Procure Railsea Depicted By China Miéville Rendered As File

our name, to those who speak science, is Homo sapiens wise person, But we have been described in many other ways, Homo narrans, juridicus, ludens, diaspora: we are storytelling, legal, gameplaying, scattered people, too, True but incomplete. That old phrase has the secret, We are all, have always been, will always be, Homo vorago aperientis: person before whom opens a vast amp awesome hole.
”



In so far as Railsea features a captain obsessed with hunting down a behemoth mole, China Mieville's novel is a lot like Moby Dick.
Instead of whaling ships, we have trains and more trains and the rails that connect the world to itself.
Exploring this world is akin to plumbing all the ancient knowledge upon which both the known and unknown world has been founded.
There is a theology interwoven into this quest, There are pirates. And there are even giant beasts, That said, Railsea is nothing like Moby Dick, Forget I ever made the comparison!

Railsea is also very different than other Mieville books I've read such as City amp the City and Perdido Street Station, and while calling itself YA, it is so much more.
How Mieville plays with conventions and language is central to the book, Once again, as in other Mieville books, I had to throw away the silly notion that the plot was important.
It took a while for it to grab me, but it is well worth the effort! Looking back on my favorite reads of, its pretty obvious to me that Railsea tops the list.
And so rereading it for the third time, mind you inwas sort of a given.


Mievilles prose is not as heavy and, dare I say it, pompous here as it is in Perdido Street Station and his choice of words is definitely more readerfriendly, which allows us to fully immerse in the story without being distracted by a plethora of obscure words and neverending descriptions.
The steampunk world he creates in Railseaa diseased deceased, even world where the soil is so polluted and so infested with monsters that walking on it means certain death for any human foolish enough to try itis downright horrible and yet very entertaining.
Almost shamefully so! The same goes with the fauna that live in itgiant earthworms, giant earwigs, bloodthirsty owls, mutated rats and whatnot.
The plot itself is based on Herman Melvilles Moby Dickonly instead of a ship its a train, and instead of a giant sperm whale the protagonists are hunting a giant molebut Mieville goes beyond that and delivers a truly original and powerful story with a very surprising and satisfying ending.


Definitely worth reading and rereading!

OLIVIER DELAYE
Author of the SEBASTEN OF ATLANTIS series
sitelink Nobody can build a world better than China Miéville.
Plus his creativity knows no bounds, This is one of the most literary YA books Ive ever read, I can just imagine ayear old stumbling over words like rumbustious, Actually theres debate over whether or not this belongs in the YA category but whatever label you choose its a great read.



His prose is less dense in this novel but it has the authors usual characteristics of a blend of different elements.
A bit of science fiction here, a dash of fantasy there, Imagine a world where trains are the only form of transportation and huge burrowing animals threaten to undermine the tracks at every turn.
This is a coming of age story with all sorts of interesting characters and although there are a myriad of places to explore the resolution to the most mysterious of them waits until the very end.

The strength of this novel is in the revealing of an amazing world, If there was a bit more to the plot I wouldve given itstars, I wish this site had half because I would have given it½, For those new to the author this is great place to start, Then you can be mesmerized by sitelinkPerdido Street Station and sitelinkThe Scar,
Thank you, China Miéville, Thank you. Thank you!


In the last week amp a half, full ofhour work days, lack of sleep, physical amp mental exhaustion amp nearconstant feeling of overwhelmed inadequacy CM provided me with the sanctuary of a few precious hours when none of that mattered, when I was completely under the spell of this weirdly fascinating, ridiculous but engrossing universe, when I felt that Miéville's boundless imagination has given me a safe haven where I could breathe free.
Therefore, my impression of this book may be somewhat colored by all the above, But that's what books are for, right To create a frame of mind that makes life better, richer amp even easier, right Btw, I actually do love my job.
It's a dream job. But it's just that I'm so overwhelmed right now, realizing how incredibly steep my learning curve is!

"People have wanted to narrate since first we banged rocks together amp wondered about fire.
Therell be tellings as long as there are any of us here, until the disappear one by one like turnedout lights.
"

I would love to take a hypothetical journey through China Miéville's mind.
I mean, I highly doubt that there can be ANYTHING of which this man's boundless imagination cannot conceive.
He has a knack for taking the most ridiculous situations, the craziest ideas, the strangest premises amp seemingly effortlessly developing them into rich worlds, mindboggling adventures, amp brainy entertainment rare slipups such as Kraken nonwithstanding.




This book was meant to be, I mean, Miéville amp Melville are separated by only one letter, It was bound to happen this weird combination of Moby Dick¹ amp trains, Except here the wild chase of dreams amp 'philosophy' happens in the Railsea, Which is exactly what it sounds like, A sea of rails. Where, among other things, a captain missing a limb is pursuing a gigantic pale whale mole.
That's right. Who else but CM could EVER pull it off

¹ I read Moby Dick as ayearold kid obsessed with Jacques Cousteau, btw amp simply loved it.
Of course, all the intended symbolism sailed right over my kiddo head pun intended, All I knew was blah blah, crazy captain, blah blah, weird stuff, blah blah hey! cool stuff about whales! look at all the ways to take a dead whale's corpse apart! look at all the cool stuff you can make from whales! I think I read it as a sort of encyclopedia.
Yeah, I was a weird kid,

Railsea is, as expected based on the knowledge of the source material, a story about a quest, an obsession, a purpose, amp an overpowering allure of a dream.
It is chockfull of all that literary symbolic stuff, yeah, but it is also full of adventures amp fun amp ampersands!.
amp yet again, like in pretty much every single one of Miéville's books, the strength of it is not in the plot or the characters even though those are excellently done but in making the setting to be the true character amp the true focus of the story.
The bizarre nature of the Railsea world of dangerous earth amp toxic sky amp trains amp moles amp trainangels is so welldeveloped that it somehow feels real amp dangerous amp incredibly fascinating.
It was NOT the plot, really, that made me turn the pages in anticipation it was the reveal of more amp more sides amp secrets of this world that captivated me.
amp the tone the oftencheeky breakingthefourthwall tone that I adored as well, amp staring so may any sentences with "amp" a nongrammatical love of mine, Wonderful job, Mr. Miéville. Simply wonderful.

This apparently is a YA book probably because it has a teenage protagonist, Otherwise, there is not much that makes it a typical YA except for slightly toneddown vocabulary for Miéville, that is.
Dictionary still may be beneficial, I guess YA as an intended audience of Railsea explains why this world is lightyears tamer than the festering filth of New Crobuzon but tamer does not mean less interesing.
It has much less cynicism, amp bleakness is replaced by hope amp the sense of adventure but this is exactly what I needed after the last few exhausting days.
amp there is NO talking down or oversimplifying or insulting the readers' intelligence in any other way, the way many YA books do.
In short, whatever the intended audience may, this will be an enjoyable read for adults.


stars ampersands, Highly recommended!


Recommended by: sitelinkCatie This month's book recommendation: RAILSEA by China Mieville.
Here is a truly original writer, someone who takes sentences and reinvents them, I love how he says things, You have to focus because if you don't pay attention you will miss what he is getting at.
But this mostly YA book is a retelling of MOBY DICK, and it is a resounding success.
I just loved it. I've been a China fan since reading KRAKEN and CITY AND THE CITY among others, He can be a tough read, but no one ever said that good books were for sissies.
A satisfying blend of postapocalyptic sci fi and semimythical fantasy with overtones of “Moby Dick”, It took me a goodpages to suspend my suspicious disbelief in this world where the railroads are a pervasive technology linking diverse citystates and many monstrous creatures burrow the earth and fly the skies.
But the story of a boy on a quest and the people he successfully enlists in his cause made for a compelling tale, essentially a portrayal of the power of an individual to exceed the constraints of fear and superstition.


Our young hero, Sham, apprentices himself as a doctors assistant on a “mole train”, a group of people who hunt the giant Moldywarpes by rail.
The method of the hunt wonderfully emulates that ofth century whale hunting with harpoons targeted when the beast breaches.
Captain Naphi has a special bent for a particular mole Mocker Jack, much as Captain Ahab had for his great white sperm whale.
Nautical metaphors abound, with the intensive network of rails likened to a “railsea” and pockets of human settlement to islands with harbors.
After a while, this mode of thinking takes you over and I was hooked as a reader.




Book jacket painting for "Railsea" and renderings of Sham and his pet daybat and of breaching Moldywarpe by Vladimir Verano

The following paragraph of the skeleton of the plot may be interpreted as spoilerish

Shams inauguration in bloody butchering of the mole has some kind of symbolic value, as soon he becomes obsessed with pursuing deeper knowledge of the mysteries of his world.
He dreams of becoming a salvor, another profession that takes to the rails to salvage remnants of past civilizations.
His quest seems driven by the mysterious disappearance of his father, And it aligns with that of a young brother and sister he meets along the way, who seek to fulfill the work of parents who also disappeared in their work to discover what lies beyond the railsea.
What we know from the beginning of this book is that this world is obviously recovering from some apocalypse that befell a more advanced technological civilization.
The myths say some terrible angels hold guard at the gates to Heaven at edge of the world, and while treasures are to be found there, there is some threat from an infinite “vale of tears.
”

The prose Miéville wields is delightful in its sensuousness and old fashioned tonality.
Here is a sample portraying the diversity trains the boy encounters on their way into the metropolis Manihiki:

Here a small train, three carriages only, manoeuvring the rails of the harbor at the end of the great thrumming cables, tugged by two great birds.
Well: a buzzardtrain, emissary from the Teekee archipelago, Wooden trains decorated with masks trains coated in diecast tin shapes trains flanked with bone ornaments double amp tripledecker trains plasticpelted trains stained in acrylic colours.
The Medes passed the clatter amp clank of diesel vehicles like their own, Past the shrill fussy shenanigans of steam trains that spat amp whistled amp burped dirty clouds, like irritating godly babies.
amp others.

At times, the omniscient narrator of the story speaks directly to the reader, often weaving the metaphors of the railsea into the way he is telling his tale.
Here he explains why he uses the ampersand instead of the text “and”:

The lines of the railsea go everywhere but from one place straight to another.
It is always switchback, junction, coils around amp over our own traintrails,
What word better could there be to symbolize the railsea that connects amp separates all lands, than “amp” itself

As inth century novels, these forms of interruption help render the sense of sitting in a living room as a storyteller orally unwinds his tale.
The original format for metafiction, For some readers this method will irritate as a source of distancing from immersion in the story, but it was charming play to me.
For example, after hesitating in prior interludes, here he prepares to carry through on moving the narrative from character to another:

Asked: What should the story do when the primary window through which we view it is shuttered we might say: It should look through another window.

That is to say, follow other rails, see through other eyes,

The novel has much uniqueness in its vision and is the most accessible of the four Miéville books Ive read so far.
To me, the railsea societys mythologies about its predecessor civilization has some of the feel of John Crowleys “Engine Summer”.
The coming of age aspect of a youth taking on a lost parents quest to understand and dispel the restrictive mysteries of the world is rendered with some of the flavor of Pullmans “The Golden Compass.
” Other readers can have a field day with Miéville acknowledgments of writers who inspired him.
Among somewriters and artists he cites, the most modern are Penelope Lively, Ursula Le Guin, and Charles Platt.
Classic writers include Robert Louis Stephenson, William Dafoe author of “Robinson Crusoe”, and, of course, Melville whose name is so similar to the author's.


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