Miévillians discussion

Chapters 50 and 51:

The climax around the battle against the moths takes place in this section.

BTW, I found Isaac's rationalization for not letting the Council have the crisis engine pretty ironic in light of what he and his little group were doing to poor old Andrej:

"That’s a breaker," he said, "a circuit-valve. One-way flow only. I’m cutting the Council off from this lot." He patted the various pieces of the crisis engine. Derkhan nodded slowly. The sky had grown nearly completely dark. Isaac looked up at her and set his lips. "We can’t let that fucking thing get access to the crisis engine. We have to stay away from it," he explained as he connected the disparate components of his machine. "You remember what it told us—the avatar was some corpse pulled out of the river. Bullshit! That body’s alive...mindless, sure, but the heart’s beating and the lungs breathe air. The Construct Council had to take that man’s mind out of his body while he was alive. That was the whole point. Otherwise it would just rot. "I don’t know...maybe it was one of that crazy congregation sacrificing himself, maybe it was voluntary. But maybe not. Whichever, the Council don’t care about killing off humans or any others, if it’s...useful. It’s got no empathy, no morals," Isaac continued, pushing hard at a resistant piece of metal. "It’s just a...a calculating intelligence. Cost and benefit. It’s trying to...maximize itself. It’ll do whatever it has to—it’ll lie to us, it’ll kill—to increase its own power."

The Weaver drops by. Weaver and Andrej are connected to the crisis engine. Their thought waves are mixed, amplified, and broadcast into the air above and around Perdido Street Station.

The slake-moths appear, but not, unfortunately, before the militia do. Jack Half-a-Prayer is assisting Isaac's group against the militia.

Andrej is tortured for the sake of attracting the moths, and militia are killed in various bloody ways. There is a ferocity here, i realize upon my re-read. Sometimes Mieville's writing makes my skin crawl, makes me cringe inside the confines of my brain, makes it seethe like a crock of worms inside my mind.

I've not made my mind up how much i dislike it, but reflecting upon it, it's as if Mieville writes some parts of the novel with a degree of savage brutality, almost hatred.

I've said elsewhere that i don't see chauvinism in Mieville's work..- but i was wrong; - i do--in the old-fashioned sense of the word; in the sense that means: 'us against them'. In the sense that, as long as it is militia we are killing, it is ok to do that, because they are the demonized 'other', the enemy, a faceless target. "Them."

Another little nitpick: In the whole climactic scene where the moths are feeding from Isaac's contraption and exploding, i can't help but find it strange that the militiamen see Isaac and Derkhan and focus on them, but they don't see the moths--or, if they do, the moths don't seem to concern them. Weren't the militia explicitly briefed to hunt the moths and try and get rid of them?

Three moths explode but the fourth escapes because the militia kill Andrej before the fourth moth takes the bait.

As Motley's remade army arrives, the Weaver scoops up Isaac and friends, and disappears with them, at their request.

The fourth moth returns to it's old home where it had previously been imprisoned.

The Weaver deposits Isaac and friends outside Lin's door, and an emotional re-union takes place, only to be interrupted by Motley and his guards. Motley had kept Lin alive in order to finish the sculpture of him. He really wanted that sculpture badly.

The moth interrupts the scene with its entrance into the room from above. It enthralls Motley, but sadly Lin looks around, against Isaac's entreaties (Lot's wife?) and is enthralled as well, and drunk from.
Motley escapes.

As Motley's men fights and finally manages to kill the moth, our friends escape through the window. Orders are given to find them.

Yagharek narrates the sad discovery that Lin is not only ruined in body, but in mind as well.

***End of Part Seven.***

Part Eight is short--only a few more pages to go until the end of the novel. Since Part Seven was pretty long, i'll post Part Eight into a separate thread that can also then serve as the thread for discussion of the entire novel as a whole.

Damn I just lost a post.

Trav, this is great.

I will try to reconstruct my lost post.

I read this section quickly like it was a B-movie action sequence.

To be honest, I wasn't really that interested in all of the battle scenes in the book, except to the exten that they reminded me of dogfights between world war I flying aces in Biggles books. (But who but me is old enough to remember them?)

The Andrej ethical question didn't really bother me, although I did go back to where Derkhan first went seeking out a suitable person, so I could understand her motives.

I will have to do this again, because my understanding remained pretty superficial.

Again, by this point, I had become fascinated by the Weaver's poetic monologues, and they preoccupied me.

So much so that I extracted them all here and composed a poem out of them here:

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3...

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3...

Aubrey just blew all of this out of the water by going the extra step and creating a fully-fledged (with wings, which isn't bad for a spider) sonnet here:

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3...

As a last point, my reading mightn't have been close enough, but I still am not confident of Lin's fate.

The only source of information about her death is Yagharek.

I don't totally trust him, but I don't understand what his motive for lying would be.

I would also like to get people's views on why Yagharek's monologues bookend the novel and form such an important Greek chorus role.

Sorry that my comments reflect an inadequately close reading, but I had already conceived a way that my review was going to write itself, and these issues did not end up priorities for me, even though they're important.

Ian, i remember that you mentioned Lin's death previously, and was puzzled by that. At the time, i thought you had not finished the book, and that that was the reason you had presumed her dead. However, now i think you have finished, and it puzzles me where you might have found the reference that she might be dead? Could you quote the passage for me please?

I've re-read a third time now to try and find it.

Hi, Trav. Thanks for reminding me of the error of my ways ;)

I can't remember where I discussed this issue previously. It doesn't appear to be in my review or the thread there, but I know I was uncertain about Lin's fate.

This is a second example of how I [might have] misread some of the text.

I was in two minds about whether Lin had eventually died and whether, if she had survived, she had remained permanently disabled.

Obviously, as a romantic and loving reader, I did not want her to die or be disabled.

The passages that were ambiguous for me were in Yagharek's monologue between chapters 51 and 52.

Perhaps, some of my uncertainty comes from how CM gets Yagharek to foreshadow events rather than describe them in the past.

On page 593, he says:

"We wait for Lin to wake, to come to her senses.

"But she does not."

Later on the same page:

"She'll recover, he shouts, as Lin shifts in her sleep, she's half-dead with fucking tiredness, she's had the shit beaten out of her, it's no wonder, no wonder she's confused...

But she does not recover, as he knows she will not."

Perhaps, I overreacted to the "half-dead" comment.

In retrospect, there doesn't seem to be any major ambiguity.

However, given that the future of Lin's health is in the period after Yagharek parts company with Isaac and Lin, I don't know why such an important issue comes from Yagharek, rather than Isaac.

So is it only Yagharek's supposition that Lin will not recover?

Over what timeframe does Lin not recover?

The short time that Yagharek was there, or for the rest of her life?

The treatment of Andrej is one of the few things which truly disturbed me about the whole story. It's not that they were entirely heartless, because they weren't: Derkhan selected a terminally ill man, one who was at least to some degree willing to participate, and she did kind of feel bad for him; moreover the end result is a good for the citizenry. For Isaac, though, it was total war: the slake-moths had to be stopped no matter the cost, even if we torture this man, drain him dry, subject him to incomprehensible pain and suffering. I think I might even be able to stomach that, but Isaac's motivation is not altruism, or love: he feels guilty for releasing the moths however unwittingly, and Andrej's already doomed life is a small price to pay to set things right.

That really creeped me out, honestly.

Ian wrote: "Sorry that my comments reflect an inadequately close reading, but I had already conceived a way that my review was going to write itself, and these issues did not end up priorities for me, even though they're important. .."

Okay, but i'm not too sure what your review has to do with our group discussion here, Ian... i feel a bit puzzled by that remark. I too had written a review of the book quite some time ago already, and i don't quite see it's relevance to posting about and discussing issues in a group discussion with a group of good friends?

Thanks, Trav. I was just trying to excuse the fact that my reading of some issues was closer than others, and I fell into error this way.

J. wrote: "The treatment of Andrej is one of the few things which truly disturbed me about the whole story. It's not that they were entirely heartless, because they weren't: Derkhan selected a terminally ill man, one who was at least to some degree willing to participate, and she did kind of feel bad for him; moreover the end result is a good for the citizenry."

I had a quick look at this passage this morning. Andrej's file mentioned that he was expected to die within a week, not that that really makes a great deal of difference to the fundamental question.

Plus there are a number of mentions of Derkhan's sense of guilt.

That is still missing the point that i've been trying to make. The patients in there were dying of neglect, for lack of cash. Let me copy and paste my comments on the previous thread re cannibalism here, since this seems to be a better place to discuss the issue:

This, in some ways relates back to earlier discussions we've had about cannibalism. Many people feel that cannibalism is untenable because it disrespects the person whose body is being eaten.

My stance on this is: if you are facing starvation and one of your buddies is already dead, through no fault of your own, i'd say fling convention to the winds and eat his body--he is already dead, and letting him rot is not going to bring him/her back any more than eating him is.

Of course KILLING a person to eat them, even when in a starvation situation, is a totally different kettle of fish, and totally unacceptable, although utilitarianism would say it's fine, because sacrificing one person to have his flesh and organs keep other humans alive, would be the right thing to do when using a utilitarian morality.

In many senses, the US version of "democracy" is just a form of utilitarianism, isn't it?

Whether Andrej was ill and possibly might have died within a week while being deprived of medication, is not the point. The point is, is it ever ok, for us to torture and kill an innocent person for whatever reason?

Andrej might have died in a week's time, but certainly with less terror and pain and utter torture than Isaac put him through.

Traveller wrote: "That is missing the point."

Yeah, I know. Do you think what matters in the novel is the rightness or wrongness of a decision, or the process by which it was come to?

I'm not sure what matters in the novel- it seems to be saying that the end justifies the means, but what do YOU feel about the matter Mr Paharaoh? Do you agree with Mieville? ..or might it be possible that we never have the right to take the life of an innocent human against his will? (and torture that innocent while we are at it)

If I can use abortion as an example, I believe in abortion tempered by remorse (but not guilt).

I certainly don't believe that it should be illegal or prohibited.

...so...--are you saying that it is ok to kill someone as long as you feel remorse about it?

Some killing can be justified by ethical reasoning.

I don't accept that there are no circumstances in which it is appropriate to kill someone.

My definition didn't say "anyone", my definition said "an innocent person" ..and Andrej was innocent, therefore, according to my morality, Isaac, Derkhan and Yagharek committed murder.

In a particularly brutal way, which is more. They didn't even bother to treat Andrej like a human being- didn't bother to explain what is all about, didn't offer him the opportunity to at least volunteer himself as a sacrifice.

Extremely ironic that Yagharek and Isaac honour the fact that rape is a theft of choice, a denial of choice--but what choice did they afford Andrej?

Is Mieville kidding around here, or is he serious? I wouldn't say these are exactly issues to joke around with..- so either Mr Mieville doesn't think things through, or he is playing some elaborate jest with us...

Ian wrote: "Some killing can be justified by ethical reasoning.

I don't accept that there are no circumstances in which it is appropriate to kill someone."

I'm very interested in hearing your arguments in favor of killing?

My only justification for it, would be direct self-defence (killing someone who was about to kill you or your family or other innocent), or to remove someone who kills others, in order that he/she cannot kill again.

Ian wrote: "If I can use abortion as an example, I believe in abortion tempered by remorse (but not guilt).

I certainly don't believe that it should be illegal or prohibited."

I'm afraid we disagree. If a child can live on it's own, outside the mother's body, and it is deliberately removed from the womb and left to die, or actively killed, it is murder. I've seen such a murder committed, and it haunts me in my dreams still. To me, murder can never be justified, especially not the murder of anything as innocent and beautiful as a little baby.

It's not a black-and-white, cut and dried situation , of course.

If the mother was raped, and could not get the abortion done before three months went by, that is of course a different matter, but i have known of girls who'd been gang-raped who kept the baby and loved the baby very much. It's not impossible. ..but i agree that it must be a terrible thing to have to carry the product of a rape to term, and that should be the mother's choice.

This is a hard one, but i don't see why the abortion could not be done in the very early stages of pregnancy, when it is still a less traumatic procedure as well, and can be induced hormonally.

I'm ok with abortion before the fetus reaches 3 months of age. Once we pass that age, it becomes exponentially less ok for me, and only justified if the fetus has serious defects.

In China baby girls have been killed with impunity just because of their gender for centuries, and i can never be ok with that.

Abortion ethics is a big issue, and deals with exactly when a human becomes a human. There are varying arguments around this, and I don't really think that these arguments have a lot to do with the arguments around whether it was ok or not ok to have killed Andrej.

Saying that you are ok with abortion, doesn't seem to further the argument in any way. You can say you're ok with abortion and i can say i'm not ok with it until we are blue in the face, but that doesn't change the question around whether it is ok to kill fully formed innocent humans who can live by themselves outside of the womb.

If it is so ok for one human to be sacrificed for the good of other humans, why don't we just draw lots to see who is going to be eaten next time we have a famine?

That is the implication of such a morality. One of the problems of enforcing such a morality (and it is one which Mieville allows Derkhan to struggle with) is how one is going to decide upon exactly who is going to be the unfortunate victim.

If you, I, FMS, Mr Trav, your children and my children are all stranded on a deserted island, and there is no food and we start to starve, how are we going to decide who goes onto the butcher's block first?

Let's take another example (a true story, btw). A middle aged pederast stalks a beautiful blonde blue-eyed 8 year-old boy, and when their mother is distracted by the younger son, lures him away on pretense of being Santa Claus.

After he has sodomised the boy in his room, the boy is screaming for his mother and the man realizes that he now has a little problem. If he lets the boy go, the boy is of course going to tell his mother, and we can't have that, since the penalties for kidnapping and sodomising a young boy are very harsh.

He has no choice but to save himself, does he? So he gets hold of a piece of wire, strangles the boy and throws him into the dustbin.

When asked later why he had killed the boy--his answer was simple and logical. He had no choice, had he?

My example might sound extreme, but it is a real-life one. Was it ok for the man to have strangled the boy as long as he is now consumed with guilt? (and remorse, no doubt- remorse especially amplified at having been caught and brought to justice)
Ask the parents of the child and see if they are satisfied with his feelings of remorse. His regret will not bring their child back.

I vote it is not ok.

There is a lot to respond to.

To start with the pederast scenario, the issue for me is about the means and the end.

The pederast had an evil end and he utilised evil means.

In PSS, there was an end of ridding themselves of the slake-moths, so the question, like life during wartime, was what means are justified by the end.

In that way, it's not that different from the argument about the use of drones or the atomic bomb.

Holy shit, Batman... what have we stumbled into here?

Re abortion, I think there has to be legal limits.

The first trimester is probably reasonably arbitrary, but I believe that it should be a woman's right to have an abortion during that period, whatever the reason, health or choice.

After that, it becomes a bit more problematical.

Health would be adequate at any point, based on medical opinion.

Rape would also be a justification as far as I'm concerned. Possible financial circumstances.

Re abortion ethics, part of the question is when does the foetus become more than just a part of the mother?

When should the rights of the mother cease?

If an ovum is a potential child, is menstruation murder?

Is spilling my seed murder?

Think of the potential I'm defying and denying!

Think of the loss to mankind!

Ian wrote: "Re abortion, I think there has to be legal limits.

The first trimester is probably reasonably arbitrary, but I believe that it should be a woman's right to have an abortion during that period, wha..."

Re abortion, please read my post 18 again, you didn't, did you? ;)

Let me re-post some of that post again:
Abortion ethics is a big issue, and deals with exactly when a human becomes a human. There are varying arguments around this, and I don't really think that these arguments have a lot to do with the arguments around whether it was ok or not ok to have killed Andrej.

Saying that you are ok with abortion, doesn't seem to further the argument in any way. You can say you're ok with abortion and i can say i'm not ok with it until we are blue in the face, but that doesn't change the question around whether it is ok to kill fully formed innocent humans who can live by themselves outside of the womb.

Abortion isn't the destruction of an ovum or of sperm. Abortion is the destruction of a zygote or a fetus or an infant.
Let's get our facts straight here.

The zygote, fetus or infant, is never "part of the mother's body." It has a body of it's own.
Yes, it is connected to the mother's body via a placenta, which feeds it, but that does not imply that the fetus is something like a limb growing out of the mother's body.

Equating destruction of a fetus or infant with the destruction of ova or sperm, is deluding yourself and evading the issue.

Ian wrote: "There is a lot to respond to.

To start with the pederast scenario, the issue for me is about the means and the end.

The pederast had an evil end and he utilised evil means.

In PSS, there was an ..."

Well, my goodness Ian, what would you define as "evil" What is 'evil', and who has the right to define it?

Utilitarianism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitar... says the means justifies the end. Is this morally justifiable? There is quite a lot of debate one can make over this. Perhaps we should set that as another goal for 2013. I'm saying that i don't agree with utilitarianism.

Is war evil? Maybe it is. But first we need to define evil, and to decide which acts would fall under the term :"evil".

You never answered my question of who we are going to have for breakfast first if we ever got stuck on a deserted island, though.

Traveller wrote: "If the mother was raped, and could not get the abortion done before three months went by, that is of course a different matter, but i have known of girls who'd been gang-raped who kept the baby and loved the baby very much. It's not impossible. ..but i agree that it must be a terrible thing to have to carry the product of a rape to term, and that should be the mother's choice.

This is a hard one, but i don't see why the abortion could not be done in the very early stages of pregnancy, when it is still a less traumatic procedure as well, and can be induced hormonally."

Wow, stumbling upon this discussion can get me worked up for hours.

It's neither here nor there as far as this book is concerned, but I will try to offer my opinion on this bit:

The reason many women do not have an abortion in the first trimester, when we can do it medically or via MVA (manual vacuum aspiration, done easier than later stages) is that many of them have no idea they are pregnant. If you are one of many women with irregular menstrual cycles, you may not pay too much attention when your cycles is late. Or you may have implantation bleeding that can make you believe that you are having your regular period when in fact you are not. Or you got pregnant while breastfeeding and before your normal periods have resumed. And then we have other reasons for later term terminations - your genetic testing came back abnormal - and not everyone is willing to care for a child that is very sick or will inevitably die shortly after birth, making carrying that child to term an unbearable burden; or simply your partner has dumped you when you told him you're pregnancy and you cannot afford a baby on your own.

Pregnancies are in general not conidered viable until 24 weeks of gestational age (that's 5-6 months) with very rare exceptions, and so the window during which a baby cannot survive outside of mother's womb is wider than many people believe. It's way outside the first trimester.

Robert wrote: "Holy shit, Batman... what have we stumbled into here?"

Yeah, sorry. ..but these are big issues that Mieville raised.

..and he really rubbed it in a LOT about how brutally they treated Andrej, and how Andrej suffered. After all, Mieville could have written that aspect of things differently, it's his plot, and he is the master of it. ..so all i can think of, is that he must have been trying to say something with how Isaac & Co decided to do this thing.

Why couldn't they have called for a volunteer, for instance? ..or use someone like Motley? Is this somehow a Christian allegory, with Andrej as a sort of pseudo- Christ? But the difference is that Christ was supposed to go into the whole thing willingly, whereas Andrej certainly wasn't. Is Mieville perhaps pointing us to how dangerous and repulsive and morally corrupt a utilitarian morality can be?

The irony of the whole thing, is that Isaac is guilty of exactly the same thing that he accuses the Council of, and that Yagharek is accused of.

Is Mieville trying to say it's A-ok if our goal is to get rid of a bunch of nasty moths? ..but how can Derkhan and Isaac justify their brutality and lack of consideration towards Andrej? Why bind him and hurt him and so forth? Why not at least talk to him and explain things? Give him a chance to choose? Etc.

Re breakfast, you can eat me, but I warn you, I 'm tough on the outside

Traveller wrote: "Is Mieville trying to say it's A-ok if our goal is to get rid of a bunch of nasty moths? ..but how can Derkhan and Isaac justify their brutality and lack of consideration towards Andrej? Why bind him and hurt him and so forth? Why not at least talk to him and explain things? Give him a chance to choose? Etc. "

I don't think Miéville is trying to say using Andrej like that is right or justifiable. Good point about everyone stealing his choice, by the way. To me it was just another reminder of how unfair the world is and how blurry the lines between something heroic and something despicable often are. Nobody is just a villain or just a hero; we are all of the above depending on the perspective we choose. Andrej was one person sacrificed for the benefit of many; but this does not make what was done to him by Isaac and friends any less horrific. Yagharek did amazing things to save Isaac and his companions and the whole city of New Crobuzon - and yet his heroic acts did not outweigh his crime in the eyes of Isaac.

Nataliya wrote: "Wow, stumbling upon this discussion can get me worked up for hours.

It's neither here nor there as far as this book is concerned, but I will try to offer my opinion on this bit:
"

Sorry that i missed your post, Nataliya. Thanks for posting and adding to the lively discussion.

Yes, i am very aware of when or not fetuses or infants can start to live on their own extra-uterinely, i think the youngest is usually at about 26 weeks these days, but IIRC, there has been a case of a 20 week old prem baby surviving. (We are of course talking about extra-specialised ICU care here, so maybe i'm slightly cheating with the definitions, but still- possible with today's technology)

Hang on- i found one - ok, it's at 21 weeks ..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/art...

Mothers who don't notice that they've not been menstruating for more than 3 or 4 periods, are pretty damn unobservant, i'd say. Heck, i can remember times when i'd go nutty if i went over for just a day or 2..-especially of you've been having unprotected sex. If i had patients like those, i'd tell them to catch a wake-up in life.

Yes, i know when you're breastfeeding it's harder. I have a GP friend who accidentally got pregnant while breastfeeding, to her own utter mortification. She kept the baby and he is one of the most beautiful, lovely children i have ever come across. :)

..and to me, something like: "or simply your partner has dumped you when you told him you're pregnancy and you cannot afford a baby on your own." , simply just is not a good enough reason to terminate a viable, healthy life. The adoption lists are just so big that people are prepared to go to amazing lengths just to have a child of their own.

I never suggested that a genetically compromised child should be forcibly carried to term, and also not when the health of the mother is compromised, or when the mother is underage.

I did say that i am against just finding any abortion in all situations ok. In a situation where the mother doesn't want to keep the baby, or is not happy with the baby's gender and doesn't feel like carrying it to term, is simply not a good enough reason for me. If she was irresponsible enough to start that life, she should at least take the responsibility to follow through with the consequences.

Yes, i know life is not that simple, and believe me, i have lived life. ..and it is bc i have lived life and seen life that i feel and believe these things. My convictions are the results of a life lived, they're not just arbitrary. :)

However, be that as it may, performing an abortion on a not-yet-viable-fetus, is a far cry from torturing an innocent human and from terminating the life of a viable, innocent human without their informed consent.

Nataliya wrote: "I don't think Miéville is trying to say using Andrej like that is right or justifiable. Good point about everyone stealing his choice, by the way. To me it was just another reminder of how unfair the world is and how blurry the lines between something heroic and something despicable often are. ..."

Yes, i must admit that i am hesitant of accusing Mieville of saying via his character's actions that what they did was ok. After all, it is true that Isaac is not exactly painted as a hero, and Mieville is writing at a time when post-modern fiction does create anti-heroes.

..at least Mieville makes what happens ambiguous enough that those of us who are paying attention, will say: "hey wait a minute... is CM actually okay with what is happening here???!!!?"

..and it can serve as fodder for us to have passionate discussions about life and death and choices and the right over life and death and over when life starts, and about questions re how one evaluates (as in quantifies) the value of one life over another.

:) ;)
So glad you popped in.

Traveller wrote: "Nataliya wrote: "Wow, stumbling upon this discussion can get me worked up for hours.

It's neither here nor there as far as this book is concerned, but I will try to offer my opinion on this bit:
"..."

Trav, there are definitely cases of preemies surviving at 21 weeks or so, but they are very few at this point. It has to do with lung development - if you develop them, you can survive (whether that survival will result in what we think as a "normal" baby is impossible to tell in advance, however), and steroid injections can help with lung maturation, but the vast majority of the babies before 24 weeks (current age of viability at least in the US) will not live.

As for not noticing the lack of periods for 3-4 months - that exactly what I was trying to explain, but clearly not well enough. Sometimes women may think they have a period after they got pregnant, but it's either implantation bleeding or even threatened abortion (that is, a pregnancy that has about 50% chance of miscarriage). Additionally, if you do not have regular periods to begin with (you are young, or you have PCOS or any other causes for irregular ovulation) you may not be alarmed when you have a few period-less months, since it happens to you all the time for a long time. It's very different for those women.

You know, I see many women who are way too young or way too poor to have a baby, and carrying a child to term just to give it up for adoption is just not a viable option for many. Sometimes you cannot reveal your pregnancy to the rest of your family - you may risk not just alienation but even death (yes, that happens). Sometimes it is just a lot to go through for a baby you will not keep - pregnancy does take a huge toll on women's organisms, including a potential danger of dying from pregnancy changes itself, and not everyone will take that burden and that risk. I still remember taking care of a woman who decided to terminate at 19 weeks because she was quite sick with preexisting health problems that were being exacerbated by pregnancy, already had a 3-year-old at home and did not have any support system - no partner, no close family members. She was scared that if something happens to her her 3-year-old would be left in foster care. The pregnancy she terminated was initially desired, but she made that choice after weighing pros and cons - and it was a very difficult choice for her to make. Would others judge her given that there was no absolute medical indication to terminate at 19 weeks? Sure. Will I ever judge her? No. Pregnancy is not just a matter of bringing a life into the world; it is also a very dangerous condition for many women, and I have seen bad things happen as a result of it.
There are also cases when women choose to terminate because they were forced into pregnancy by their partners (hiding birth control or sabotaging it is not as rare as one would think) and they would rather die than to have a child by a person like that. Also, I would love to think that babies should not be punishments for women who were 'irresponsible enough; to start that life - that can lead to resentment and child neglect/abuse in the future. That's why we push for good reliable birth control to minimize the need for difficult choice of keeping or terminating pregnancies, but even with the best efforts you cannot predict everything. Sometimes motherhood is not an option for people even of their reasons may seem petty or unimportant to others.

Btw, Trav, I respect the views you stated - I just feel compelled (by my innate inability to ever shut up) to point out the alternative thinking.

Oh, and speaking of breastfeeding and pregnancy - every day we have ti explain to women that they can get pregnant during that period of time, and that they can become fertile again even before they have their periods back, and that they need birth control after leaving the hospital because even if they proclaim to their partners that they are "off limits" for several weeks after birth, more often than not partners insist on sex and it ends up happening anyway. And that's how we get all those kids separated in age by less than a year. And yet most of the patients don't believe us. Oh well...

Traveller wrote: "Yes, i must admit that i am hesitant of accusing Mieville of saying via his character's actions that what they did was ok. After all, it is true that Isaac is not exactly painted as a hero, and Mieville is writing at a time when post-modern fiction does create anti-heroes.

..at least Mieville makes what happens ambiguous enough that those of us who are paying attention, will say: "hey wait a minute... is CM actually okay with what is happening here???!!!?""

You are so right. It's so ambiguous that one moment you find yourself rooting for what Isaac and Co. are doing and the next moment you are all - wait a second, that is so incredibly wrong and horrific! That is just like Miéville - to paint the story with shades of doubt and ambiguity and present all in greyscale instead of easy black-and-white palette.

I remember when I first realized what they were going to do using Andrej I had to stop reading for a little bit, I was so disturbed by this.

Traveller wrote: "..at least Mieville makes what happens ambiguous enough that those of us who are paying attention, will say: "hey wait a minute... is CM actually okay with what is happening here???!!!?""

Or those of me not paying enough attention ;)

Well, like i said, my friend who was a medical doctor became pregnant while breastfeeding. Another doctor friend had herself tested for her apparent infertility- blood tests for hormone levels etc, and found out that the reason she was amenorreaic was because she was already pregnant..-ha ha, so yeah, i know it's not always that easily noticeable, as i'd already mentioned.

Since you yourself perform abortions, of course you are going to defend it, you'd have cognitive dissonance if you didn't.

..but the person you mentioned who initially wanted a pregnancy and then decided to change her mind half-way through--isn't that a good example exactly of why pregnancies shouldn't be viewed in the same way that we view a new dress or pair of shoes- i'll try it on, and if i don't like it, i'll take it back to the store.

Um, we are talking lives here. Pregnancies have become commodities in the West.

I'm sorry, but the flippancy with which the current fashion views lives doesn't feel comfortable to me. As you may know if you have been following any of my posts or reviews, i am pretty much a huge feminist and generally pretty liberal and a huge fighter for birth control, and person-who-feels-alarmed-at-the global-population-growth-rate.

..but in this specific issue, i'm not pro the fashion that says it's ok to discard a healthy baby's life as if it has no consequence. I am far from an angel myself, so i do not idly shake my finger at women who are not prepared to bear the consequences.

But this is life we are living, -it's not a video game (sadly) where one can just restart your game or re-load a save if we feel we've made a mistake. In this real-life scenario, unfortunately, one has to deal with real consequences.

I don't want to point a finger and say what you, Nataliya, is doing or saying is 'wrong'.

But i do think we need to keep a careful finger on the pulse of where trends take us.

We need to change society, yes-- there is still a lot that is wrong, and feminism doesn't seem to touch sides on a global scale unfortunately- the idea that women's bodies are their own and not just some breeding machine is an important one.

But on the flip side, we can't start being irresponsible with unprotected sex just because there is the option of abortion, and I fear that this a factor.

Ok, this discussion is now veering WAY off the original point, in any case...but i hate how much the spirit of consumerism had penetrated into the medical profession (Plastic breasts, noses and lips are commodities, children are commodities, pregnancies are commodities, etc.), and i sometimes feel the need to vent about it.

I know you are not a part of that-- i've been befriended via GR with you and following your reviews from when you were a student still, and i know that you, Nataliya's, heart, is sitting in the right place--so this is not a criticism of you or your work or views.

I am, however, speaking out against a trend here.

Nataliya wrote: "I remember when I first realized what they were going to do using Andrej I had to stop reading for a little bit, I was so disturbed by this. ..."

Phew! Well, i must say i'm glad i'm not the only person in the universe who feels that way about it... :P

Traveller wrote: "We need to change society, yes-- there is still a lot that is wrong, and feminism doesn't seem to touch sides on a global scale unfortunately- the idea that women's bodies are their own and not just some breeding machine is an important one.

But on the flip side, we can't start being irresponsible with unprotected sex just because there is the option of abortion, and I fear that this a factor."

Trav, these all are good points. I see both sides of the argument, and neither of them is really wrong. And as it's not my place to judge, I do not.

Interestingly, the irresponsibility you speak about often seems to be actually ignorance, at least in the patient population I deal with. People are just ignorant about birth control, the proper ways to take it, and what happens when you don't. People also have all kinds of misperceptions about how you can and cannot get pregnant (the views sometimes perpetuated by many of those in power, but I digress).

As for your views on consumerism in medicine - I tend to largely agree with your point. Here in the US patients are viewed as consumers, with all the expectations and pitfalls that follow such a view. But when it comes to consumerism and pregnancy, I think it's the natural result of societal development. Unlike the past, we at least hope to plan our pregnancies, we are not used to having five to ten kids women had in the past and we are equally not used to having, among those 5-10 kids, those who are different in any ways or those who die. We have come to expect one or two kids who are expected (a) to survive and (b) to be perfect, because these are the few kids we plan to have and many of them come at a later age when you are especially appreciative of the chance to have them. Therefore we expect perfection - and with this attitude some of the 'consumerism' that you talk about is bound to seep through. It's only natural in our society the way it's developing. Whether it's right or wrong is not for me to judge - I think I lack the necessary perspective for that.

All right, back to PSS discussion now, I guess. Any thoughts on Jack Half-a-Prayer?

Traveller wrote: "Phew! Well, i must say i'm glad i'm not the only person in the universe who feels that way about it... :P "

Do you think there is any reason why CM leaves some of these issues hanging or unresolved?

A literary or philosophical antagonism toward closure? The possibility of a sequel? (I'm not sure how much any other Bas Lag novel follows on from PSS?)

Should we address them in some fanfic?

Jack Half-a-Prayer = Deus ex Machina, unless I missed something.
It was a welcome one though, so I wasn't as miffed as I usually am with those sorts of things.

Trav, I don't want to pour oil on the fire, but my mention of remorse was intended to say that these decisions should not be taken lightly, even an abortion within the first trimester (which I support personally).

I raised the analogy because I felt that the moral decisions in PSS were taken in full cognisance of the pros and cons, and people took decisions in self-defence (well, the defence of the whole of the city), conscious of their own moral culpability.

All questions of liberty, equality and fraternity take on a different complexion during wartime.

This doesn't justify totalitarianism of the Stalinist variety, although no doubt he justified what he did on the same ground.

Ian wrote: "A literary or philosophical antagonism toward closure? The possibility of a sequel? (I'm not sure how much any other Bas Lag novel follows on from PSS?)"

"The Scar" touches up on the issues of the Remade, but it is so removed from the life of New Crobuzon that is is barely a sequel. But the politics, and more on the remade, and economics - all of that is amplified in "Iron Council", half of which takes place in New Crobuzon a couple of decades later. Some of the threads from this story carry over to that book, many more remain unresolved. But if you decide to read "Iron Council", be prepared for a glimpse of Jack and a glimpse of Yagharek, actually. But Isaac and Lin and Derkhan - their stories are done and over, and we can only at this point imagine what happened to them.

Miéville does appear to be a fan of leaving many plot threads hanging and not neatly wrapped up in his books. It's like life - you don't always get perfect closures. It felt a bit jarring at first, but now I'm used to it and even like it at times.

Aubrey wrote: "Jack Half-a-Prayer = Deus ex Machina, unless I missed something.
It was a welcome one though, so I wasn't as miffed as I usually am with those sorts of things."

Yagharek couldn't fly on a wing or a half-prayer.

Nataliya wrote: "Miéville does appear to be a fan of leaving many plot threads hanging and not neatly wrapped up in his books. It's like life - you don't always get perfect closures. It felt a bit jarring at first, but now I'm used to it and even like it at times. "

I felt that the camera just stopped rolling, which is part of the reason why I've never worked out why Yagharek's monologues bookended everything, when Isaac and Lin seemed to be the main game.

Aubrey wrote: "Jack Half-a-Prayer = Deus ex Machina, unless I missed something.
It was a welcome one though, so I wasn't as miffed as I usually am with those sorts of things."

Finally this discussion is seeing a bit of life! Well, trust the winds of controversy to stir up some life, eh? XD

Aubrey, i think we are on the same wavelength re Weaver. I had initially though of him/it as "fate" the way the classical Greeks saw fate- Fate as an entity- as a spinner of webs. (You really are fascinated with this creature, aren't you? :))

..but casting Weaver as the machina of the deus ex machina also works for me, which would put this work squarely into the field of metafiction.

Ian wrote: "Trav, I don't want to pour oil on the fire, "

Why, don't you like a good fight with me these days anymore? :p You used to be game! Heh. But no, we're not fighting, we're just discussing on the porch watching the sunset with a G&T in hand.

"I felt that the moral decisions in PSS were taken in full cognisance of the pros and cons, and people took decisions in self-defence (well, the defence of the whole of the city), conscious of their own moral culpability.

All questions of liberty, equality and fraternity take on a different complexion during wartime.

This doesn't justify totalitarianism of the Stalinist variety, although no doubt he justified what he did on the same ground.

Yes, in a way, war is of course a similar thing. ..and one couldn't even really say that all war allowed those who fought in it a choice, depending which war you were talking about.

..but at least with most wars, the participants were doing it fairly voluntarily; they knew more or less what they'd be going into, and they'd try their best to appear as if they were doing it voluntarily, unless they were prepared to go to jail for opposing it, in which case at least they were also acting with the courage of their convictions. That is a valuable thing to have.

Andrej was not even afforded the opportunity of knowing what he was dying for- of knowing what was at stake.

I'm not sure whether I see the Weaver as a Deus ex Machina. It is more an unpredictable influence on events. More like throwing a spider in the works.

Traveller wrote: "Aubrey wrote: "Jack Half-a-Prayer = Deus ex Machina, unless I missed something.
It was a welcome one though, so I wasn't as miffed as I usually am with those sorts of things."

Finally this discuss..."

I was actually referring to JHaP as DeM (plese excuse the acronyms, on my phone), considering how little we know of him and how randomly he shows up and ends up saving the day.
Weaver does have some DeM to them, but they're more of a chaotic neutral than a chaotic good. Fate is a much better term for them, much like the the Fates most famously characterized in Greek mythology. And they together wove, measured, and cut the lengths of lives, much as Weaver bounds through the tapestry of existence. The fact that Weaver interferes directly does make them a god in the complicated machinery of reality, but I'd like to think that there's a much more powerful complexity to them than some brainless plot device that swoops in to save the day and drops the book IQ by a few points.
Or I could just be biased. I do love the character immensely.

No, but i don't think that Weaver is itself part of Mievilles' deus ex M-- i think that Mieville cast Weaver as a metaphor for Deus ex Machina in general, or better yet, the hand that moves around the DEM, in the same way that some ontological views cast 'fate' as an entitity- as a semi-diefied creature who weaves the webs of fate.

..and probably he made it a spider exactly because we talk about "spinning the webs of fate" ..so he was being rather clever there.

Aubrey wrote: "I was actually referring to JHaP as DeM (plese excuse the acronyms, on my phone), considering how little we know of him and how randomly he shows up and ends up saving the day.
Weaver does have some DeM to them, but they're more of a chaotic neutral than a chaotic good. Fate is a much better term for them, much like the the Fates most famously characterized in Greek mythology. And they together wove, measured, and cut the lengths of lives, much as Weaver bounds through the tapestry of existence. "

Re Weaver--agree completely there.

Re JHAP-- i was not sure whether to be irritated at his inclusion or not. He was not necessary to the plot, and in my personal view, just another example of Mievilles' self-indulgence.

..but i may be missing something--which is not impossible either.

Traveller wrote: "Re JHAP-- i was not sure whether to be irritated at his inclusion or not. He was not necessary to the plot, and in my personal view, just another example of Mievilles' self-indulgence.

..but i may be missing something--which is not impossible either. "

That's my preserve.

Didn't JHAP present Yagharek with an ethical choice, a generous invitation, which Yag declined in order to walk into the city and become a man?

Yes, but still...oh well, in any case he lends some colour to the scenery...