skygiants

I 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.

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/285096.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mme_hardy

This is a review of AWESOME.

From:

skygiants

Hee, thank you! \o/

From:

bookblather

You had me at squid-worshipping cult. And also "THE WRONG APOCALYPSE." And also Wati and Reg Shoe should hang out.

From:

skygiants

It is a truth universally acknowledged that sometimes, all you want out of a book is a good fiery squid-related apocalypse!

WATI AND REG SHOE TOTALLY NEED TO HANG OUT. I mean Wati is a little more effective, in that he actually has a union . . . he could pass on some tips! HE COULD BE A MENTOR.

From:

jinian

*dies laughing at icon-Benedick*

From:

bookblather

This is true! And considering the universal appeal, there are very few fiery squid-related apocalypi out there. China Mieville is just filling a niche.

HE COULD BE A MENTOR. It could be a cross-dimensional mentoring program. Granny Weatherwax was probably McGonagall's mentor.

From:

skygiants

Man, I mean, I love McGonagall and all, but . . . can you imagine Granny Weatherwax vs. Voldemort? HE WOULDN'T HAVE LASTED A BOOK, let alone seven!

From:

bookblather

OH MAN.

Nanny wouldn't even have had time to sell tickets.

From:

thewickedlady

*cracks up*

"but it's the WRONG APOCALYPSE! And it's GONE WRONG!"

Oh, Becca.

From:

skygiants

THE WRONG TROUSERS ARE ONLY THE BEGINNING.

From:

nextian

I forgot about the giant shofar.

I couldn't decide if Kraken was self-parody or not either. I hope so! I hope he woke up one morning with amnesia, read all his books, was like, "Sometimes this China Mieville guy is a hack and I had better imitate him as best as possible but I am not letting this opportunity of taking all the piss pass me by." Then obviously his memories were restored in time for Embassytown. Or like, his best friend sent him this China Mieville Manuscript No Rly and he laughed so hard coffee came out his anarchist nose and he published it under his own name.

I love it. I'm not sure I'll ever reread it, but I'm delighted it exists.

From:

happydork

Or like, his best friend sent him this China Mieville Manuscript No Rly and he laughed so hard coffee came out his anarchist nose and he published it under his own name.

:D:D:D I WANT THIS TO BE TRUE SO HARD :D:D:D

From:

skygiants

HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY FORGET ABOUT THE GIANT SHOFAR?

. . . also, this theory of Kraken's existence is such a thing of beauty and self-evident truth that I had to read it out loud to my housemates. I kind of imagine it going like this:

CHINA MIEVILLE: We've secretly replaced my manuscript with this Essence of Mieville trollfic! LET'S SEE HOW LONG IT TAKES ANYONE TO NOTICE.
PUBLISHERS: *utterly fail to notice*
CHINA MIEVILLE: . . . . MAY AS WELL ROLL WITH IT. \o/

From:

happydork

Oh, our bland protagonist! I enjoyed him because he didn't feel like your typical white-male-British-sci-fi-writer's "HELLO I AM THE EVERYMAN I AM JUST LIKE YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE ALSO WHITE AND MALE AND BRITISH AND EDUCATED IN THE SAME WAY YES GOOD" -- it was more like Mieville was assuming that the reader had at least met someone like our bland protagonist, rather than that the reader would necessarily identify with our bland protagonist themselves. (The assumption may not be true, but it's a rather broader assumption than I'm used to.)

Oh, oh, Wati! Oh, oh, Marge! I loved the book, but I would have loved it even more if it had been Marge and Wati's fabulous adventures.

Authors: using very specific and incredibly nerd pop cultural references DOES date your book!

I thought that was probably deliberate! There's a lot of stuff in it that read to me as not just a love-letter to London, but a love-letter to a very particular moment in London's vast and sprawling existence -- I'm looking forward to coming back to this book in a few years time and getting even more pleasure out of it for the definite space-and-time element of the setting.

Spoilers for The City & The City and Un Lun Dun

I kind of feel like China Mieville has one ending at a time that he really enjoys, and he futzes around with it until he gets it just the way he likes it. With TC&TC, ULD and Kraken, the ending is something like: "I told you repeatedly how to break the rules by following them; it's not my fault you didn't listen. BTW, LOLINURFACE."

From:

skygiants

I think I am also unfairly irritated at our bland protagonist because then we got nerdy-anime-fan-of-color origami specialist -- remember that guy? I loved that guy! -- and he died two pages after his introduction, and I spent an embarrassingly long time mourning his death, given that he only existed for two pages to begin with.

I WANT TO READ WATI AND MARGE'S FABULOUS ADVENTURES SO HARD. Together they fight crime, and also oppressive capitalist socioeconomic systems! Marge's magic iPod can be their sidekick.

Hmmm, I wonder if the pop culture stuff would have read differently to me if I knew London better? Because while I can clearly see it is a love letter to London, that doesn't speak to me as it would if it were a love letter to New York or Philadelphia. I can see anyone who knows London and is also part of this subculture feeling very much as if it is a book for them.

Also, your spoilers are 100% accurate. (BTW, LOLINURFACE is pretty much China Mieville's expression all the time in my head.)

From:

lacewood

This sounds like a ridiculous hoot, clearly I need to get around to actually reading this! XD I mean, it's not like I don't ALREADY have a weakness for magic London...

From:

skygiants

It is the MOST MAGIC LONDON BOOK OF ALL. It is like China Mieville sat down and was like "I have so many feelings about London . . . I have too many feelings to be expressed via anything other than GIANT SQUID!"