A review by thisotherbookaccount
Embassytown by China Miéville
5.0
With Embassytown, I am convinced that China Miéville has tapped the ether somehow, or sold his soul to Cthulhu. As if it was not enough to have cornered the New Weird market, with his off-the-wall take on urban fantasy, Miéville then decides to take on the science fiction genre this time. And, in a true Miéville move, of course it is not enough that Embassytown features space ships, distant planets and aliens. Instead, this book is a meditation on language — the power of language.
When I was a child, I remember asking my mother how come Bob Saget could speak Mandarin when it's called AMERICA's Funniest Home Videos. "It's the dubbing," my mother replied, before going right back to ironing my pyjamas. Imagine my surprise when I watched the original version of the show and couldn't understand a word Saget said on screen.
Embassytown is a little like that. You cannot write about the alienness of an extraterrestrial species without delving into their language — or lack of language, in some cases. Even as a child, I knew it was ridiculous — though understandable — for aliens in Star Wars and Star Trek to be proficient in English. For some reason, it was never the other way around. Embassytown goes to great lengths to show just how monumentally difficult it is to communicate with a species that has evolved on a different planet altogether, and how far we are willing to go to bridge those linguistic differences.
A large part of this book is also about how language shapes the way we perceive the world. If you have read Stories of our Lives by Ted Chiang (or watched the equally brilliant film adaptation, Arrival), you will get what I am going for here. In many ways, humans' ability to perceive the world is connected to the limitations of our language. In the face of a completely alien language, then, you will have to not only adjust the way you communicate, but the way you think as well. A great joy in this book is the exploration of these linguistic differences between the different species, and how we get over those differences to come to some mutual understanding.
Of course, no good story is without a central conflict. Somewhere in this book is a critic of organised religion as well, the way believers accept the Word of God (or, in this case, the God Drug) as truth, and becomes mindless addicts as a result. Miéville also writes of how the path to enlightening lies with the questioning of the so-called ultimate truth, or to break away from that addiction by 'lying' — trust me, you will get it when you read it.
However, is this book flawless? Not quite. I still prefer his Bas Laq works (though I have yet to read the third in the trilogy, Iron Council), and the narrative there flows at a more consistent pace. The fact that Embassytown is essentially a big narration by the protagonist also means that many key action beats and character development details are skipped over. The result is a cast of characters that are there to serve the story.
Still, speaking of story, what a great story. A book about language, a science fiction book about language, should be celebrated despite its flaws.
When I was a child, I remember asking my mother how come Bob Saget could speak Mandarin when it's called AMERICA's Funniest Home Videos. "It's the dubbing," my mother replied, before going right back to ironing my pyjamas. Imagine my surprise when I watched the original version of the show and couldn't understand a word Saget said on screen.
Embassytown is a little like that. You cannot write about the alienness of an extraterrestrial species without delving into their language — or lack of language, in some cases. Even as a child, I knew it was ridiculous — though understandable — for aliens in Star Wars and Star Trek to be proficient in English. For some reason, it was never the other way around. Embassytown goes to great lengths to show just how monumentally difficult it is to communicate with a species that has evolved on a different planet altogether, and how far we are willing to go to bridge those linguistic differences.
A large part of this book is also about how language shapes the way we perceive the world. If you have read Stories of our Lives by Ted Chiang (or watched the equally brilliant film adaptation, Arrival), you will get what I am going for here. In many ways, humans' ability to perceive the world is connected to the limitations of our language. In the face of a completely alien language, then, you will have to not only adjust the way you communicate, but the way you think as well. A great joy in this book is the exploration of these linguistic differences between the different species, and how we get over those differences to come to some mutual understanding.
Of course, no good story is without a central conflict. Somewhere in this book is a critic of organised religion as well, the way believers accept the Word of God (or, in this case, the God Drug) as truth, and becomes mindless addicts as a result. Miéville also writes of how the path to enlightening lies with the questioning of the so-called ultimate truth, or to break away from that addiction by 'lying' — trust me, you will get it when you read it.
However, is this book flawless? Not quite. I still prefer his Bas Laq works (though I have yet to read the third in the trilogy, Iron Council), and the narrative there flows at a more consistent pace. The fact that Embassytown is essentially a big narration by the protagonist also means that many key action beats and character development details are skipped over. The result is a cast of characters that are there to serve the story.
Still, speaking of story, what a great story. A book about language, a science fiction book about language, should be celebrated despite its flaws.