Friday, August 17, 2012

Crosshatched Friday Random Ten

Tonight I finished China Miéville's The City & The City, and I have to say I'm impressed and surprised by it. Not so much by new and interesting stuff that happens - although there's some of that - as by the things that pop fiction formula pretty much demands will happen, but which here don't. Miéville is a master averter.

He's also sort of a red, so it's not hard to see a critique of globalism in here. Neither is it really a hammer over your head. It's one of the elements.

1. Fleetwood Mac - Save Me a Place
2. Pink Martini & Saori Yuki - Yuzuki (Evening Moon)
3. The Clash - Train In Vain (Stand by Me)
4. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - The Wind Cries Mary
5. Stevie Wonder - You've Got It Bad Girl
6. The Bird and the Bee - Witch
7. Kat Edmonson w/ Lyle Lovett - Long Way Home
8. Grizzly Bear - Marla
9. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
10. Sarah Vaughan - Polka Dots and Moonbeams

2 comments:

susan said...

We both enjoyed reading this one some months ago. The genius of his story is in imagining a city where two different peoples who hate each other could coexist peacefully. I loved the idea of the mysterious third city placed somewhere in the interstices of the other two. Complication on complication - just like reality.

I wonder if you've read any Murakami? Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World is a very different novel but has a similar flavor.

I can hear the Sunday afternoon concert in the park in the distance. They started out playing big band music and I thought of Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughn. Nice FR10.

Ben said...

The story kind of reminded me of Borges' "Tlon, Uqbus, Orbis Tertius" in that it had to do with the effects that a concocted idea can have on reality. Of course in this book reality pushes back at some point, but things still get weird.

I've read Hard Boiled Wonderland, A Wild Sheep Chase, and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. What I've read of Murakami I've liked a lot.

Sounds like a nice park to live near. They got taste. :)