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Weirdly, The City & the City reminds me of Martin Cruz Smith's books like Gorky Park set in the Soviet Union (or more recently post-Soviet countries) in that it
by jhbadger 2y ago
Weirdly, The City & the City reminds me of Martin Cruz Smith's books like Gorky Park set in the Soviet Union (or more recently post-Soviet countries) in that it is a police procedural set in a culture the reader presumably doesn't understand and so the reader is interested in learning how this society functions as much as they are interested in seeing the mystery solved. The difference of course is the societies in The City & the City are of course fictional.
- interludead 2y agoWhat aspects of the culture in The City & the City stood out to you the most?
- jhbadger 2y agoMostly just the explanations of how the two cities could function as separate entities while physically occupying the same land through the use of legally mandated "useeing". The author goes into detail how this works -- obviously at one level people see the people, vehicles, etc. from the other city or they'd run into them, but on a conscious level they act as if they don't exist.