Un Lun Dun

Monday 19 May – Yep, a musically blank weekend, well gig-wise anyway. I am currently listening to The Barbarians Move In, the new album from The Duels, so expect a review shortly. Meanwhile here is a book review of Un Lun Dun by China Tom Miéville to keep you going...

Now Un Lun Dun is billed as a book aimed at young adults, or perhaps older children. So that’ll be me then. You can’t get a much older child than me. What’s it about? Err; this is going to sound a bit weird. Two girls Zanna and Deeba, find a way into UnLondon where the lost and broken things of London end up. UnLondon is under attack by the evil Smog and its cronies, and needs a hero, Zanna. But Zanna gets incapacitated in the first battle and the fate of UnLondon hinges on Deeba, an animated milk carton, a talking book full of not-totally-accurate facts and prophesies, the boss of broken umbrellas, and a couturier whose head is a pincushion. Pursued by the Smog, its stink-junkie slaves, and a half-ghost boy, Deeba has to rouse the people of UnLondon and find a way of defeating the Smog.

China, (the only fantasy author that everyone actually agrees is writing in the New Weird genre), is like Marmite; you either like him or loathe him. His incredible Perdido Street Station (his second novel, but the first to be set in Bas-Lag) was a nightmarish wonderland and Un Lun Dun takes us to the line and then legs it half way up the Mountains of Madness. This is Bosch and Dali in words. Miéville is constantly playful and inventive, the pages full of puns, and the text flowing around his own drawings every few pages. The narrative is witty, energetic, and full of ideas although this is at the expense of a lack of characterisation. Almost every literary cliché is overturned: the side-kick is the hero, some good guys die and some bad guys get away. Deeba is not the predestined hero but rather a real hero, coming from real people rising to the occasion. The decisions she makes and the personal growth she experiences is a much stronger recipe for heroism than simply playing a part in a drama spelled out by fantasy convention.

For the more thoughtful reader this book is China on a soap-box. There is a “War on Terror” subtext in the fight against the Smog, with some power-brokers exploiting fear, uncertainty and doubt to support the power, while others try to ingratiate themselves, rather than fight a losing battle. More obviously, this war between good and evil has none of the supernatural religious overtones, but the evil to overcome is mankind's own desecration of the environment. Miéville rages against the complacent acceptance of the status quo and the failure to question authority.

I throughly recommend this book to children of all ages.