The April F&SF arrived today, which puts me back on track (or at least, it arrived when I expected it to arrive; I’m now not expecting anything until the June issue towards the end of June, having long since given up on ever seeing the January issue). It’s a Gene Wolfe special, which may prompt one of my periodic attempts to get to grips with said writer, but of course what I flipped to first were the reviews. This issue, Charles de Lint reviews China Mieville’s latest. The review is notable for two reasons: one, it’s almost the only negative review I can remember de Lint giving — to be fair, his column is called “books to look for”, not “books to avoid” — and two, it’s almost the only negative view of Un Lun Dun I’ve seen so far. An excerpt:
What doesn’t work?
Unfortunately, the characters are all flat. This is an “events” novel from start to finish, one event leading breathlessly into the next, and that’s the book’s other problem. It’s much too busy.
Those fabulous ideas I mentioned earlier? Every time we just start to get interested in something — a character, a situation, some new odd and wonderful place — we’re already moving on to the next. And often, that’s the only time we see them.
[…]
I think the real problem with Un Lun Dun can be found in the interview that was in the back of the galley I read. When asked by the interviewer if this is a YA book, Miéville says, “Absolutely,” then goes on to add, “There’s a certain kind of fairy-tale logic you can use in a YA book that you can’t in an adult book, or at least not without tipping into a kind of mannered fabulism that, in adult fiction, I don’t love. I couldn’t use a character with a bottle of ink for a head in an adult book.”
I couldn’t disagree more. YA books aren’t a place where anything can happen. A belief such as that just shows a disrespect to your audience. Teen readers are as smart and savvy as adult readers — some of them more so. And adult novels can have all sorts of whimsical and dark oddities in them.
They aren’t “mannered fabulism” in the right hands. Readers will accept many things when they start a book, but no matter how outlandish the things we meet in its pages might be, the good author roots it all in believable characters. Characters that live and breathe and grow as the story unfolds.
And that’s where Un Lun Dun fails. Miéville’s characters are differentiated only by their physical attributes. They act a certain way, because they look a certain way. I think he was trying for an Alice in Wonderland quirkiness, and that might have worked in a smaller book, or perhaps one with longer scenes. Even Carroll spent more time in his scenes than Miéville does, and while Alice is an innocent to whom things happen, Miéville’s Deeba isn’t. She’s a doer, but we’re always told what she feels and why she does the things she does; we don’t actually get to know her.
His criticisms of the book may or may not be valid (I haven’t read Un Lun Dun, but I recognise the slog of relentless events from at least the first section of Iron Council), but I’m not sure he’s interpreted Mieville correctly; or at least, I’m not sure “fairy-tale logic” is equivalent to “anything can happen”.
vector-bsfa.com 
I’m not so sure – someone with a pot of ink for a head wouldn’t be part of my standard interpretation of “fairy tale logic.”
(and look, I remember to check and comment! cookies for me)
Ed Champion had a less than complementary review of Un Lun Dun in the LA Times a few months ago.
I soured on the idea of adult authors writing YA fiction after reading Michael Chabon’s anemic Summerland, but the good press for Un Lun Dun convinced me to make an exception – it’s winging its way to me right now. I guess we’ll soon see if I should have stuck with my first instinct.
Chance: cookie? And I do wish I could see the full interview, because yes, we can’t really tell what Mieville’s definition of fairytale-like is; I can buy inkhead as an Alice in Wonderland-type creature, but that’s not the same as fairytale, I wouldn’t have thought. But either way, I don’t think Mieville was talking about a license to have anything happen, precisely.
Abigail: well, that nice Mr Hartland has written me a review for SH; mixed, but more positive than not, I think. (Also, what about Gaiman’s Coraline? Which, actually, is almost the only thing of his that I’ve read [not that I’ve read all that much] that really works.)
I tend to do well with Gaiman, but I’m one of the few people I know who wasn’t blown away by Coraline. I do agree, however, that it works as a piece of fiction, and it certainly doesn’t talk down to its audience or hold itself back the way Summerland did.
That said, Gaiman is one of those authors whose novels straddle the YA-adult divide. Neverwhere and Stardust could just as easily have been sold as YA novels, and most bright teenagers could tackle American Gods so long as they’re not put off by the length – whereas I probably wouldn’t give Kavalier and Clay or Perdido Street Station to a fifteen year old. Most of the rabid Gaiman fans I know started reading him in their early to mid-teens, so it’s not surprising to me that he would know how to appeal to the pre-adolescent set.
Abigail: I assume by ‘soured on adult authors writing YA fiction’ you don’t mean that YA fiction should only be written by YAs? *g*
For me some of what I see listed as YA could just as easily be considered adult, it simply has YA protagonists. Hence Interzone once described The Red Magician as a ‘juvenile’ novel. And possibly also Tourists. There are authors who flit between the two age groups easily, Gwyneth Jones for instance, whilst others straddle the divide without being decisively one or the other.
I think the flat characterization criticism is a fair one, particularly for the first 130-40 pages or so. In fact, I almost gave up at that mark. But the book really becomes quite magical after that.
>Unfortunately, the characters are all flat.
Well, yeah. Mieville, right?
Gwenda (and Hannah), I have that exact experience each time I read a novel by Mieville. I much prefer his short fiction.
And I do wish I could see the full interview
This may not qualify as a “full interview,” but I think the Q&A that DeLint is referring to can be found here.
As Kev points out there isn’t really any such thing as a YA novel, just a marketing category composed of novels with YA protagonists. Coraline, for example, isn’t a YA novel, it is a universal novel in the same way the Pixar films are universal films. It may resonate more strongly with certain people but that is true of all books. Wolves In The Walls, on the other hand, is a children’s book. (The stage production is universal though.)
I probably wouldn’t give Kavalier and Clay or Perdido Street Station to a fifteen year old.
I don’t really see what the difference between Perdido Street Station and American Gods nor do I see any reason not to give those to a fifteen year old. I think twelve is probably the transistion age from child to adult novels. I mean a fifteen year old will have read and studied Shakespeare.
There is a question around the sophistication of a text and how much the reader gets out of it but this is unrelated to the type of novel or the age of the reader. I loved reading Dean Koontz and Dick Francis thrillers when I was 11-12 and they are hardly sophisticated fare. I wouldn’t read them these days but they were perfect for a young reader. It doesn’t make them YA novels though.
Oh, and Miéville is talking balls.
Well, and to be completely pedantic, neither Coraline nor Un Lun Dun are “YA” — they’re middle grade.
Ted: Thanks. It doesn’t really expand on the point at hand, but is interesting nonetheless.
Gwenda: DO I sense a UK/US terminology divide approaching? I’ve never heard a book described as “middle grade” and, in my head at least, “YA” is, say, 12 to 16, and “children’s” is, say, under 12. Though there’s blurring in both directions, as in all these things.
>>Unfortunately, the characters are all flat.
>Well, yeah. Mieville, right?
And I thought I was the only one who wasn’t a fully paid up member of the Church of China…
my only comment here: there is a difference between children’s fiction and YA fiction. a number of people i know think that the mieville is for children (10 up), rather than teenagers.
Middle grade in the US is 8-12 year olds. Terri Windling and my children’s fairy tale anthos are aimed at that market. Our YA books: Green Man, et al are aimed at the older teenage with crossover to adult market.
Yeah, YA is generally billed as 13 or 14 and up. If YA is a separate section of the bookstore in your average, say, Barnes and Noble, middle grade will usually be closer to the books for younger children (chapter books and picture books, etc). Un Lun Dun (and Coraline and Flora Segunda) are all in the middle grade section at our local B&N, adjoining the chapter and picture books, which I find kind of obnoxious because I do think older teens would like them and are unlikely to find them there.
That said, middle grade books are typically seen as having a bigger potential audience than YA, because there isn’t as much controversial content (thus an easier sell to libraries and schools and parents) and many teens are already “reading up.” Of course, I imagine that will change some as more and more adults (and teenagers) are reading YA.
As you rightly note, these are for the most part marketing distinctions anyway. And hair-splitting ones at that. It’s just me being pedantic because I’ve been seeing YA used to denote any book not written for adults lately. And there is _usually_, though not always, a difference in the feel and the writing level between these sorts of books.
I kind of hate Mieville’s comment on YA novels as it is shown here, but maybe it was taken out of context?
I have to agree with other posters about Mieville’s characterizations…not the strongest even on a good day (i.e. Perdido Street Station). He is very focused on his ideas, often at the expense of other elements of the work.
I fully agree with Charles de Lint: Un Lun Dun displays low depth characters acting at high speed. Also, the more than obvious Big Brother hints and the eco message cannot convince as much as Miéville’s political undercurrents of Perdido Street Station and The Scar.
At http://www.Phantastik-Couch.de we gave 68 out of 100 possible points.
While I think the concepts behind Mieville’s books are interesting, so far I’ve been unable to get past the seemingly endless overwritten descriptives. It is just too much information. In my opinion, some things should be left up to reader imagination, some things should be suggested more than stated. Readers are unlikely to be able to visualize page after page after page of dense descriptive paragraphs, so when writers write in so much of that stuff, they’ll wind up writing that stuff to themselves. Most of it should probably be revised out.
I think the modern emphasis on “world building” has caused many a science fiction writer to go overboard descriptively–though maybe the pure fantasy genre is primarily responsible for that trend. To me, Mieville’s work seems to fit in the pure fantasy genre more than in the science fiction subset.
Mieville is writing for a generation that describes the relentless MTV pace of the eighties/early nineties as “quaint”, for people who grew up in a media landscape as dense as any of his paragraphs. The density of his writing is a feature, not a bug.
As for the flat characters, I disagree. Mieville just doesn’t do introspective characters showcasing their deep deep feelings; most of them don’t have the luxury for that. If you want deep characters, read an McEwan novel.
I see it as children’s fiction – I bought it to give to my son for his eleventh birthday, but he could have read it a couple of years ago easily. I would say it reads on a par with the Edge Chronicles but more conceptually sharp (in a dialectical manner). I agree with the comment above which suggests the first third is rather flat but then it hits overdrive – it should be noted that the plot demands that the first bit be flat and anti-climactic (in a way the first bit is a deliberate un- fantasy quest).
I didn’t find it as fulfilling as Mieville’s adult novels (which I rate very highly) but then I am an adult and this is a children’s book. One of Mieville’s strengths is writing about sexuality and people learning to make complex moral and political choices but obviously we don’t get most of this in Un Lun Dun and yet I think my son will enjoy it.
In respect to characterisation, I think what Mieville avoids is replicating bourgeois ideology and the idea that people automatically get wiser as they get older and put aside youthful ways and align themselves with the reality principle (its called the death drive – and there are lots of boring ‘mainstream’ novels about it). In Mieville, people find themselves by fighting against exactly these processes, which is why his work doesn’t conform to conventional characterisation.
There was an interview/profile of Mieville in the Guardian yesterday.
Me: Well, yeah. Mieville, right?
martin mcgrath: And I thought I was the only one who wasn’t a fully paid up member of the Church of China…
I actually do…um. I’m not sure “like” or “enjoy” is the word I’m going for. But I am very impressed by his work in ways that make it very much worth my time, even when it infuriates me. His characters and prose drive me out of my mind at times (and I agree, the short fiction is more soothing for me in those areas), but even though I don’t usually read for unadulterated cool–he manages to make me dig it.
So. Not a regular worshipper, but definitely doing time in the pews?
Martin Wisse: As for the flat characters, I disagree. Mieville just doesn’t do introspective characters showcasing their deep deep feelings; most of them don’t have the luxury for that.
It’s been a while since I’ve read Iron Council, but what I remember is that the thing that made me crazy about the Cutter/Judah storyline was the dwelling and introspection. By which I mean, the bit where it was about as subtle as a sledgehammer blow between the eyes.