble; generally Perdido Street Station a joy to read. Miéville is especially adept with (and fond of) simile and pathetic fallacy, which is a good thing because he spends a hell of a lot of time describing inanimate objects. Which brings us to
the setting. The city of New Crobuzon is without a doubt the book’s main claim to fame; imagine Viriconium’s arcane decadence meeting Book of the New Sun’s sweeping, alien variety, combined with an elaborate steampunk aesthetic by way of Miéville's own “New Weird” movement. New Crobuzon is perhaps the most fully realized of any city in fantasy literature save Gormenghast. Numerous imaginative races inhabit its twisted, crumbling streets, engaging in complex politics and conflict, eking out filthy, violent livings under the oppressive weight of the titular Station, which houses the city’s totalitarian government. Miéville frequently indulges in what is essentially descriptive fluff; he often takes the time to expands upon utterly non-essential details with little or no bearing on plot or character, unless New Crobuzon itself is considered a character (which, like Gormenghast, it could easily be). However, Miéville's imagination and enthusiasm for the setting are such that this “fluff” is often more interesting that the actual “substance”.
An example: there is an entire chapter devoted to a dock workers’ strike, which starts peacefully but quickly turns into a riot and ends up being violently dispersed by the police. The tactics used by both the striking workers and the riot police (complete with floating jellyfish used as crowd-control) are described in intricate detail. Aside from serving as a bit of a soapbox for Miéville's Marxist views, the scene is of very little significance to either the central plot or the main characters; yet it was riveting nonetheless and I’m quite glad it was included. That particular sequence is more exciting and interesting than many that actually are significant, and unfortunately that brings us to what I consider the main weakness of the book at large.
The plot itself is dull. Despite its grand setting, elaborate style, and interesting characters, Perdido Street Station is, at its core, a monster movie. This is hardly an original criticism, but honestly it’s well deserved and bears repeating. The central plot revolves around the accidental escape of the highly dangerous, Lovecraftian slake-moths, monstrous psychic vampires who quite literally devour their victims’ dreams. The main characters (whom I will consider at greater length later on) spend the majority of the book planning and working toward killing these creatures. While many books get away with simpler plots, they’re usually quite a lot shorter; at 700 pages, the monster shtick is worn quite thin by the end.
Another criticism I’ve seen leveled at the book that I do not agree with is that it’s not of sufficiently epic scope; while the slake-moths do threaten the whole of New Crobuzon, the story focuses mainly on a few characters of relatively unimportant stations, and by the end of the book little has really changed in the city. In my opinion this criticism is missing the point; the problem isn’t that the conflict isn’t epic enough, as other books have had success with focusing on more personal stories in the midst of a larger fantasy setting (such as In Viriconium, the third Viriconium novel). The problem is that Perdido Street Station lacks any meaningful central conflict, epic, personal, or otherwise. The slake moths are little more than ravenous beasts with no motivation other than base instinct. There are no moral questions involved in their pursuit, no complex motivations, very little evolution of interpersonal (or intrapersonal) relationships, only the hunting of dangerous beasts with their extermination as the goal.
Unfortunately the slake-moths also miss the point of the cosmic horror and “old weird” they are clearly influenced by; one of the main reasons Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth and company work so well is that their character and motivation are utterly incomprehensible. Even Frank Belknap Long’s Hounds of Tindalos (which seem to be a direct influence on the slake-moths all the way down to their hollow, sucking tongues) are more effectively frightening as they relentlessly pursue their prey through the angles of time. In cosmic horror, and often in horror at large, it is essential that the nature of the horror not be explained and understood too thoroughly. As the old Lovecraft saw goes, “the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is Fear of the Unknown.” The slake-moths are very dangerous and very exotic, but their methods are mostly understood and their behavior ceases to surprise quite early on. The difference between hunting the slake-moths and hunting, say, a bear is only one of degree.
Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t occasionally books that do succeed at just such a conflict, as The Old Man and the Sea for example revolves primarily around an old man and, well, the sea (as well as a great big fish or two). The difference there is, for one, it’s a lot shorter so the simple plot isn’t stretched nearly as far; for two, the internal conflict that takes place within the old man’s head is played up a lot more. He is old; his struggle with the sea is also a struggle with his own weakness and age. While the hunters of the slake-moths certainly end up in a different place at the end than they were at the beginning, they don’t seem to have changed much as people, nor does their quest have any particular personal significance beyond raw survival.
This brings us to the cast of Perdido Street Station, chief of whom is Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin. A compelling character, Isaac is a woefully unfocused but genius researcher (nearly of the “mad scientist” sort) who is primarily concerned with juggling his treasured bohemian, self-consciously transgressive lifestyle with his dependence upon his peripheral employment at a local university. He is written very well, with his own distinctive voice (you can practically hear him shouting “godshit!” in his gruff basso) and believable habits. One of his central dilemmas is his forbidden relationship with Lin, an artistic Khepri (women with bugs for heads), who are generally considered second-class citizens. Their romance must remain a secret, or he risks losing his research position at the university. Understandably this puts significant strain on the relationship, as Lin cannot help feeling belittled as Isaac is forced to pay lip service to the common bigotry; also, it raises the question of whether Isaac is truly serious about his bohemianism, or whether it is just an affection he assumes to lend his stalled academic career a degree of significance (i.e. so he seems to have chosen a life of academic exile for political and social reasons, rather than because he was forced into it, as his questionable work habits and poor relationship with his superiors might otherwise lead one to believe is the case). Even as I’m typing this, I am already more interested than in the slake-moths; unfortunately, this conflict is never satisfactorily explored beyond the outset, much less resolved.
*SPOILERS*
There is some pretty clear feminist commentary present in the Khepri race and their relationship with the brainless males of their species; Lin’s relationship with her tradition-minded mother and her insular sisters appears complex at first, but again this is only briefly explored and then never mentioned again. Soon after being developed, Lin is kidnapped, considered dead by her friends, and ends up sitting out for the majority of the book. She makes a sudden reappearance shortly before the conclusion, only to immediately be sucked half-dry by a slake-moth, which renders her a halfwit. Lin, a good character at her outset, is used like cheap prop to drum up sympathy and then discarded with little more than a “wham bam thank you ma’am.” So much for feminism.
The other major character is Yagharek, an exile of the bird-like garuda, who as punishment for a mysterious crime was shorn of his wings. He has traveled from his far desert home to contract Isaac to get him airborne again by whatever means necessary, and more importantly to Isaac, at whatever the cost. Yagharek bears immense guilt and shame for his crime, but still yearns for flight, and seeks to escape his punishment through Isaac’s arcane science. Yagharek’s character is developed gradually over the course of the book, his background filled in through the clever and unusual technique of first-person, nearly stream-of-consciousness sequences that precede section headings (the book is otherwise told strictly in the third-person). Yagharek slowly warms up to Isaac’s band throughout the hunting of the slake-moths, and they to him, but at the end it’s revealed that his crime is rape; his victim tracks Isaac down and asks him to not give Yagharek the flying device which Isaac has developed.
This produces one of the most interesting moral dilemmas of the whole book; rape is a crime that forever scars its victims, so can a rapist ever truly be forgiven, or absolve himself of wrongdoing? Can the “debt to society” ever be paid? The justice-minded Garuda don’t believe so, and meted out a punishment that, quite literally, left lasting ugly scars on Yagharek. Some rape victims actually describe their loss in terms of losing a limb, and in a sort of perverse role-reversal, Yagharek’s behavior after his punishment could be seen to broadly mimic certain aspects of a rape victim’s. For example, in his initial extreme anger, as described in his flashback to his past as a gladiator; in his compulsion keep to himself and on the move, even when Isaac offers him shelter; in his strong reluctance to connect with others on any meaningful level; in his contemplation of suicide; and finally, in his utter abandonment of his erstwhile Garuda identity in favor of becoming “human”. The knife that originally sawed his wings off using back-and-forth thrusting motions could even be seen as a phallic symbol. In this sense, the Garuda’s punishment could be seen as successful, in that it forced Yagharek to endure something like the pain his victim undoubtedly felt (though what she actually went through is never made clear). In the end Isaac opts to deny Yagharek his escape from punishment, a difficult decision given that Yagharek has helped him immensely and even saved his life.
Frustratingly, this fascinating moral issue is relegated to a bit at the end of the book, a brief surprise twist in the coda after the slake-moth menace has been disposed of; this could have been a much better climax. Instead, it comes off as last-minute, and many readers felt blindsided and cheated by its abruptness. Isaac was content to forget about Yagharek’s crime for most of the book when its nature was unknown (thanks in no small part to the copious amounts of gold Yag was paying him) but as soon as he is confronted with the truth, he has little trouble abandoning his now-penniless friend without even the courtesy of hearing his side of the story or returning his money. Imagine if, after being confronted by Yagharek’s victim, Isaac had kept it to himself and carried on as usual, his dilemma played out internally over a longer period as he hems and haws between responsibility to his friend and client (and his own greed) on one side, and justice on the other.
Clearly Yagharek deserves to be condemned for his crime, but the complex issue is glossed over in a few pages, and we get a monster movie for the bulk of the book. This is doubly frustrating considering Miéville goes so far as to flirt with deeper issues, but chooses instead to focus on the simplistic slake-moths for the central conflict. Some have said that they were meant to serve as a mindless, ravenous avatar of unchecked capitalism, but even if there is allegory, it’s pointless; the entire setting is in a totalitarian capitalist police state, which would have served as a much more direct and meaningful outlet for his Marxist leanings (and it already does, on occasion).
*END SPOILERS*
So, what we’re left with is a very prettily-told story in a fantastic setting about interesting characters who don’t do very interesting things. After all of that, it may come as a surprise to hear that I’m glad I read it; Perdido Street Station has a lot of merits, and good style and setting, two areas in which it excels, are things I personally happen to value very highly in general. It’s a good book. Its problem is that, with a better plot and sharper focus, it’s easy to see how it could have been a great one.
