I spent several days before the arrival of Miéville’s new book telling people how pleased I was to get my hands on “Oon Loon Doon.” Sometimes, I really am an idiot (btw, it’s pronounced “un-London”). Please quit nodding your head.
I daresay that most of “Un Lun Dun’s” intended audience will get that pronunciation straight away, without the need to have it as painstakingly spelled out to them. That’s because this book is geared at the burgeoning “smart teenager / young adult” market, those looking for something more intellectually stimulating, dark, and less known than certain other other famous mega-blockbusters for that market. It’s a bit like Harry Potter for goths, resembling The Phantom Tollbooth, Alice in Wonderland, and Grimm Fairy Tales all rolled in to one wacky and oddly instructive package.
The plot centers around Zanna and Deeba, two 12-year old girls who begin to notice strange things happening in London - animals staring, strangers making cryptic pronouncements, and inanimate objects coming to life in the night. When they decide to investigate, the are inadvertently sucked into a world parallel, and yet entirely different, than their own. This world, the world of un-London, is under an attack it hardly recognizes, one which ultimately threatens both worlds.
What I love about this story is that it doesn’t play down the complexity of its morality and that it manages to operate at multiple levels of complexity while keeping things moving forward. At the plot-driven, creative-engagement level, the reader can choose to do nothing more than enjoy the challenges confronting the heroine and her wildly inventive band of supporting characters - an old-fashioned diver suit filled with water and fish named Skool, an animate milk carton, a tailor with a giant pin-cushion for a head. But there are subtler elements at work in the book as well, themes that could be used to drive classroom discussions about politics, environmentalism, capitalism, cause and effect. This additional layer is ultimately what elevates the book beyond many of its peers and makes it engaging for an older audience (aka “me”).
With all that said, and all props given to a wonderful story, I hope China gets back to writing his incredible monster stories for an adult audience. It feels like it’s been so long since “Iron Council.” My addiction needs to be satiated.
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