The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 17 Oct 2011 05:18 PM PDT Stick with this tome, its ideas and its climax are well worth it. Embassytown YOU can call writer China Mieville's work many things. Breathtaking? Perhaps. Heavy? Perhaps. Visionary? Debatable. Overly convoluted? Many would agree with you. But the one thing you certainly cannot call his works is unoriginal: Mieville often has more creative ideas in one chapter of his work than many authors have in their entire book. A bestselling author (with earlier works including ground-breaking The City And The City, Perdido Street Station and Kraken), his works have won various awards, including three Arthur C. Clarke awards, a Hugo Award, and the 2010 World Fantasy Award. A self-described "new weird" writer (see interview, left), Mieville is determined to push fantasy away from its commercial, clichéd aspects, and explore new avenues in storytelling. This can be seen from his latest novel, Embassytown, an unconventional and gripping science fiction epic about language and cultural clashes. Embassytown takes place on the planet Arieka, on the outskirts of the universe. There, humans coexist with the planet's enigmatic residents, the Ariekei, who speak an interesting language. Possessing two mouths, they speak through both as one, and are also only able to hear speech in this manner. Their language is also exceedingly literal: these creatures are unable to lie or speak of things that "are not". It is in this that the book develops its most interesting idea: to overcome this weakness in language, the Ariekei have turned to humans, turning them into living similes, topics and other figures of speech. Embassytown follows Avice Benner Cho, an "immerser", a traveller on "the sea of space and time below the everyday". Returning to Embassytown, she soon gets caught up in a crisis of language. A new ambassador, a member of a select group trained to speak with the Ariekei, has been appointed. This ambassador, however, proves to be unlike any that the humans or the Ariekei have encountered before, and eventually brings about a revolution: one that will have devastating consequences for all involved. In Arieka, Mieville creates a memorable and fantastically original civilisation. His ideas are mind-boggling, particularly those about the Ariekei, trapped in perpetual truth-telling, so fascinated by lying that the idea sparks festivals and revolutions. Mieville's depiction of the human society on Arieka is also captivating. There, humans are raised by different parents in shifts, they employ genetically-engineered living weapons, and rely on living breathing masks called aeoli to breathe the planet's toxic air. Mieville invents so many fantastical concepts it is easy to get lost in his neologisms: fortunately, despite the lack of a glossary, he manages to suck the reader so thoroughly into his world that even his most alien concepts make sense by the end. One of the novel's most memorable ideas is "floaking", which is described as "the life-technique of aggregated skill, luck, laziness and chutzpah" – a word that can probably describe many people at their jobs. Embassytown is a real page-turner, difficult to put down, thanks to Mieville's powerful and punchy writing. Civil wars, bedroom intrigue, genetically engineered prophets ... there is always something to grip the reader's attention. At its heart, though, Mieville's novel explores the nature of language, as well as its understated power. His truth-speaking Ariekei push its boundaries: since language, after all, defines our universe, does this mean that the universe is ultimately bound by language? Do weaknesses in language ultimately shape our view of reality, and is it possible to exploit these weaknesses for our own ends? The novel also serves as an exploration of colonialism, and the effects of two disparate civilisations coming head to head. Embassytown suggests that the outcome of such encounters is always revolutionary, with both cultures fundamentally changed, from language to cultural norms and even fundamental values. The book is not without its weaknesses, however, and these mainly lie with the work's characters. Many of them, while interesting, appear far too briefly and disappear without making a major impact, most notably Avice's radical ex-husband Scile, the simile Hasser, as well as Avice's robot friend Ehrsul. Even protagonist Avice feels underdeveloped: despite a major deal about her being a "traveller of the immer", we are given very little info on what the "immer" really is and how it operates. Mieville's strengths have always been in his themes and the incredible worlds he creates: it is a shame that, occasionally, the inhabitants of these worlds have to take a backseat to them. Another minor nitpick is with the plot: while fascinating, the chapters on the Ariekei revolt go on for too long and occasionally drag. The solution to the novel's conflicts, while thematically consistent and clever, also feels a little too simple: it is slightly hard to believe that in all the history of human-Ariekei relations, no one had ever tried attempting what Embassytown's characters did. All in all, Embassytown proves to be a winner, captivating in its depiction of a fully-developed world where even language is a complex, alien thing. While difficult to get into initially, it is well worth sticking with, due to its whopper of a climax and incredible ideas. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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