Embassytown by China Miéville
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Proem: In Which an Ambassador Iangrayetiates Himself With His Host With Impunity

Is a simile
Like a metaphor?
I cannot espouse
This figure of speech.
This not unlike that?
One word a signpost?

Can this be that, or
Would subject object?
How could I be you?
Worse still, you be me?
Well, I know my place,
I'm not one to boast.

I am, like, content
To be just a guest,
Sometimes arriving
First and leaving last.
Not competitive,
Neither least nor most.

A figure of speech,
An Ambassador,
If you please, beyond
Compare and contrast,
Bearing messages
For you dear, mein Host.



A Story about Language

In a way, every work of fiction is about language, at least to the extent that it applies language to the telling of a story.

However, China Mieville’s "Embassytown" is about the very nature of language and how it both separates and bonds people.

At its heart is a deep knowledge of linguistics (far greater than my superficial understanding).

However, Mieville’s special talent is to weave this knowledge into an exciting adventure story based on linguistic concerns.

It’s a fascinating novel in the way some of us might have been fascinated by Umberto Eco’s "The Name of the Rose" or Don DeLillo’s "The Names" (note the word "name" in both titles) or would have been fascinated if a decent writer had got their hands on the religious and historical themes behind "The Da Vinci Code" (not "name", but "code" this time).

If Tom Hanks can star in a film of an unfilmable novel like "Cloud Atlas", then surely he could help bankroll a film of this novel?

Now that I think of it, if that novel was an Atlas, then this one is a Thesaurus.

It’s about what we can learn about humanity from the differentiation, synonymity and antonymity underlying language.

The Language of Diplomacy

Embassytown is a diplomatic enclave in a City on another planet ruled by the Ariekei or Hosts.

There are human and other Ambassadors and Diplomatic Staff here and, as is the custom, they have to find ways to communicate with each other, despite language differences.

In the ordinary course of events, there could be disputes, and resolutions have to be developed, negotiated and agreed. It is the nuts and bolts of diplomacy that we mere mortals can only dream of.

"Ambassadors speak with empathic unity. That’s our job."

[I once dreamed of being a diplomat and took a university course designed to qualify me for entry, but they started taking diplomats hostage around this time and I lost some of my enthusiasm. Still, I socialized within a diplomatic community for several years.]

Language As She is a Spoke in the Wheel

To the extent that a common language (such as English) is not used, diplomacy must operate at the intersection of two or more languages.  We have to observe and respect nuances and exercise caution so as not to offend our hosts with inadvertent connotations or discourtesy.

We are always on tenterhooks or tender hooks.

You can imagine that when two languages first encountered each other, a lot of work had to be done to identify commonalities.

Was the grammar similar? What words meant the same thing? What are your words for "dog" or "girl"? What are our words?

It Semed Like a Good Idea at the Time

This is where a knowledge of semiotics might help an understanding of the novel.

Let's use the word "dog" as an example.

The word is a "sign" or a "signifier", and it "signifies" what society knows to be a dog. The social understanding of the concept relies on convention.

But a "dog" could mean a whole lot of different types of dog, which are all within the convention. These "dogs" are all within the scope of the "signified".

The words are therefore signs or vessels that carry meaning that is influenced by society and convention.

If I say "dog", however, I might be thinking of my dog Charlie, who is small and white, while you might think of your dog, Wilbur, who is big and black.

Our language is flexible enough to accommodate this personalisation of the signified.


 


Ariekei Thought and Speech

Contrast this with how the Language of the Ariekei Hosts operates.

The word for them is a funnel or a "referent" to the original thought.

This thought occurs within the mind of a Host.

Host-on-Host communication is therefore, presumably, much closer to unadorned or unmediated thoughts communicating through funnels.

If a Host "said" dog, its thought might actually be small, white Charlie dog, and the funnel or referent would ensure that another Host saw and understood small, white Charlie dog, consistently with the thought.

The meaning or signification of the word wouldn't be [as] social or conventional. It would be more specific to the "speaker" or "thinker".

Indeed, it’s arguable that there is only "referral" and no "signification" at all.

We leapfrog the social and conventional, and go straight from thought to thought.

Hence, the Hosts' "speech is thought".

What Lies Beneath a Language

This linguistic process lies beneath the Ariekei fascination with similes and, ultimately, with lies.

The transparency of their thought dictates total sincerity, therefore an inability to lie.

"This" must mean "this" and "this" only (not "that" or "more than this").

A simile requires one thing to mean or imply another.

A simile therefore requires social convention to imply meaning into the words of a speaker that a listener can infer.

The Ariekei just do not get and cannot replicate this process

Similarly, the Hosts can't think of a concept without Language.

As a result, they can't conceive of falsity.

To be confronted with a lie is an impossibility that is capable of giving them a brain explosion analogous to an addictive psychedelic "god-drug" experience.

Abstraction, Action and Interaction Behind the Language

The process also raises the issue of what they can imagine:

"What imaginaries any of them could conjure at all must be misty and trapped in their heads."

How can they think without words?

Are they just taking "snapshots" of the Real?

Can they entertain abstract thought?

Are they limited in what they can think and speak?

Is their world primarily one of action in the real world, not so much abstraction within the world of the mind?

Does the primacy of individual action limit collective or social interaction?

Can there only be dispute and coercion without cooperation?

Language Channels Into Sects and Cults

This is pretty much the back story of the novel.

The front story is intimately concerned with these ideas, and to say more would risk thematic, if not plot, spoilers.

Suffice it to say that a lot happens at the intersection of the two languages.

And it involves interaction, misunderstanding, dispute, negotiation and more.

At a macropolitical level, there is a sense in which language is shown to be an agent or vehicle of control.

How we think limits our potential and our aspirations.

The restraint on thought breeds obsession, which is channeled through religious and political sects and cults.

It is difficult to achieve informed unity and community:

"Those rebels must be a fractured community, without speech, if they were a community at all. Language, for the Ariekei, was truth: without it, what were they? An unsociety of psychopaths."

Freedom and vibrancy require change, and the novel is a dynamic exploration of the change that can occur at the interface.

Woman as Simile

Just as linguistics and political philosophy inform "Embassytown", consistent with China Mieville’s earlier novels, there is an explicit promotion of and support for the active role of women in social and political life.

The narrator is a woman, Avice, who describes herself as a "floaker", a more dynamic version of a modern-day "slacker" who embodies "the life-technique of aggregated skill, luck, laziness and chutzpah that we call floaking."

In the eyes of the Ariekei, she is their principal simile:

"The girl who was hurt in darkness and ate what was given to her."

Yet, despite the technical linguistic interests of her sometime husband Scile, Avice is the true social and emotional vehicle for the communication and rapport-building between the disparate groups and the progress of the narrative.

She is effectively both communicator and problem-solver, not to mention a pretty adept flirt.

Notwithstanding her lack of overt ambition, she would make a pretty good diplomat, if not one necessarily obedient to the powers that be.

Ultimately, what appeals to me so much about China Mieville is his ability to juggle sophisticated intellectual themes, genre demands, convincing worlds, interesting characters and well-paced adventure action.

While the themes of the novel are within my core literary and cultural interests, I admired his skill at bringing the project together with such aplomb.

I was always conscious that there was a puppeteer making this entertainment happen, but he has an uncanny knack of doing it in such a way that you don’t notice him or the strings.

I’d like to call Mieville a "floaker" of some sort, but as Avice’s lover, Bren, says of her at the end of the novel:

"You’ve never floaked in your life."




Genesis (A Very Old Woman's Tale)
(Thanks to Spanish Dancer and Weaver)


In the beginning was god. There was just it, and it was alone. Well, it had to be because it was everything.

God was a genius, but there is no point in being a god-like genius, unless there is company who appreciates it.

So god made woman, to reduce its workload. It intended woman to be the origin of everything else in the universe, which had formerly been god.

Woman would take what had been god and turn it into something else.

The presence of woman was required to make a difference.

So woman differentiated between things.

Having made things, she decided to invent language and words, so that she could give everything a name and put everything in its place.

Woman rejoiced once this was all done, but it was not enough. She needed a challenge. She thought about it for a few days and nights, at which point she decided to make man.

She was feeling reckless. Her intention was to make something almost her equal, but not quite, with whom she could flirt, after which she could birth and care for a child.

Upon the arrival of man, woman looked at him and could not determine whether her project had been a success.

Woman decided not to make it too easy for man, so she played hard to get.

Eventually, man worked out that the way to get woman’s attention was to call her a goddess and worship the very ground she walked on, at which point both woman and man lost interest in god, and it retired hurt.

While woman was birthing, man also lost interest in woman, and never really worshipped her the way that he had beforehand.

Having espied his face in a pond, man liked what he had seen, and decided to revive and re-make god in his own image.

He then made a church with other men and excluded woman from any secret god business.

By this time, woman had realised that when man said she was like a goddess, it was only a simile and he did not mean that she was the real thing, even though a simile is a kind of metaphor.

Many years later, woman made a man called China Mieville for her own entertainment.

China is cute, sensitive, strong, intelligent, talented and has tattoos. He knows what a simile is, but he also knows how to treat a woman as a goddess.

Man is still trying to work out why woman is reading so much genre fiction.

China Mieville continues to write, while man ponders his predicament.





SOUNDTRACK

Roxy Music - "More Than This"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9PAuW...

Lyrics (Bryan Ferry):

I could feel at the time
There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night
Who can say where they´re blowing
As free as the wind
Hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
More than this - there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this - there is nothing
It was fun for a while
There was no way of knowing
Like a dream in the night
Who can say where we´re going
No care in the world
Maybe I´m learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
More than this - there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this - there is nothing.

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