Franzia Street Station, Part 1

A strange tale is gradually unfolding in China Mieville's Perdido Street Station, and our conversation also gradually unfolded. But luckily, no one had to flay anyone else alive to illustrate their point.

  Most of the territory covered involved the nature of fantasy literature, and our grappling with the particulars of the world containing the city New Corbuzon--its structure, its people, its bestiary, and ultimately, who is behind its ominous status quo. Cities built in the ribcage of ancient, titanic beasts have a lot of texture. Much of the conversation centered around exactly what Mieville intended--New Corbuzon's near overwhelming creepiness. Between the strange insect-headed khelpri and their bizarre society, the vague nature of the cactus men, and the frogginess of the vodyanoi, and the terrifying distortion of the Remade, the groups that make up the city are odd enough on their own, but clearly other forces are at work in New Corbuzon, with the terrifying spider-like Weaver promising deeper complications than Mayor Rudgutter, with his banality of evil and Harry Potter name, seems capable to handle.

With so much focus on transitive, jumbled forms, hot chicks with insect heads and the like, it was only natural we'd focus on the transitive, jumbled types within the story, blends of past and present. A man is simultaneously scientist and magician, a bug woman is simultaneously old style bohemian and the girl who left a provincial home for the Big City Life, and a pair of newsletter editors evoke both the revolutionary press of the past and the modern conspiracy mongering of Mulder and Scully, in a world of flintlock pistols, punch-card golems, and typewriters. Next gathering, we shall see how these types run together.

Line of the Night: "Every other word was the 'fuck word'." --Charity.