"King Rat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miéville China)
Acknowledgements"A genuine contribution to London’s subterranean mythology… It’s humane and delinquent. And it bites" "Full of the rank energy of Jungle rhythms, China Miéville’s rat’s nest of a book gives a new meaning to the term ‘alternative London’, a kingdom we didn’t know we’d inherited. KING RAT goes down as sweetly as week-old garbage, to leave the reader eyeing speculatively the manhole covers of Soho and Battersea. A knotted, toothy, thought provoking read." "China Miéville is an intriguing new voice in British fantasy. He’s inventing a language for Jungle London that’s both ancient and part of the city’s future." "A story so compelling you almost haven’t time to notice how fine the writing is: a dark myth reinvented for our time and for London in particular with great wit, style and imagination" "King Rat takes us out of the high courts of fairy tale, away from the romanticised city streets of many current fantasies, down into the sewers… And his characters are fabulous, even the bit players… This is a riveting, brilliant novel. The language sings, the concepts are original and engrossing… an utter delight" To Max Thank you to everyone who read this in the early stages. All my love and gratitude go to my mother, Claudia, for all her support, always; and to my sister, Jemima, for her advice and feedback. Deep love and thanks to Emma, of course, for everything. My heartfelt thanks to Max Schaefer, who gave me invaluable criticisms, hours of word-processing help, and great friendship during a generally rubbish year. I can never thank Mic Cheetham enough. I am incredibly lucky to have her on my side. And thanks to all at Macmillan, particularly my editor Peter Lavery. I owe too many writers and artists to mention, but respect is especially due to Two Fingers and James The Kirk for their novel Junglist. They blazed a trail. Many thanks also to Iain Sinclair for generously letting me keep the metaphor I accidently stole from him. Jake Pilikian introduced me to Drum and Bass music and changed my life. Big up to all the DJs and Crews who provided a soundtrack. Awe and gratitude especially to A Guy Called Gerald for the sublime Gloc: old, now, but still the most terrifying slab of guerrilla bass ever committed to vinyl. Rewind. A London Sometin’… I can squeeze between buildings through spaces you can’t even see. I can walk behind you so close my breath raises gooseflesh on your neck and you won’t hear me. I can hear the muscles in your eyes contract when your pupils dilate. I can feed off your filth and live in your house and sleep under your bed and you will never know unless I want you to. I climb above the streets. All the dimensions of the city are open to me. Your walls are my walls and my ceilings and my floors. The wind whips my overcoat with a sound like washing on a line. A thousand scratches on my arms tingle like electricity as I scale roofs and move through squat copses of chimneys. I have business tonight. I spill like mercury over the lip of a building and slither down drainpipes to the alley fifty feet below. I slide silently through piles of rubbish in the sepia lamplight and crack the seal on the sewers, pulling the metal cover out of the street without a sound. Now I am in darkness but I can still see. I can hear the growling of water through the tunnels. I am up to my waist in your shit, I can feel it tugging at me, I can smell it. I know my way through these passages. I am heading north, submerged in the current, wading, clinging to walls and ceiling. Live things scuttle and slither to get out of my way. I weave without hesitation through the dank corridors. The rain has been fitful and hesitant but all the water in London seems eager to reach its destination tonight. The brick rivers of the underground are swollen. I dive under the surface and swim in the cloying dark until the time has come to emerge and I rise from the deeps, dripping. I pass noiselessly again through the pavement. Towering above me is the red brick of my destination. A great dark mass broken with squares of irrelevant light. One glimmering in the shadow of the eaves holds my attention. I straddle the corner of the building and ease my way up. I am slower now. The sound of television and the smell of food seep out of the window, which I am reaching towards now, which I am rattling now with my long nails, scratching, a sound like a pigeon or a twig, an intriguing sound, bait. |
||
|