The Scar by China Mieville

[samvara]

There will be no more reading by me, of books by China Mieville.

I struggled through The Scar, attempting to skim rather than wade through the heavy language and overwhelming misery and am now officially over it. If you have to read one, read Perdido Street Station which was by far the least painful.

Comments

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... The Scar is actually my favourite of his books by far. Its the only one that has an ending that lives up to the promise of the book. And I find it very inventive, too.
Horses for courses, I guess.
In any case, I think its worth seeing what he does when he finally writes another novel that isn't about the New Crobuzon world (his first one, King Rat, isn't, but its also by far his weakest).

[cricketk.livejournal.com]

Yep - The Scar was definitely my favourite as well - though, from your comments, I take it that it lived up to the warning of all the characters being unlikeable.

How did you find the section about the anophelii? I haven't read it for about two years and it still has the power to give me goosebumps and violent shivers.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

It's partly a style thingy.

I'm allergic to Booker Prize novels too; the language, for me, tends to be heavily over-ornamented and I find that even if I'm enjoying the story it's exhausting reading the bloody things.

This was really hard to get past. I hit a lot of metaphors where it didn't so much expand my understanding as lead me to doubt his literary skills. I felt he stretched things too far and I'd find myself thinking "Does he know what that means... he must,." which isn't exactly conducive to suspending disbelieve.

I found Perdido Street Station really inventive, a lot of my happiness was in the setting of the scene - it's rich and imaginative. The Scar already had a contextual world so I wasn't constantly being blown away by the Remade or the thaumatergic sciences.

It also helped that I liked Isaac whereas here there were no sympathetic characters, possibly excluding Shekel whose fate, like all of them, seemed to be pointless violence. I was depressed by the violence, misery and confusion that seemed so much a part of the all the characters lives. I also wanted more resolution, what happened to the Lover? Doul? Tanner?