TOPOGRAPHPICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSION OF THE NOVEL “THE CITY AND THE CITY” BY CHINA TOM MIEVILLE

Abstract

The paper focuses on the topography of “The City and the City” by China Tom Miéville and its relation to the novel’s generic and compositional structure. Starting with the findings of cognitive poetic studies regarding readers’ emotional response to the text and the mechanisms behind it, I demonstrate how the topography of the textual world adds to the effects of unease in Weird Fiction and in C. Miéville’s works. Using the example of the odd topography in “The City and the City”, I show its relevance as a compositional core of the novel, a tool to explore the psychology of the city dweller, and an experimental space for reviewing the notions of self-identity, personal freedom and the power of limitations. I argue that the specific effect of unease in Weird Fiction is partly due to the grotesque topography which
the reader attempts (and often fails) to conjure up in his mind’s eye following the character’s exploration of the given space. The disorienting topography is new to both the reader and the character, and the tension builds as the two discover more and more unusual aspects of it. No stranger to this strategy, C. Miéville,
however, takes a different approach in “The City and the City”. Structuring the novel around the strange topography of the city(-ies), Miéville forces the reader to deduce its weird laws and makeup from the life of its native. Thus, the relationship between the city and the citizen becomes the central mystery of the novel which I attempt to explore in my reading of it.