“Its substance was known to me. The crawling infinity of colours, the chaos of textures that went into each strand of that eternally complex tapestry…each one resonated under the step of the dancing mad god, vibrating and sending little echoes of bravery, or hunger, or architecture, or argument, or cabbage or murder or concrete across the aether. The weft of starlings’ motivations connected to the thick, sticky strand of a young thief’s laugh. The fibres stretched taut and glued themselves solidly to a third line, its silk made from the angles of seven flying buttresses to a cathedral roof. The plait disappeared into the enormity of possible spaces.
Every intention, interaction, motivation, every colour, every body, every action and reaction, every piece of physical reality and the thoughts that it engendered, every connection made, every nuanced moment of history and potentiality, every toothache and flagstone, every emotion and birth and banknote, every possible thing ever is woven into that limitless, sprawling web.
It is without beginning or end. It is complex to a degree that humbles the mind. It is a work of such beauty that my soul wept…
…I have danced with the spider. I have cut a caper with the dancing mad god.”
― China Miéville, Perdido Street Station
You know I have a couple of novels by China Mieville and never got round to reading him… you should see my must read pile…Bloody writing takes up so much time! Now not only do I have no excuse not to read him, but you have me all fired up and wanting to!
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Ha! The common curse of the to be read pile. It grows whenever we take our eyes off of it (and sometimes it grows even when our eyes are on it).
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I know tell me about it! And as for the TO BE READ PILE….. If I ever get my hands on the bugger who invented email gggggrrrrrrrrr!
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Indeed.
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I love the “loose cannon” quality of Mielvillle’s writing. It shouldn’t work, but it does (most of the time at least). This quote is a cracker!
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Definitely a writer for inspiration! (For me, at any rate.) I love seeing what authors can do with words.
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