Embassytown by China Miéville

This book was at the top of re-reading wishlist. And this enjoyable reread showed that there is a lot going on in here.

First, a wide variety of subjects and themes populate the novel: main character as a returning, cosmopolitan outsider while simultaneously being an insider; international relations; economics; marital relations; city politics; war and negotiation; famine and plenty; theology. These discussions all center on how we interact with others, with the surrounding world, with ourselves. It’s ambitious, taking on so many themes. But I do think that Mieville has a focus in this novel. To be more specific, the whole book can be summed up in two seemingly different threads: the discussion about Language, and the two worlds in one.

I’m starting to expect two cities as one in Mieville books—in his longer ones at least. Whether it’s the most blatant example of The City and The City, or the more subtle fantasy underworld and mundane overworld of King Rat, Mieville often focuses on people and places trying to survive with two separate, personal sets of priorities occupying their lives. His narratives focus on the friction inherent there. Between existing as a minor Immer celebrity, and as a private individual returning home to see shift parents again. Between being for the people but against the government. Between being two people, and one—either an ambassador or a married couple. Between being an outsider and an insider. But the question I have, that I’m not sure I can answer fully, is what he concludes about these competing ideological frameworks. It seems to me that his conclusion is simply that using all the resources available to you, even ones outside of your comfort zone, is key to success. This requires an open, observant person who knows themselves well. This is a pretty easy moral to swallow, I think.

The second thread is a bit more esoteric. The nature of language, and how it shapes or molds us for better and for worse. I believe he is paraphrasing a wide variety of continental philosophy sources, from Lacan when discussing connotative linguistics, Walter Benjamin in his discussion of language as anything in life that communicates meaning, Hegel and his successors in terms of the other, and the notion of monsters. In a sense, this is a linguistically focused take on colonial narratives, through the lens of continental philosophy.

One. I think the preamble of this thread is simple: a Language exists where the speakers cannot lie because it refers directly, in a specific, one-to-one method. The word equals the thing, is the thing. The symbol is the symbolized.

Two. An ambiguous determiner arises. As summed up nicely in that discussion about that, as a word, as a determiner. To quote,

“The Absurd had invented pointing. With the point they’d conceived a that. They’d given the jag of the body, the out-thrust limb, power to refer. That that was the key. Thatness faces every way: it’s flexible because it’s empty, a universal equivalent.”

Three. Context asserts itself. Inherent in thatness is context.

“That always means, and not that other, too. It was base and present tense. But its initial single word was actually two: that and not-that. And from that tiny and primal vocabulary, the motor of that antithesis spun out other concepts: me, you, others.”

Instead of referring to something, thatness refers to a specific thing and a context of it. Or, as Avice put it, “That means thinking the world differently. Not referring: signifying.”

Four. Signifying language is flexible. As Avice put it, “I don’t want to be a simile anymore, I want to be a metaphor.” In other words, language that merely refers to the thing itself lacks flexibility. The hosts struggle to even define their words because the things themselves are so concrete. They must enact the words before they can speak them. Language that signifies a thing is flexible, varied.

Five. Flexibility and ambiguity equals a lack of truth. Or, as the narrator puts it, “We tell the truth best by becoming lies.” Not by lying, but by becoming a lie. A metaphor. By applying a word or phrase to something it doesn’t literally apply to. I think this is an important distinction here. Stating, “that red rose is blue,” without lying, requires context, ambiguity, signifying instead of referring. Is it blue because you gave it to somebody, they threw it back in your face, and you’re feeling down about it? This is lying of a sort: the rose isn’t literally blue. But it’s a type of lie we have named metaphor. And the person who says it is blue has become the lie—their blueness colors their perception of the rose, regardless of the rose’s color.

Six. The conclusion of the story, The Absurd inventing writing, exposes the lie already inherent in Language. They believed that since their language was true, and they came into the world with it complete, their thinking was Language. By losing Language, they believed themselves blind, unable to communicate, unthinking, animalistic. By noticing that they could communicate without Language, they proved that this unique, truthful Language was actually based entirely on the lie that Language is thought, that reference is necessary in Language. By pointing out this lie, they also realized that they could communicate without rigorous, literal truth. Or perhaps without truth at all.

So, where these two threads seems to be different at the start of the book, I see Mieville tying the back together by the end. The hosts themselves are two groups tied back together: those zombies addicted to language as orgasm and those attempting to free themselves through deafening or changing language. But this relationship between us and language goes deeper throughout, as questions of language come up consistently and the characters realize that who they are is defined by language at least partly. By changing their language, the hosts have changed at the end. By changing the way they speak language, the humans screw everything up. So, I think Mieville’s conclusion, or moral, is that who we are is partly a result of our language, but not wholly. And I think that’s a pretty easy to swallow moral as well.