(no subject)

[skygiants]

The Last Days of New Paris is ... maybe the most China Miéville book I have ever read? It is honestly self-parody levels of Miéville. I would believe, in fact, that some other writer created the entire thing as an elaborate practical joke on Miéville.

The plot: sometime in 1941, in the middle of WWII, Paris is accidentally exploded by a metaphysical idea-bomb and becomes a locked-down, constantly embattled zone where the living manifestations of Surrealist art and writing wreak havoc on the leftover Nazis. Meanwhile, the leftover Nazis have raised some sad demons to wreak havoc on the leftover Resistance.

...that's it, that's the book. There's some variety of plot involving a Resistance member teaming up with an infiltrator who's wandering Paris with a camera to catch snapshots of all the manifestations (including a line about having to catch them all that made me literally put down the book a moment and stare at the wall in outrage because OF COURSE a reference to Pokemon Snap, POKEMON IS ALSO SURREALIST ART, I GUESS, WHY NOT), and a Nazi plot to create or suborn the manifestations for its own purposes, but mostly it's just an excuse to lovingly describe the battle techniques of Dali paintings and famous Exquisite Corpses.

Miéville is always a little bit like this no matter what he's writing -- his worldbuilding is deeply surrealist in general -- but this time he gets to back it up with endless references and cameos by obscure historical figures and he is clearly having the best time in his life. Personally I felt a bit like I was being constantly bombarded with in-jokes I wasn't getting rather than actually absorbing any kind of story matter, so it left me somewhat cold, but that's fine! Write for yourself!

I did appreciate the index in back, and the entire book was worth it for the mention of the Société de Gévaudan, which apparently was a Resistance group, based in a psychiatric hospital, composed of avant-garde psychiatrists, philosophers, and patients, working collaboratively to organize weapon drops and an underground publishing house during the Occupation WHILE ALSO attempting to pursue new and more beneficial therapeutic techniques. Miéville (writing in-character as The Author China Miéville who has been told this story about New Paris by a Mysterious Personage): The facts are extraordinary enough in our timeline. But of all the untold stories of the world of New Paris, it is about the actions of the Société de Gévaudan that I would like to know more. Yes, I one thousand percent agree? Please tell me more??

I have attempted to verify Miéville's summary of the Société's activities but most Google-able sources appear to be in French and thus require more time for me to decipher, so further investigation will have to wait until a time when I'm not supposed to be getting ready for work!

Comments

[kaberett]

I very greatly enjoyed reading this one about six weeks before I... went to Paris, most recently. It made the entire trip that Little Bit More.

[skygiants]

Oh, that's perfect timing! I do sort of want to print out a copy of that article about illogical enhancements to Parisian architecture that he references multiple times and bring it around with me on a city tour.

[kore]

....I am intrigued but it also sounds like a book I would frequently want to throw across the room.

[skygiants]

What I really wanted to do was read it alongside a course in the history of Surrealism and the French Resistance, which I think would probably have been the ideal experience.

[lovepeaceohana]

he is clearly having the best time in his life

Oh, books that are so clearly the author's id-tastic happy place can be so much fun to read (er, if your ids align) -- I'll have to add this one to my #tbr pile, because while I'm sure most of it will go over my head, the idea of China Miéville going gleefully to id-town is too exciting to pass up. :D

[skygiants]

He's having such a good time in id-town, which was not the home of my id particularly, but I was just having a good time watching him hang out there!

[sovay]

The plot: sometime in 1941, in the middle of WWII, Paris is accidentally exploded by a metaphysical idea-bomb and becomes a locked-down, constantly embattled zone where the living manifestations of Surrealist art and writing wreak havoc on the leftover Nazis. Meanwhile, the leftover Nazis have raised some sad demons to wreak havoc on the leftover Resistance.

I loved this book!

[ashlyme]

Yay, it wasn't just me then!

[skygiants]

I didn't quite love it but I'm glad he wrote it, because it's very definitely the perfect Miéville for somebody even if not for me! (My favorites are Embassytown and Railsea.)

[sovay]

(My favorites are Embassytown and Railsea.)

Railsea was the first Miéville novel I actually loved as opposed to liked, admired, or was left cold by. I deeply love Railsea. It's even good Moby-Dick meta as opposed to just good meta on the idea of Moby-Dick!

(I had a rocky start with Perdido Street Station. I suspect I would have liked it better if everyone hadn't told me "THIS IS SO WEIRD AND THE LANGUAGE IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND OMG," because I read it and my response was more or less literally, ". . . No?")

[landingtree]

I had pretty much the opposite response, which confuses me... I didn't love Railsea, even though I read it at the same time as Moby-Dick, and so many bits of its worldbuilding spend their time jumping up and down shouting some variant on, "We are so, so happy to be moles!"

But I did love Iron Council, even though it begins with a solid chunk of Miéville going, "Give you a reason to care? Some information about who these people are and what they're doing? What purpose would that serve?" I'll be interested to see if my response survives a reread.

[skygiants]

I also loved Iron Council when I read it at a much younger age, but I was always going to love Iron Council because it's a barricade book and I'm helplessly weak to barricade books. I also would like to reread at some point and see what I think of it now!

[skygiants]

Railsea is amazing because Miéville is having just as much incredibly specific fun as he is in Last Days of New Paris, but I have more room to get attached to the characters and also get more of the jokes. >.> (Though still not all of them because I still have not actually read Moby Dick, an oversight I will someday remedy and then probably reread Railsea.)

I was impressed by Perdido Street Station when I read it without any foreknowledge at the age of 18, but very little of it stuck and the parts that did I don't like as well in memory -- I've been vaguely meaning to reread the Bas Lag books sometime as an adult and see what I think of them now.

[starlady]

My favorite Mieville is still the squidpocalypse one with the running Star Trek joke, so I'm definitely planning to read this one at some point. I guess I will be learning a lot about the Surrealists?

[skygiants]

Makes sense - squidpocalypse is not my favorite but it did make me laugh really hard, and probably did remind me more of this one than any of his others (with the exception of Bas Lag, in a very different way.) I certainly did learn a lot about the Surrealists!

[newredshoes]

I generally bounce off of Mieville, but I've always been curious about this one! Good to hear, you know. *gestures* All this stuff.

[skygiants]

It's a VERY MIEVILLE Miéville so if you generally bounce off him, I would say ... probably don't expect this one to be the one to change your mind unless you really like Surrealists?

[rachelmanija]

I am also very curious about the Société de Gévaudan! Starting with, is Mieville's description of it correct, or was that an elaborate metafiction.

the living manifestations of Surrealist art and writing wreak havoc on the leftover Nazis.

I did not know I wanted this until I read it, but now I want it.

[skygiants]

All of the stuff that he references in the index that I was familiar seemed to be real-world accurate, so I desperately want to believe the Société de Gévaudan is a real thing as well! And then I want someone to write me the historical novel. Possibly Pat Barker.

[dhampyresa]

Do you want me to look at the Société de Gévaudan sources? Either links, because OMG

[skygiants]

This was the first source I found! The vague sense I got from my limited translation ability (and the fact that it's on liberation.fr) lead me to believe there's definitely SOMETHING there...

[marginaliana]

I bounced off this one pretty hard - the whole subject and idea of it is so incredibly on brand for me, and yet that impenetrable in-joke style really put me off. So I finished it feeling sad that I didn't like it, sort of.

[skygiants]

It's far from my favorite Miéville - though I also read most of it while waiting irritably for my delayed bags to come through after a long plane ride, which certainly didn't help - but I think from the start I was also a little bit too distanced by my meta-entertainment at the INTENSE MIEVILLENESS to really get into it as a story.

[landingtree]

That sounds like a book I'd enjoy starting more than I'd enjoy finishing... But the Society sounds like a really interesting collision-point of ideas, and it seems to have at least largely existed. Quote from an article I found:


"In July 1941 Tosquelles, Bonnafe, Balvet, Chaurand, and others decided to systematize this “work of tracking the perversions of totalitarian thought” and to write down some of the practices they had inaugurated within the hospital during the war. This became the first manifesto of the “Societe du Gevaudan,” the name they chose for their group, in reference to a mythical dog-wolf monster from the region of Saint-Alban in Lozere. The members of the Societe du Gevaudan thus drew upon their experiences as doctors, activists, and resisters, to lay down the principles of what would later be called institutional psychotherapy."

http://www.academia.edu/27556552/Fran%C3%A7ois_Tosquelles_and_the_Psychiatric_Revolution_in_Postwar_France

(Thank you for giving me a way of putting off writing an essay which increases my enthusiasm for researching things, instead of draining it slowly out through my toes. I seem to have needed one).

[skygiants]

You're very welcome, and thank you for the link!! Had I had any time in between reading the book and now, I would definitely have fallen all the way down the research hole, so I'm glad I could provide the opportunity. :D

[genarti]

This sounds AMAZING. Good, or a fun reading experience? I'm not sure! But an amazing concentration of sheer Mieville, certainly!

Also, add me to the list of people now fascinated by the Société du Gévaudan, and I too would be happy to poke at French-language sources if you like!

[skygiants]

It's just so INTENSELY Miéville. Half the size but double the concentration!

This is the first site that turns up on Google, which seems to me to indicate that the broad outlines of Miéville's description are correct, but I know that I'm missing a lot of nuance!

[rushthatspeaks]

This is my favorite Mieville, as for various reasons I have spent most of my life researching the Surrealists (it has just worked out that way), and consequently I get all the in-jokes. The levels on which he gets everything about Surrealism right are not ones that even straight-up historians frequently manage. Plus there are a lot of bonus things like someone DOING SOMETHING WITH JACK PARSONS IN A FANTASY NOVEL, and people QUESTIONING THE LINKS BETWEEN FUTURISM AND TOTALITARIANISM WITHOUT ASSUMING THEY ARE THE SAME THING, and the ending is perfect, and I cry through the bits of this book I don't laugh hysterically through.

Basically, the more one knows about the subject matter the better the book gets, which is sadly rare and I treasure it.

[skygiants]

I had a suspicion that this was the kind of book that deep knowledge improves significantly and I'm very glad to hear that that's indeed the case! It did make me want to know a great deal more about a lot of the subject matter -- especially Fry, Davenport and Gould's smuggling operation, which Gould seems to have written a book about that I will absolutely be reading.

[sovay]

DOING SOMETHING WITH JACK PARSONS IN A FANTASY NOVEL

SERIOUSLY.

[copperfyre]

Hello! I hope you don't mind me appearing in your comments, but I've been really enjoying your book reviews, and this sounds fascinatingly bizarre! I realise I've never actually read any China Miéville, but it certainly sounds like an experience. I will put them on my (ever-expanding) 'to read' list.

[skygiants]

I welcome everybody but specifically I welcome anybody who shows up with a Drowned Ammett icon. :D I'm glad you've been enjoying the reviews!

Miéville is DEFINITELY an Experience, no matter which book of his you read. If I was reccing a starter pack I might say to start with Embassytown, because it's my favorite and also I think one of the most structurally coherent while still being amazingly weird in classic Miéville style, but then there's the trouble of having read [what I think is] the best one first...

[copperfyre]

You have been giving me lots of things I want to track down and read, so that is very much appreciated!

The Dalemark Quartet is definitely very close to my heart! (As is a lot of Diana Wynne Jones, actually) Though I hadn't realised until recently that they were rereleasing a lot of DWJ with new pretty covers.

but then there's the trouble of having read [what I think is] the best one first...

Hmm, that's definitely a thing to consider! Maybe I should let my choice be dictated by whatever the library can offer me first, to allow a certain element of random chance in.

[lokifan]

they were rereleasing a lot of DWJ with new pretty covers.

*intrigued yet ready to be upset* (Although this icon isn't actually from the UK's 90s-00s (? possibly earlier-later?) Chrestomanci covers which are SO SO GORGEOUS and the ones I grew up with.)

[copperfyre]

This icon seems to be from a 2016 edition, so definitely not the ones I grew up on either! The Chrestomanci covers I mostly had copies of were the swirly ones with the circle cut-outs in them, which seem to be early 2000s editions. The rest of my DWJ were all over the place, cover-wise, because they were almost all second hand.

[lokifan]

Same same! I LOVED those swirly cutouts. I mostly had editions of her other books with the same style of illustrations, but yeah, I also got copies all over the place as a slow mission throughout my childhood (found two in a ferry bookshop and promptly spent all my school-trip money on them, that sort of thing) so it varies.

[copperfyre]

Yes! Weirdly enough the first Diana Wynne Jones book I read was Witch Week in a swirly cut-out edition, so ever after that the swirly cut-outs have been my favourite because they were my first DWJ. But the second hand collecting strategy definitely leads to some variety!

[lokifan]

including a line about having to catch them all that made me literally put down the book a moment and stare at the wall in outrage because OF COURSE a reference to Pokemon Snap, POKEMON IS ALSO SURREALIST ART, I GUESS, WHY NOT

Ahahahaha

I didn't really get on with Mieville when I tried The City & The City and I don't think I should try this one, but this post was VERY ENTERTAINING (novel about the Societe, pls, someone!) and even I get how very Mieville this book is.