Yatterings

This is, I strongly suspect, the first of several posts about Un Lun Dun. China Mieville’s first foray into children’s literature regains the jouissance of Perdido Street Station but retains the technical skill of the the Scar and Iron Council.

It is, of course, political. Un Lun Dun is being threatened by the Smog and Zanna and Deeba are brought to the abcity  as the Schwazzy to save the world. Citing Beatrix Potter in the acknowledgements, this novel returns children’s fiction to the role that it played in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

He moves the plot with a verve and his loving knowledge of the genre to subvert the world in a Carrollian way. He maintains the necessary logic but, unlike his adult world, some slightly less careful reading will reveal the plot twist well in advance.

This though is a novel that I’ve been waiting for China to write. I felt that his politics came through a little too strongly in Iron Council at the expense of the story. In this case, he has the politics but the story as well. Highly recommended.

technorati tags:china mieville, children’s literature