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345 pages, Hardcover
First published May 17, 2011
""I don't want to be a simile anymore," I said. "I want to be a metaphor."
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"Language, for the Ariekei, was truth: without it, what were they? An unsociety of psychopaths."How about I try to give you a glimpse of the plot? It's Miéville's forage into the sci-fi territory. Set on a far-away planet (in a galaxy far far away), it's a story narrated by Avice Benner Cho (the ABC of this language-centered book), a native of Embassytown, a human outpost on a planet inhabited by the Ariekei (The Hosts), the alien race whose lives are ruled by the Language - which IS the reality and the thought rather than merely a way of expressing the above. There are no lies, they are not possible, they are inconceivable.![]()
"I differ with myself then agree, like the rock that was broken and cemented together. I change my opinion."There are no metaphors. There are only similes - as literal as they can be, and very necessary in this literal world. Avice Benner Cho, for instant, is a Simile - "a girl who was hurt in the darkness and ate what was given to her." Only specially raised Ambassadors are able to communicate with the Ariekei. And it is this way - until one day an unexpected new Ambassador arrives. And everything goes to hell.
"A world-destroying mistake. Not a stupid one: only the very worst luck."China Miéville once again does what he knows how to do best - gives the readers an amazingly vivid and weird bit of worldbuilding, creating the environment that is so alive and real despite - or maybe because of - its inherent strangeness. On this canvas he layers the story of war and destruction, the power struggle with the appeal and danger of politics, and brings in the colonizers vs. the colonized relationship perspective - from the weirdest angle imaginable. And it works, as usual, full of CM's captivating storytelling magic. It's all-immersing and impossible to put down.![]()
"Before the humans came, we didn't speak so much of certain things. We were grown into Language. After history we made city and machines and gave them names. We didn't speak so much of certain things. Language spoke us. The words that wanted to be city and machines had us speak them so they could be."The Language, albeit described in such a fascinating way, is only an excuse, a background, a way to make the reader reflect on the power dynamics and the attempts to reconcile the old and the new, the culture that is brought in and the culture that already exists. What is better - the purity of what is already established or the allure of the unknown that leads who knows where? How much stake can we put into championing what we think is right, what we think there should be?
"I never, in Embassytown, the immer or the out, had the constitution for the intrigue. Floaking, I'd hoped, was a way around it. But politics finds you."And a special applause goes to CM's protagonist, Avice Benner Cho. She is a very strong and brave character, and yet is rather calm, low-key, and even somewhat detached. She is self-sufficient and resourceful, level-headed and determined, and I love all of that. She has a very healthy attitude about life, and it's very refreshing to read the story in such a voice. She does what needs to be done, without whining, without needless deliberation, without any extra drama. After all, she is the girl who ate what was given to her. She is like... well, many things. And that is vitally important.
"We speak now or I do, and others do. You've never spoken before. You will. You'll be able to say how the city is a pit and a hill and a standard and an animal that hunts and a vessel on the sea and the sea and how we are fish in it, not like the man who swims weekly with fish but the fish with which he swims, the water, the pool. I love you, you light me, warm me, you are suns.
You have never spoken before."
On a planet where lying is impossible, one man started lying.
"we could only talk to [the Hosts] because of a mutual misunderstanding".
For Hosts, speech was thought. It was as nonsensical to them that a speaker could say, could claim, something it knew to be untrue as, to me, that I could believe something I knew to be untrue. Without Language for things that didn’t exist, they could hardly think them; they were far vaguer by far than dreams.Avice Benner Cho grew up as a human colonist in Embassytown on the planet Arieka. When she was young, the planet’s Hosts—the enigmatic Ariekei, who are incapable of lying—turned Avice into a living simile in their Language, “the girl who ate what was given her,” intended to invoke irony and surprise, a kind of resentful fatalism. She then left her home for years, traveling and working across the galaxy. Avice had planned to return home only briefly with her husband to show him Embassytown, but while she’s home a new Ambassador arrives and upsets the delicate balance between the Ariekei and the colonists.
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Welcome to Embassytown, the frontier. I know how fast the stories’ll come. I’m an immerser: I’ve heard them. Just beyond our planet’s shores will be, people will say, El Dorado immer lands; deserted ships long lost; Earth; God. Alright then.