[FicusFan]

Hello,

I am new to site and this is my first post, so please excuse me if I am not doing it right. :confused:

Not sure of the rules but there are probably spoilers below

I read PSS last summer and thought it was a very good book. It was very wordy though and I thought it should have been sold with a machete. :)

CM came to my local discussion group in July when he was on a tour of independent book stores in the US and admitted he has a problem with length. He feels The Scar was tighter in terms of writing -- I haven't read it yet but plan to. He was very interesting, and he talked a bit about how he wrote PSS.

I liked the moths and how they lived as a unit more than individuals and how he described them. I also thought what they did and how was more inventive and scary than some horror slasher. With their ability to capture and brainwash through the eyes I wonder if CM was taking a knock at the current mania for TV and movies, and implying what they do to your brain. I really liked Lin and her art. I liked when Lin and Isaac were together doing couple things. I wanted more of them trying to be normal in such an odd place. The cleaning robot was neat also. I wanted it to have a larger part.

I really missed that Lin disappeared in the middle of the book after she had been kidnapped. I also didn't like how Isaac didn't care about the subjects he experimented on -- all those winged things. It may have been in character, but it bothered me.

In terms of the Weaver (the spider) I actually read something similar in David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series. I think it was in the last book, Marriage of the Living Dark. I also liked the ambassador from hell, but it reminded me of summoning 'Death' in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. The atmosphere also reminded me a bit of Dark Sleeper by Jeffrey Barlough, another Dickens and Lovecraft mix -- although there is something more in CM's book. So while I enjoyed the book I don't know if I thought it was completely different than anything I had read before

One thing I wonder about is at the end I really got the sense of Yag (? the Garruda) as a Christ figure, after the crucifixion if you know what I mean, and that the whole thing was a reworking of the Passion Play with Isaac as Judas. I realize Yag is not necessarily a good guy -- I still want a trial before I accept the accusations completely, but he seemed to me to say 'thanks but no thanks' to the martyr bit, and then went out to try to live a new life. I really thought Isaac was pretty putrid since he betrayed everybody, all for the best reasons of course.

Of course I never talked to CM about my wild idea, too chicken.

[Lani]

Welcome to the board, FicusFan

It seems that I am the only person around here who just read PSS now, so I am a bit more eager to discuss. I am moving along nicely and I have only 150 pages or so left. I would definitely agree with the above comments about the length of the book. I am really taking much longer to read this than most of the book of the same length because of it being not as exciting at places.

I found the slake-moths interesting too. One of the things that was really original is their mating ritual. On Earth's historical society it was mostly more 'privilegeous' to be a male. I am talking very generally here, patriarchial society and stuff. So I found it interesting how they fought with each other to be female. I just thought it added an interesting touch to the story especially from a male author.

[Nimea]

Interesting point, Lani. It was an interesting thing for me too, but I did not look at it from that point of view!

To FicusFan: WELCOME ON BOARD! :)

About Lin: she was my favourite character and indeed it was sad that she disappeared for awhile. The way CM showed her mind and her problems with her original cultural background made me like her very much - and if something like that happens those characters are mostly doomed to be the most tragic. Is is me, or what? :(
That she only could make herself understood through sign language was something new to me. Such a character I never read about before - so you can guess 'The Ill-made Mute' caught my interest later.

I am going to read 'The Scar' next year, as well as 'King Rat' - just to see where CM came from and where he went after PSS.

That's all for now.
:)

[FicusFan]

Thanks for the welcome :)

Good point about all the moths trying to be female, I had forgotten it. I just loved the whole thing with their wings mesmerizing people and that you had to work backwards through a mirror to deal with them. That made it seem so much scarier than some boogie man coming straight at you.


I have decided that I wanted a larger role for the cleaning robot because it reminded me of the robot maid Rosie on the cartoon the Jetsons from when I was growing up.


About King Rat: I have read the book and it is much different than PSS. An urban fantasy with a mixture of reality and fantasy. I think it is geared to young Londoners -- didn't travel well. Very grotty, and a lot about the streets and buildings of London. It only had one likeable character to me, the police detective, and he doesn't appear much. There is also a good bit about Drum and Bass -- some type of music which I have never heard of, let alone have any idea of how it sounds. The reason for the fantasy part never gets explained, and that kind of bugged me. So I didn't like it much, although it wasn't awful.

You may be more familiar with some of this stuff, and enjoy it more than I did.

[Lani]

I am done as of today, only I can't say I liked the ending too much. It's not just that I feel really really bad about Lin, which I do, but which kind of fits. It is the part where Isaac refuses to try to make Yagharek fly because the female from Cymek comes and says that he shouldn't. I see how Isaac would have a conflict, but he could guess it was pretty bad what Yag did if they cut his wings and he owed him too for sure. The ending is realistic, but I found it really unsatisfactory personally that Isaac just left leaving a note and not even confronted him or ask for his side of things. He just listened to some garuda he didn't know at all and left. The fact that they basically killed Andrej person and some others in the process did not bother him nearly as much as Yag's crime. I really wish the ending was different.

[MrKip]

But all the things that Isaac did were like a 'guilt payment' as he was responsible for the escape of the slake-moths. He was distraught about his treatment of Andrej, he just felt he had to live with that guilt as due for his mistake.
Running away from Yag was a way of not judging him in Isaac's mind. If he heard the garuda side of the story (and the internal soliliquay indicates that Yag did do the crime) then he would have to judge him. Addmittadly, running away is a form of judging him as Yag still wont be able to fly but Isaac wouldn't have to look Yag in the eye and say "you're a rapist, what you've done appals me" which, in my opinion, would have pushed both Isaac and Yag over the edge and ruin them.

[Ladijen]

MrKip, I completely agree with you on the ending. I thought that it was very in character (Isaac's) and, in the end, the best decision that he could make.

Ezchaos said, "My one burning question about Bas-Lag and New Crobuzon is where are they located. Is Bas-Lag our furture Earth, or some other planet? Maybe CM will never answer this, but I'm just too nosy and analytical to let it sit."

I wondered this, too. I have not read any of Mieville's other novels so maybe this question is answered there? I thought that it might be another planet, colonized by humans in the past but already containing several sentient species. The reason that I think that it probably isn't earth is the presence of the "ribs" within the city.

FicusFan said, "With their ability to capture and brainwash through the eyes I wonder if CM was taking a knock at the current mania for TV and movies, and implying what they do to your brain."

This was another thought I wanted to bring up, but someone beat me to it. The comparison between the moths and the mesmerismic (sp?) quality of television, movies, xbox, etc. immediately occured to me, but I wonder if that is what Mieville intended.

[Hereford Eye]

Originally posted by Lani
I really wish the ending was different.
IMO, it was a comment on redemption. Yag could not be redeemed without assuming a new life. Going back to his old life, flying, et al, would have trivialized his crime and made repentance unimportant. But as he learned through the story, being part of something greater than himself was the means to the redemption he discovered he needed. I found his acceptance of that fact and his new life as a "man" the central theme in the book and not depressing at all.
As for using the dying man's death in the fight to save life, they were particularly meticulous in who they chose, an end justifies the means action. They also meticulously avoided any discussion with the man about what his choices might be to assure their course of action would not be voluntarily reversed.
CM didn't try to answer whether they were right or wrong. He left that to you and me.

[Lani]

I found his acceptance of that fact and his new life as a "man" the central theme in the book and not depressing at all.


But think about what's in store for him. He became a man inside his mind psychologically, but really he wouldn't be able to have a normal life that he wants to get. Just if to look forward in his life, he still has to hide from the militia in New Cobuzon if he stays there and if he goes somewhere else he would still look like a freak and even though he accepted living without the wings, he would probably still be troubled about everything that happened and that new life doesn't look all that bright to me.

[Nimea]

I go with Hereford Eye about Yag's redemption!
I think it was the right ending. I liked Yag in the end but I felt like it had to be.
And I would not have liked Yag to get back to normal. His future might not look too bright, but he will manage. He choose to do what he did and he had to learn to live with the consequences and take on responsibility. He did not when he tried to get his wings back!

And thinking about Isaac I read some pages at the end again. Found interesting things there:
"If he thougt of Yagharek he thought of Kar'uchai, and if he thought of her he thought of Lin." and "If withholding help implied negative judgement he could not make, thought Isaac, then helping, bestowing flight, would imply that Yagharek's actions were acceptable. And that, thought Isaac in cold distaste and fury, he would not do."
Might he have chosen differently if this terrible fate hadn't come to Lin?

And yes, Hereford Eye is right again: it is up to us to think about it, CM did not tell us the right answer. It is not that easy.

:( Lin! *schnief*