Abstract

In the novel The City and the City, by China Mieville, the reader follows the Kafkaesque journey of Inspector Tyador Borlu through a labyrinthian political conspiracy set in two politically autonomous yet territorially overlapping cities: Beszel and Ul Qoma. Although “grosstopically” interwoven like topographic doppelgangers, the two cities are perceived as distinct political and cultural territories. Even as citizens from the two cities intermingle on divided streets, live in buildings where different floors exist in different cities, and children climb on trees territorially split (“crosshatched”) down the center, they must learn to “unsee” and “unnotice” one another. The major role of education is to teach ..