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Mar. 13th, 2012 09:52 amI still have no idea what I thought about China Mieville's Kraken, except that, man, I am REALLY IMPRESSED he managed to maintain five hundred pages of this book with a straight face. (I mean, the straight face is necessary to the joke. I think. Probably.)
So Kraken kicks off with the mysterious disappearance of a PRESERVED GIANT SQUID from the London Natural History Museum! Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth from our multitudes of idiosyncratic main characters:
POLICE DEPARTMENT IN CHARGE OF SOLVING CULT-RELATED CRIMES: This is a cult-related crime!
SQUID-WORSHIPPING CULT: Oh nooooooooes someone else is out there with our god, the giant squid!
BILLY, OUR BLAND PROTAGONIST: I dunno guys, I'm just a postgrad preservationist with a talent for squid.
(SQUID-WORSHIPPING CULT: Or are you . . . THE SQUID MESSIAH?!?! Quick, drink some squid ink to show us the waaaaaay!
BILLY, OUR BLAND PROTAGONIST: I don't wanna. :( :( :()
MARGE, OUR BLAND PROTAGONIST'S BLAND FRIEND'S AWESOME GIRLFRIEND: So I don't really care about all this squid stuff and it seems like I'm pretty tangential to the book . . . OR AM I?
WATI, UNDEAD ANCIENT EGYPTIAN STATUE UNION ORGANIZER: I also don't care so much about the squid, I have got my hands full organizing a STRIKE in MAGICAL LONDON. Workers! Unite!
CROUP AND VANDEMAR THOSE TWO REALLY EVIL DUDES WHO EXIST TO BE EVIL: Rampage! Kill! Rampage! Kill!
The plot is basically that stealing the squid is going to trigger an apocalypse of FIERY DOOM, and everyone's like "you would think the cults would be okay with that," and the cults are like "but it's the WRONG APOCALYPSE! And it's GONE WRONG!" and then everyone runs around in a flailing panic being chased by increasingly more surreal inhabitants of magical London, and occasionally checking in with all the future-diviners to be like "did we avert FIERY DOOM APOCALYPSE yet?" and the future-diviners are like "nope" and then they run around in a flailing panic some more.
Our bland protagonist has a bland bromance with a warrior of the SQUID CULT and remains sort of uninteresting. Wati hangs around being ten times awesomer than either of them (UP THE UNION!) and Marge steals the show by refusing to be kicked out of the story and doing her own awesome thing on the sidelines, although the book still fails the Bechdel test. Surreal events continue to take place at an increasingly rapid clip, until you're like "oh, of course the angry skull-in-a-jar angel defender of the Natural History Museum just kicked the ass of a whole bunch of goons with giant fists instead of heads, WHY NOT." China Mieville demonstrates how in tune he is with the culture of the internets by having a character make LOLcats jokes about the stolen squid, which just makes me wonder how very confused even a geek reader will be by seeing a policewoman joke "noooooo they be stealin mah squid!" in ten years' time. (Authors: using very specific and incredibly nerd pop cultural references DOES date your book! TAKE NOTE.) At one point a lady exorcist rabbi pops up at someone's front door with a GIANT SHOFAR, which for me was literally the most hilarious thing to happen all book.
And the book gets increasingly baroque about the metaphysical significance of all these squid-related events, and delves deeply into squid-cult theology, and you are just like "China Mieville, SERIOUSLY, how are you staying straight-faced?" Because the whole thing is clearly all a giant joke on the reader . . . or maybe by the end it isn't. I DON'T KNOW. As I said, I am very confused about this book.
So Kraken kicks off with the mysterious disappearance of a PRESERVED GIANT SQUID from the London Natural History Museum! Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth from our multitudes of idiosyncratic main characters:
POLICE DEPARTMENT IN CHARGE OF SOLVING CULT-RELATED CRIMES: This is a cult-related crime!
SQUID-WORSHIPPING CULT: Oh nooooooooes someone else is out there with our god, the giant squid!
BILLY, OUR BLAND PROTAGONIST: I dunno guys, I'm just a postgrad preservationist with a talent for squid.
(SQUID-WORSHIPPING CULT: Or are you . . . THE SQUID MESSIAH?!?! Quick, drink some squid ink to show us the waaaaaay!
BILLY, OUR BLAND PROTAGONIST: I don't wanna. :( :( :()
MARGE, OUR BLAND PROTAGONIST'S BLAND FRIEND'S AWESOME GIRLFRIEND: So I don't really care about all this squid stuff and it seems like I'm pretty tangential to the book . . . OR AM I?
WATI, UNDEAD ANCIENT EGYPTIAN STATUE UNION ORGANIZER: I also don't care so much about the squid, I have got my hands full organizing a STRIKE in MAGICAL LONDON. Workers! Unite!
The plot is basically that stealing the squid is going to trigger an apocalypse of FIERY DOOM, and everyone's like "you would think the cults would be okay with that," and the cults are like "but it's the WRONG APOCALYPSE! And it's GONE WRONG!" and then everyone runs around in a flailing panic being chased by increasingly more surreal inhabitants of magical London, and occasionally checking in with all the future-diviners to be like "did we avert FIERY DOOM APOCALYPSE yet?" and the future-diviners are like "nope" and then they run around in a flailing panic some more.
Our bland protagonist has a bland bromance with a warrior of the SQUID CULT and remains sort of uninteresting. Wati hangs around being ten times awesomer than either of them (UP THE UNION!) and Marge steals the show by refusing to be kicked out of the story and doing her own awesome thing on the sidelines, although the book still fails the Bechdel test. Surreal events continue to take place at an increasingly rapid clip, until you're like "oh, of course the angry skull-in-a-jar angel defender of the Natural History Museum just kicked the ass of a whole bunch of goons with giant fists instead of heads, WHY NOT." China Mieville demonstrates how in tune he is with the culture of the internets by having a character make LOLcats jokes about the stolen squid, which just makes me wonder how very confused even a geek reader will be by seeing a policewoman joke "noooooo they be stealin mah squid!" in ten years' time. (Authors: using very specific and incredibly nerd pop cultural references DOES date your book! TAKE NOTE.) At one point a lady exorcist rabbi pops up at someone's front door with a GIANT SHOFAR, which for me was literally the most hilarious thing to happen all book.
And the book gets increasingly baroque about the metaphysical significance of all these squid-related events, and delves deeply into squid-cult theology, and you are just like "China Mieville, SERIOUSLY, how are you staying straight-faced?" Because the whole thing is clearly all a giant joke on the reader . . . or maybe by the end it isn't. I DON'T KNOW. As I said, I am very confused about this book.
