The City & the City by China Miéville in the Context of the Genre “New Weird”

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The City & the City by China Miéville in the Context of the Genre “New Weird” Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Filozofická fakulta Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci Eliška Fialová The City & The City by China Miéville in the context of the genre “New Weird” Vedoucí práce: Prof. PhDr. Michal Peprník, Dr. Olomouc 2016 Prohlášení Prohlašuji, že jsem diplomovou práci vypracovala samostatn ě a p ředepsaným zp ůsobem v ní uvedla všechnu použitou literaturu. V Olomouci dne 25. dubna 2016 Eliška Fialová Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor prof. PhDr. Michal Peprník Dr. for all his help and valuable advice during the process of writing this thesis. Also, I would like to thank Dr Jeannette Baxter from Anglia Ruskin University for her inspiring guest seminar The Haunted Contemporary which introduced me to the genre of New Weird. Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 Literary context for fantasy writer China Miéville ......................................... 2 Victorian fantasy ................................................................................................ 7 Gothic romances ............................................................................................... 11 Tolkien and the EFP and China Miéville ......................................................... 15 Weird fiction ...................................................................................................... 20 Characteristics of weird fiction ........................................................................ 20 Pre-weird .......................................................................................................... 25 Weird Tales generation .................................................................................... 29 H. P. Lovecraft – Cthulhu Mythos ................................................................ 32 Modern Weird ................................................................................................... 36 New Weird discussion ...................................................................................... 36 Features of New Weird in The City & The City. ............................................. 41 The City & The City’s urban locale and its borders ..................................... 46 Michael Foucault’s discipline in The City & The City ................................ 54 Loss of monsters in The City & The City ..................................................... 60 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 63 Czech summary ................................................................................................. 66 Works cited ........................................................................................................ 69 Annotation .......................................................................................................... 74 Anotace ............................................................................................................... 75 Introduction In this thesis I focus on fantasy writer China Miéville and his novel The City & The City (2009). I provide enough literary context for this writer to be able to connect him through time with the literary tradition of New Weird and present his views on various aspects of fantasy writing. Miéville’s works are often characterized as New Weird and it is the main aim of this thesis to introduce and analyse this genre which has crystalized in the anthology of Jeff and Ann VanderMeer but has been more or less present since 1990s. This genre is examined in connection with the novel The City & The City . Its New Weird features are analysed but the thesis also shows the departure of the novel from some of the New Weird characteristics which are to be found for example in the representative New Weird novel Perdido Street Station (2000) by China Miéville. The first chapter of this thesis deals with establishing the literary context of China Miéville’s oeuvre and thus trying to describe the various developments the fantasy literature has undergone and the different paths authors take to continue, disrupt or renew the tradition of fantasy literature which is far too often associated mostly with the famous fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien. Most importantly, the survey of the fantasy development will allow me to discuss in the second chapter the characteristics of different generations of the weird fiction and subsequently introduce the persona of H.P. Lovecraft and his concept of the weird tale. The third chapter deals with the modern weird and contains the detailed analysis of the novel The City & The City . The analysis focuses on the generic features of the novel and on various aspects of its urban setting. Moreover, the impact of the environment in which the inhabitants of The City & The City live is analysed in terms of Michael Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power. China Miéville was, and perhaps still is, seen as a leading personage of the New Weird movement with his novel Perdido Street Station . The City & The City published nine years later is also a New Weird novel but this thesis understands New Weird as a movement with a possible short life span and being in a flux bringing new idiosyncratic writing choices all the time. Therefore the analysis in chapter three is also a search for the changes that has or has not happened and then emerged in The City & The City . Literary context for fantasy writer China Miéville The popularity of fantasy narratives and their widening audience of viewers or readers is visible in the success of various television series such as the Game of Thrones by HBO (2011) based on the books by George R. R. Martin or The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling (1997-2007) followed by commercially successful movie adaptations to name just few examples of some of the most prominent cases. The television companies seem to realize the craving for the fantastic among their customers as is proved by the continuing trend of projecting their favourite characters from paper to screen. There is the most recent MTV adaptation of The Shannara Chronicles (aired 5.1.2016) based on the series of novels written by Terry Brooks and starting in 1977 with The Sword of Shannara . Also, there are The Magicians (aired 16.12.2015), series by SyFy based on the Lev Grossman’s trilogy ( The Magicians , 2009, The Magician King , 2011, The Magician's Land , 2014) or miniseries named Alice from 2009 by SyFy revisiting the world of mad hatters with the main character of Alice and others. The quality or originality of the different products can be questioned, the series by Lev Grossman for example is a mix that closely follows the scenario of Harry Potter school adventures and the surprise, then acknowledgment and then saving of a newly discovered world. However, the fact that the demand for the genre of fantasy is present proves the point made by Daniel Baker in his essay “Why We Need Dragons: The Progressive Potential of Fantasy” where he says that its “increasing presence in the marketplace, together with the genre’s potential for progressive socio-political representation, indicates the genre’s aesthetic power.” 1 The part about progressive socio-political representation becomes problematic when it is applied to types of fantasy productions which lack the ability to create a world which would not be simply a utopian and nostalgic secondary world. To use the past and its interaction with present not in an escapist form but rather realize the full potential of the fantasy genre which can make use of the then and now for the benefit of the reader is another feature of the fantasy which is termed progressive by Baker. 2 Fantasy has the potential to bring Middle Ages into the heart of 21 st century London and this “creative anachronism” and its effect “transforms the present.” 3 This wording of the potential of fantasy genre is not unordinary, 1 Daniel Baker, “Why We Need Dragons: The Progressive Potential of Fantasy,” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts , vol. 23, no. 3 (2012): 437. 2 Baker, 438-440. 3 Brian Attebery, “The Politics (If Any) of Fantasy,” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts , vol. 4, no. 1 (1991): 16. 2 also China Miéville writes in his “Editorial Introduction” in Historical Materialism that “we need fantasy to think the world, and to change it.”4 The discussion about the escapist fantasy literature has been present in the genre since its existence was acknowledged and to arrive at better understanding whose works has been thus labelled and why, the following chapters present an overview of the evolution of fantasy. By approaching the history of the genre diachronically the chapter one as a whole will also provide enough literary context to the works of China Miéville, namely his novel The City & The City . The distinction between Fantasy and fantastic should be also made. Throughout this thesis the terms Fantasy and fantastic are used in the same way as Eric S. Rabkin explains them in his book The Fantastic in Literature (1977). Fantastic are the structural properties of the text, the text can be of any genre and type but the genre which is most commonly associated with it, and usually applies fantastic the most, is the genre of Fantasy. For Rabkin the fantastic is the way an author can do exactly what Miéville writes in his “Editorial Introduction,” to change the world and he/she does so by the diametric reversal of the ground rules of the narrative. Ground rules are to be
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