#LOBOOK - Reading "THE CITY AND THE CITY" by CHINA MIÉVILLE

in lobook •  17 hours ago 

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Hello!

Today I publish a post about my #lobook initiative. Here, I share my experience about a book, beginning from the buying and finishing with my personal review. You can read more about lobook, consulting my first Lobook post here on Blurt.


AND NOW, LET'S GO!

This new episode takes a cue from the China Miéville's novel, published with the title The City and the City (dated back to 2009 for the native version). The Italian version I read is La Città e la Città, first publication in Italy dates back to 2011 and curated by Maurizio Nati. In the image below, you can see a cover picture from which I removed a few parts, trying to avoid possible direct advertisings. This version dates back to 2017.

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And below, some slices of the inner pages:

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I bought the book several months ago, in the paperback format. There are multiple editions with different prices, major for the hard-cover version and minor for the softcover one. The first price I found surfing the web here in Italy is €9.90, and reaches €16.00. You can find different price on your homeplace or online, someone with various offers. Maybe there is even an ebook format in Italian or English. I don't know for other languages.

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TURNING PAGES

A very unusual scenario, perhaps pure science fiction. A city and another city, both in the same place, at the same time, yet different. Both are so similar, yet profoundly different. In the middle, something that scares just hearing it mentioned, a treacherous terrain competence of the Breach. And the Breach is not only the competent body, but also an intolerable fact, "the breaching", a sort of crime without the possibility of appeal. And he, despite having always been distant from it, will find himself having to face it so closely that he ends up inside it.

The novel is light science fiction, set in a scenario of parallel worlds similar to that of a TV series like Fringe – for those who have seen it –. The plot might not be bad, but I found it a bit too slow, lacking in significant events, similar to that of some classic detective stories where there is no characterizing evolution but many very small events that are not strictly useful to the thread. If I had to give a grade, it would be around sufficiency.

What I found annoying was the style and especially the way of narrating. I don't know if it's the author's fault, a result achieved during the translation or during layout creation. The fact is that I encountered several typos and above all a whole series of poorly set sentences, sometimes simply too long, sometimes much more blatantly inverted in construction, with many interminable sentences or that often forced me to go back to understand a possible meaning. Sometimes I also noticed some gaps in punctuation; not strictly wrong, but useful in making a compound sentence difficult to understand. My vote in this case would be below sufficiency.

Obviously, it's a personal opinion, it doesn't take anything away from the book's quality or the author's writing skills.

Pages: 350 about

Genre: SCI-FI | THRILLER

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PERSONAL RATING

For my personal rating of the book, I usually use two votes: a GENERAL VOTE, based on a more objective approach to the text (where I consider for example the author's way of writing, the plot, any errors found, etc), and an INVOLVEMENT VOTE, based instead on the effect that reading had on me (if it attracted me, if it intrigued and tempted me, if it gave me useful information, etc.). Each of the two ratings is marked with a number of stars, from one to 5.

In the case of La città e la Città, my personal response is:

GENERAL Vote: 2/5
INVOLVEMENT Vote: 3/5

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If this article has intrigued you, you can find info by searching on the web for news of the author, or contacting retailers in the books business sector. I greet you, and I hope my one is a useful opinion. I will periodically publish other posts of this kind. If you are interested in discovering new books – mainly novels – on the market, you can continue following me on the #lobook tag.

A greeting and to the next book!

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