Well, I finally finished China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station. (Yes, I’m a damned slow reader… after staring at several monitors all day at work, these old eyes tend to get tired fast when I sit down with a book at the end of a day.) Regular readers of this blog (are there any?) might recall me ranting about the author’s fascination with shit and his pompous use of obscure words a few weeks back.

The bad news is, I haven’t changed my opinion about these aspects of the book. The good news is, it’s a damned fine story. In fact, when things get exciting, Mieville’s style becomes much more streamlined and enjoyable. You can imagine him writing faster and faster and not stopping to try and shoehorn in the subject of his most recent “Word of the day” email. Hopefully as he matures as a writer, his wonderful imagination will stay the same and he’ll realize his job is to tell a good story, not dazzle us with his vocabulary.

It’s a dark tale, no doubt, and the city it takes place in is old and grimy and corrupt. It can all get to be a bit much after a while (another reason it took me so long to read it… I had to keep stopping to take a shower so I could feel clean again). The technology is a wonderful spin on ‘steampunk’ and is way, way fun. None of the characters are particularly lovable, so if you’re into Real Heros you might want to pass on this one.

Otherwise, fascinating stuff. A twisty-turny story set in a downright weird world. Gets my thumbs up (I’m sure Mr. Mieville will let out a great sigh of relief when he hear’s about this! Heh.)

So I’m reading China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station. The overall story is pretty good so far, but the author is just *so* impressed with himself. First, he delights in trying to gross us out; I don’t think he can go 3 paragraphs without using “shit” somewhere. Sometimes as an expletive: “Godshit” seems to be the most common curse in his world. But also the action… every living creature has to be seen shitting at least once, it seems.

I can get past that, as I just roll my eyes and mutter “Kids” when the event is worked in clumsily. But what really bothers me is his use of obscure vocabulary. It’s been more than a few years since I read a book that has so many words in it that I don’t know, and I have a reasonably good vocabulary of my own. If I had more time I’d pull out some examples, but for now I’ll just share the one that triggered this post:

Eventually, Yagharek spoke.

“And if you are right . . . I will fly?”

Isaac burst into laughter at the bathetic demand.

“Yes, yes, Yag old son. If I’m right, you’ll fly again.”

Um, excuse me… bathetic?

Now, my battered old copy of Websters doesn’t even list bathetic. It does include the pseudo-root word, bathos, but I wouldn’t have linked the two terms if dictionary.com hadn’t had a few listings for bathetic:
adj : effusively or insincerely emotional; “a bathetic novel”; “maudlin expressons of sympathy”; “mushy effusiveness”; “a schmaltzy song”; “sentimental soap operas”; “slushy poetry”
said one, while another just says:
“Characterized by bathos. See Synonyms at sentimental” [Probably blend of bathos, and pathetic.]

Now, this definition didn’t make sense in the context of the passage (and forgive me for not having quoted enough for you to make that judgement). What I think young Mieville meant can be discerned from looking at the definition for bathos. Two definitions are listed, one concerning sentimentality, which apparently is the one that ‘bathetic’ is based on, but I believe we’re looking for the other definition, which is:
a. An abrupt, unintended transition in style from the exalted to the commonplace, producing a ludicrous effect.
b. An anticlimax. In the passage, the Isaac character was spouting off about his scientific theories for a couple of pages, using lots of technical jargon and laying out some pretty sophisticated thought lines… so Yag’s simple response could be considered a transition from the exalted to the commonplace.

So, that quest laid to rest, I have to ask… “What did the use of this obscure term add to my reading experience?” And I have to answer… “Nothing. In fact, it was detrimental because by the time I tracked all this down, I’d been totally pulled out of the story and I put the book down to do something else.” I suppose one could argue that expanding your vocabulary is a good thing, but I’m not even sure that’s right. I have to stop and explain my terms often enough as things are without starting to sprinkle ‘bathetic’ into everyday conversation.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying this book. Mieville has a wild imagination and the world of his book is fascinating. I just hope by the time he writes his next one, he will have lost his fascination with poop and gotten off the ‘word of the day’ email list.

I finally finished LotR last night. Whenever I read the trilogy, finishing it becomes something of a relief, since somewhere about 2/3’s of the way into The Two Tower I become a total slave to it. That’s where Tolkein grips me to a point where it starts interfering with my sleep cycle. The first time through, iirc, I skipped school to finish it!

I went to sleep dreaming dreams of What Comes Next. Even though we’re treated to a fairly long ‘post-quest’ bit of reading, it still seems that there is much to do, especially in the land of Gondor.

Now its on to Perdido Street Station, which was recommended by Sarazin a few posts below this one. Hopefully it won’t take me as long to read it as it did LotR, which I started right after seeing the movie (so, December-ish?). Most of the time between then and now was spent on the Fellowship. I’d put it down for weeks at a time. I really need to set aside more time for reading novels… I’ve gotten into the habit of being online so much that I spend almost no time with a book in my hands. I used to read for a good hour before bed every night, but now by the time I get my head down I’m so fagged I fall asleep almost immediately. I need to start rebuilding some Good Habits; reading a novel is like listening to music… it recharges your imagination, and mine is in need of recharging.