#baslag

There is something about London. People from London (lots of them) struggle to see other cities, other places (particularly those also in the UK) as being fascinating and wonderful and varied in their own right.

My source for this is 'being from the Rhymney valley'.

Explaining to London friends that, yep, we are not a cultural wasteland, and yes, we have gays, and you bet, there are non-white people here and MOSTLY everyone is pretty chill (can't speak for everyone's experience of course, YMMV) is quite frankly a bit exhausting.

It is with that background, and the knowledge that New Crobuzon IS London, that made Iron Council rankle me somewhat.

Here you have a story about a group of people, horribly wronged by the Government, through remaking or poverty or other forms of cruelty, who manage to wrestle power away from them, steal away from the city and the parliament that treated them so badly and make a new successful life where they no longer have to fear such punishment, and succeed in creating Bas-lag's version of a socialist utopia.

GREAT! AWESOME! LOVE IT!

Except, when threatened some 20(?) odd years after their successful escape, these people and their children, decide to haul ass back to this city to defend it in what is in all probability an absolute suicide mission?

We can talk about the other implications, but first and foremost, I find it really hard to believe.

Are we meant to assume that a bunch of Remade and sex workers and convicts and labourers who RAN AWAY from New Crubuzon raised their children with stories of how darn brilliant it is, that when offered the chance, the kids leapt at a chance to save the city?

I can't buy it I'm afraid.

I'm sure many of the councillors did have some good stories to tell of New Crobuzon, but surely it would mostly be overshadowed by the tales of mistreatment and hurt? Surely it would end up being this pretty horrid sounding place in the eyes of their children? They can literally see people all around them who have been cut up and remade for servitude or just sadism; who would want to go to the place that does that?

This brings me back to the London point. People from London seem to think it is the centre of the Universe.

'When you are tired of London/You are tired of life'

What is there to save or preserve or delight in outside of its boundaries? Despite its cruelty, despite its historic wrongs, who would not lay down their lives for its hallowed streets?

It reminds me of something a teacher said to me while I was in school. It was around GCSE time, I had put in my preliminary choices a few days previous and got cornered by my French teacher. Why had I not put down French? 'You are a natural linguist! Think of where learning a language will take you! Lots of companies in London want French speakers!' and when I suggested 'hey, what if I take Welsh instead?' she kind of smiled half heartedly and told me that wasn't for me. A waste of time. It is eerily similar to something a teacher said to my mother when she was a teen. 'Welsh is for thick kids. You will move away'

The idea that some of us don't want to move away is still sits uneasy. Some of us are happy here. Some of us don't think its a mark of failure to stay where you were born.

And London is often the place to go when you want something you think Wales can't give you.

I thought for a while that, as each of the Bas-lag novels plays with the 'Save the City' trope, that this one was going to go with a 'don't save the city, save the people' message, but that was not to be. It felt impotent. It felt needlessly hopeless. I wasn't touched by the councillors' sacrifice, I wondered if they had all had lobotomies before making the decision to return.

London always has to win.

Cutter was right. The end.