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5.0étoiles sur 5
Through the Glass, Darkly, Jui 17 2003
This is really a novella, not a novel, and issued in a limited edition that will make it difficult to obtain without a fairly high outlay, but with this story Mieville proves that he doesn't need the expanse of 700 pages to tell a captivating tale. He starts from the assumption that what we see in our mirrors is not just reflected light beams, but rather are real beings that inhabit more dimensions than humans are accustomed to, and have been trapped into faithfully showing an image of this world as a result of losing a long ago war with men. Never mind what violence this concept does to the laws of physics - science is a tool that China uses and discards according to the needs of his story. As our world has gotten more industrialized and the use of mirrors and other reflective surfaces has grown, these beings are more and more tied down to this imprisonment. Ah, but here Mieville throws another curve - what of those beings who don't have reflections? Vampires have been with us in legend and folk tale for a long time, and under Mieville hands they are transformed into advance scouts, spies on our world, for these denizens, whom Mieville calls 'imagos', finding ways to break their prison. Now to top off this already fantastic idea, China describes what happens to our world when these imagos finally do break free of their prison. The resulting bleakness of a war ravaged world fits the Mieville mold perfectly (no sunshine pollyanna stories for him!), as we follow the attempts by one man, Sholl, to communicate with what is left of humanity and get closer to these beings. This individual may be a unique human - no vampire will touch him, except for one, his analogue in the mirror world. And with this juxtaposition of opposites Mieville imbues this story with multiple levels of meaning, a labyrinth of mirrors, opposites, reflections and non-reflections, philosophies and points of contact with our world. All told in China's inimitable style, where he shows his great command of the English language to describe, to illuminate, to evoke mood and feeling, though in this work it is not quite so overpowering as it has been in his previous novels. The ending is quite fitting, and not a very predictable one at all, providing yet another layer of thought and meaning to a story already richly imbued with this. Perhaps there could have been a little deeper look at the inner thoughts and society of the imagos, and a little more background to his protagonist, but as it sits this is a small, polished gem, waiting for the unwary reader to get lost inside its multiple (self-reflecting) facets. --- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
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