The City & The City

The concept of The City & the City is the hero of this novel. Two cities, Beszel and Ul Qoma occupy the same physical space but are treated as two different geographical areas. Sometimes citizens of one city will see buildings, residents, events occurring in the other city but they are trained to ignore it. In fact, it is illegal to acknowledge or interact with anything from the other city.

Breaking this law is known as “breach.” There is an entire branch of law devoted to arresting and retraining citizens that commit this “crime.” That was the most fascinating part of The City & the City. It seems to me that making it illegal to acknowledge what your senses tell you is a kind of mental fascism, a 1984-ish thought police style of intellectual tyranny. The residents of the city have been indoctrinated to put up with ignoring or denying reality.

It took quite a while for me to get oriented as to what the arrangement of the two cities was and what it meant. In fact, if you read the book without reading the blurb on the back or any other synopsis material, you might be lost for several chapters.

The story is a murder mystery that incorporates the concept: a murder takes place in one city and the body is found in the other. However, the plot isn't that interesting as it plays out. It's surprisingly predictable coming from the mind of the writer who created such a wonderful premise. There aren't any especially memorable characters, even the lead investigator Borlu, isn't that well defined.