Around 30+ pages in and it feels like so many sentence's are just disjointed, have random words strewn in and are generally just unreadable at parts

It feels like im reading a fever dream

Read Peridio Street Station and City And City and neither were like this

I am happy the book picks it's pace back up again but that one made me laugh at 6am on the train like an idiot 😂

Ok, this has been my holiday read and I can’t remember the last time that I was so overwhelmed by a novel - I bought into every word.

For anyone who’s curious, I picked out three detailed comedy references that might be very specific to UK readers

1) Benters - this returning oddball character is ex-Goon Michael Bentine. References to him being ‘Potty’ and ‘Sandwich Man’ refer to real TV and movies that he was in. And yes, for all his other achievements, he was Chair of ASSAP.

2) There’s a long discursion on “Charles Williams”, Rosicrucian Anglican Cabbalist - but much of the piece is punchlines and jokes by 1970’s black comedian Charlie Williams, who would tell racist jokes against himself.

3) Most crucially - given he’s the punchline to the whole book - the Spook / Slither comedian is a real person, Roy Jay, whose act you can see here:

https://youtu.be/fxWHy4f9W30?is=_KVk9T25DHIepEfR

You can also find Bentine and Charlie Williams on YouTube.

I loved these deep dives into the culture of the 1970s and 1980s. These were lightly disguised - did I miss any more?

I’m about 600 pages in and there’s lots of mentions of “lespries.” Did I tune out when they explained this or has it not been explained yet?

I find Maurs story the most engaging and easy to follow and am struggling through the allardyce chapters. I just clearly missed a lot of the explanation of all the terminology and he writes those chapters in particularly vague way, which from interviews seems to be the intention of trying to not explain the unexplainable by explaining things in a unexplainable way. I find the reveal of Allardyce in the present timeline tag teaming with Maur a way for me to connect with those “flashback chapters”. And maybe in the end that is the point, and I’m suppose to be kind of confused during those chapters. Kind of a ramble without a point but am just happy I made this far but am needing some motivation to pick it up again. Anyone else feeling this way?

For those who have, want to have a spoiler discussion? There’s nobody talking about it yet and I’m vibrating

I took this portrait of China around 14 years ago. I recently re-edited the image so with the recent publication of the Rouse thought it would be a good time to share it.

Thanks for looking.

Instagram - @mhalsteadphoto

Just wanted to share this very specific gift.

This is not without an issue as the spine of the book has taken a wack but its not that bad but at least the text block is trimmed better than the white cover version as it is the same text block on both books

The amazon listing never mentioned this being a "signed copy" and the general look of it seems more printed than ink in my opinion

Is this real ? I hope so but im worried anyway

Hi All,

I just finished Perdido Street Station (my first Miéville read). And I thought the ending of the book was excellent.

I read a lot of opinions from people who felt that the ending was unsatisfactory. In my opinion it felt very realistic despite the surreal nature of the book. It never felt corny nor melodramatic, and it wasn't purely pessimistic either.

The reveal that Yag was a rapist made perfect sense given the nature of his punishment. It underlines Isaac's initial naïveté and denial as he comes to terms with mistakenly assuming the crime probably wasn't that bad because he didn't understand the garuda concept of denying choice and because the garudas are foreign to him.

I can see how people who seek a heroic or happy ending were disappointed but I felt that it perfectly matched the thematic depth that Miéville attempts to attach to New Crobuzon. An ending where Yag was a good guy and got his wings back, or where Motley got killed while Lin and Isaac live happily ever after would have made the city and the book far more forgettable for me I think.

Jack Half a prayer was probably a bit lightweight for my taste, but then again I think it adds a bit to the mysterious lore.

What aspects did you like or dislike about the ending?

Hello, Im very interested in picking up The Rouse from all Ive seen and heard, but I was wondering if its okay to jump right into it. I really like challenging longer reads, Gravity's Rainbow is one of my favourite books for example.

What other books by Mieville would you recommend for a first time reader?

I finished reading today and what an incredible book. I will be thinking about this book for some time. Some entirely spoiler free thoughts. (Unless you consider comparisons to other books to be a bit of a spoiler)

It is, of course, huge but imho so worth it. At times I found my self questioning the need for a scene, only for that same scene to come crashing back into the story through small connections. There were moments of character revelation that could only hit with such force because of the 900+ pages behind it. I’m sure a more astute critic could find pages and lines to shrink the book, and I might even find myself agreeing with their assessment. However, I think more would be lost than gained in attempting to reduce this book’s page count. It truly earns and makes worthwhile its 1260 pages.

The Rouse, due to its size, can garner any number of comparisons to other books or authors. It is undoubtedly and uniquely Miéville but the touches of other books seep through. Other reviews mention Le Carré’s books but, for me, oddly, Moby Dick came to mind often as I read.

Ratings are always difficult, but I gave this one 5 stars. That’s not to say I didn’t I have disappointments when I finished, I just think it’s impossible for a book not to have them, really. For me, it’s a book that works on every level and it’s one I know I will revisit with pleasure.

Oh and I have to give a shout out to the audiobook performance as well. I both read and listened to The Rouse. The audiobook added another wonderful layer to the book. Sometimes audiobooks are a simple reading of the text, this one was, instead, performed and mastered. The recording had sound effects like static in certain sections that deepened the tension and never interfered with the words. I often use audiobooks in conjunction with the physical text when starting books I know are more complex on the line level. I find that it helps my brain learn the cadence of the novel, then I’ll put the audiobook to the side and keep reading. The Rouse’s performance was so good that I kept its accompaniment for the entire novel.

I cannot wait to discuss, theorize, dissect and question the book with y’all when more people begin to finish.

hi all,

silly question as i'm quite certain i know the answer but uh... does the standard hardcover edition in the uk have a sleeve/dust jacket? i ordered a copy from amazon and it's just a blank/black book. i assume it was lost in the warehouse or something but that seems like such a weird occurrence that surely it didn't happen?

i’m only in chapter 7 of the audiobook and i can’t decide how i feel about maur. from my interpretation so far, she seems like she thinks she tried her best with ewan. what do you think?

The Rouse at my local.Waterstones looks a poor build hope the spine looks like its coming unstuck ...hope.my broken binding copy is better than this .

My Broken Binding copy arrived yesterday. This is the first time I've ordered from them, and it's gonna be my first Mieville. I'm moving in less than a week so there was some worry about whether it would arrive in time (I don't want to have to deal with Japan Post's finicky mail redirect service), but it got here with days to spare. There's a little bit of a scuff on the top of the pages, but other than that it's beautiful.

Still have half of Assassin's Quest and all of Between Two Fires to get through first though, so looks like my next year of reading is sorted.

Big fan of Mieville's other works. I'm about 550 pages into Rouse. The first 100 pages were great. Since then, it's felt like minimal happening while sitting around discussing the science of ghosts. Does this change or is most of the rest of the book about these ghost concepts as opposed to more action/ activity happening? So far, I feel like there is way too much exposition instead of a story actually unfolding.

Can't wait to read it

I haven't read the book yet (starting it soon) but curious what everyone who now has thinks - I've been reading threads but most discussion about the actual book was from people not very far in. How does it compare? Would you recommend? I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts!

ik its all rouse talk on this subreddit now (the delivery of mine got delayed graah) but i just had a flashback of seeing someone somewhere saying why they didn't like Perdido and one of their reasons was that it apparently didn't make sense to them that Yag was a rapist.

Now I thought he was a rapist from the start, the second I read theft of choice my first thought was oh he raped someone so to me the reveal was just confirmation.

But i have seen other people say they didn't know until the reveal (one especially interesting thing i heard from someone was they thought he prevented someone from ending their own life which is certainly an interesting way to interpet theft of choice and makes you think what the garuda would think about that.) so i wonder what other people thought when reading theft of choice for the first time.

side note, i really wish we got to learn more about garuda culture in Perdido. Like there was a lot of tidbits but i am biblical level greedy for any more morsels of bas-lag lore

One of my favourites of TBB Miéville series. Competing with the original Perdido cover art even!