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In this section, we get more closely acquainted with Mr Motley, and Lin's modus operandii while she is doing her sculpting. Pretty interesting, hm?

In Chapter 11, I found Isaac's dealings with his poor live subjects of study, rather callous. To me it opens the whole: "science and cruelty" can of worms.

I find most vivisection rather cruel. One of the cruellest experiments i had ever read about, and which still distresses me whenever i think about it, was an experiment involving pain thresholds, where baboons where strapped into chairs and smashed against a surface which broke either their kneecaps or their ribcages, while monitors were attached to their brain to measure what caused how much pain and how much distress, etc. What can such a senseless experiment be in aid of?

When does it become ethically feasible to kill or torture subjects in the name of science? Does the end justify the means, and if it does, how important must the end be to justify which degree of harm to the subject?
I'd very much like to hear fellow reader's thoughts on this subject.

Of course, in Chapter 12, what we read about how the pigs are treated at Ben's slaughterhouse isn't too pleasant either.

Traveller wrote: "To me it opens the whole: "science and cruelty" can of worms."

Can of grubs?

Can of caterpillars, yes.

I wonder if China set out to can Caterpillarism in PSS? (Sorry if you've heard that one before.)

No, he doesn't seem to touch on any kind of economic system or economic workings at all, beyond the strikes and how they are dealt with. This to me had nothing to do with Caterpillarism per se, but instead rather pointed at Totalitarianism and military government, a police state and a covert dictatorship rather than a Caterpillarist system. (Which as you know, can accompany any kind of economic system.)

So, to me he seems to rather be criticizing conventional democracy here, and pointing out how a system might seem democratic on the surface, but actually be a dictatorship under the hood.

Oops, we'd better leave discussion of the latter for the next section. Let me go and open the next section before we spoilerize beyond what this section deals with. (Not Section 5-- (view spoiler)[ i mean sections up to where we have the strikes, etc. (hide spoiler)])

I'm not quite sure what Mr Motley means when he says: "your art takes place where your ignorance and your understanding blur." I do feel this is a very important statement, any ideas?

My other comment is I am reminded of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings by the descriptions of Isaac's notes. Not sure if it has any underlying meaning, just a thought that struck me.

oh - and a PS: the slumness and the pig death scene were very vivid. I feel dirty and upset and disturbed and the need to shower. Gosh the man pulls no punches.

Andrea wrote: "I'm not quite sure what Mr Motley means when he says: "your art takes place where your ignorance and your understanding blur." I do feel this is a very important statement, any ideas?

My other com..."

I feel that it's a simple yet profound statement regarding art, but more importantly the creative process in general. When you create something, of course you're working off what you know as well as available resources, but if you were asked to analyze the reasons for each and every detail that you put into your work, it'd be near impossible, even with very small stuff. So somehow, you inherently understand something enough to put it into your work, but figuring out exactly what that something is that made you put it there is another matter entirely.
Mr. Motley's discussion surrounding this statement is one of my favorite parts of the book, because while the shear creative force is amazing, passages that make you stop and think are the best. Especially his bit about the balance of communication and abstraction when it comes to the relationships between the artist, the art, and the audience. Very good food for thought.

thanks!! that helps a lot :)

Andrea wrote: "I'm not quite sure what Mr Motley means when he says: "your art takes place where your ignorance and your understanding blur." I do feel this is a very important statement, any ideas?

I think that CM (i.e. Motley) entertains the importance of and demonstrates a fascination with "interfaces." Where things come together or intersect can be more important than the two things that are joined. I think that what Motley is saying is that Lin's art takes place at the interface and it couldn't happen in a more interesting place.

Robert wrote: "Andrea wrote: "I'm not quite sure what Mr Motley means when he says: "your art takes place where your ignorance and your understanding blur." I do feel this is a very important statement, any ideas..."

aha, that helps too :)

Yes, re:"your art takes place where your ignorance and your understanding blur.", i do think that that is also a comment on the creative process in general.

When you create something new, how do you do it? You blend the known and the unknown, don't you?

The 'understanding' factor comes in, because you have to fall back on some of what you know, but just copying what you know already in exactly the same relationships to one another that you already know, would simply be copy-catting, not creating something new.

But, re the 'ignorance', you can't really create anything if your mind is a complete blank slate, because the mind doesn't work like that, it needs some frame of reference for it to refer to when it acts.

It also works the other way around: when you are creating something new, as you start creating it; you are as yet ignorant of what the outcome will be- although you may have some idea in your mind of what you are attempting to create, you still have not attained the outcome, and therefore you still do not "understand" on an empirical and expereintal level, what the thing is that you are busy creating. Once you have finished creating it, then your ignorance of it transitions into understanding of it.

So we have a kind of full cycle. Understanding transitions into ignorance, which in turn, transitions into understanding--as you are busy with the creation process.

I think Motley's comment about Lin's art was meant to be an insult, that she hadn't quite embraced his vision of himself and pictured him from his own point of view.

We can infer positives in the comment, if we dissociate it from Motley.

On page 11, CM says that Lin's circle delighted in the outre and the scandalous.

On the same page, Isaac is described as a scientist-outcast.

Later Yagharek describes himself as an outcast.

What the three share is that they are outside mainstream society.

Motley is not happy with Lin's work yet, because her understanding is limited and he sees the alternative as ignorance.

Whereas Lin lives and works outside of society and is not so much ignorant as exploring other alternatives, other ways of seeing.

She starts with a blank slate rather than a state of ignorance.

All right, my reply for it was out of context-- a generalized comment. But let us look at it in context. The comments are made just after Lin asked him; "What were you?", and, after Motley had said to her just before that:

"You know," he ventured quietly, "my sense of the grand moment makes me wish there was some way I could avoid seeing anything more of this until it’s finished. I think it is very fine so far, you know. Very fine. But it’s dangerous to offer praise too early.

Motley did grow angry at her, because he deemed her not to understand that he sought to be the way he appeared now because:" "This is totality."

Then Motley relents:

"Maybe I’m too hard on you," Mr. Motley said reflectively. "I mean...this piece before us makes it clear that you have a sense of the ruptured moment, even if your question suggests the opposite...So maybe," he continued slowly, "you yourself contain that moment. Part of you understands without recourse to words, even if your higher mind asks questions in a format which renders an answer impossible."
He looked at her triumphantly.
"You too are the bastard-zone, Ms. Lin! Your art takes place where your understanding and your ignorance blur."

So, seen in the context of the quotes above, i disagree that Motley was unhappy with Lin's work (since he clearly praises it)-- i think he was unhappy rather, with her remark, that she did not see himself as he does- as a conglomeration of everything he possibly can be.

He is saying that although she doesn't understand with her cerebral aspect, she obviously does understand with her emotional and creative aspects.

Which is another aspect of creativity- we need to switch off our intellects to some extent-- our conscious self, so that the subconscious and intuition can take over.

I drew much the same conclusion during my first reading, and re-examination has reinforced my opinion: He is unhappy with her narrow, boxed view of Motley as a person---her conventional notion of him as someone who became something else rather than grew into what he was always meant to be---but not, at that point, unhappy by how she represented him in sculpture despite her view.

Traveller wrote:

"When you create something new, how do you do it? You blend the known and the unknown, don't you?

The 'understanding' factor comes in, because you have to fall back on some of what you know, but just copying what you know already in exactly the same relationships to one another that you already know, would simply be copy-catting, not creating something new.

But, re the 'ignorance', you can't really create anything if your mind is a complete blank slate, because the mind doesn't work like that, it needs some frame of reference for it to refer to when it acts.

It also works the other way around: when you are creating something new, as you start creating it; you are as yet ignorant of what the outcome will be- although you may have some idea in your mind of what you are attempting to create, you still have not attained the outcome, and therefore you still do not "understand" on an empirical and expereintal level, what the thing is that you are busy creating. Once you have finished creating it, then your ignorance of it transitions into understanding of it."

I'm not trained in the academic analysis if literature, so I'm neither capable nor incapable of tying that into Perdido Street Station.

But, Traveller, that is a fascinating and memorable insight into the creative process,

Thank you :)

Thanks Mosca! As Ian pointed out, unfortunately i didn't place the comment exactly into context re that specific part of the novel, though it is clear to me that Motley is
1) commenting on aspects of creativity
2) as Andrea had pointed out earlier, transition seems to be a general theme in the book and strongly linked to both Motley and Lin,
and
3) Motley seems to be praising Lin's artistic intuition, even while he at the same time deprecates her 'ignorance' on an intellectual, linguistic, logical level.

All right, i know this is not what i said in the comment that you quote, where i got into a bit of a reverie around 'transition' while focusing on ignorance and understanding, but i think in the context that Motley says:

Part of you understands without recourse to words, even if your higher mind asks questions in a format which renders an answer impossible."
He looked at her triumphantly.
"You too are the bastard-zone, Ms. Lin! Your art takes place where your understanding and your ignorance blur." ,

He is actually giving Lin a compliment after he had just been angered by her question and had insulted her.

The reference to "bastard zone" appears to be a compliment.

To me, 'Bastard Zone" implies transition or, implies the area between two states of being, just like the crisis point where crisis energy derives from, is that point balanced in the transition between two states of being, as between stasis and movement; and in this case, the zone where Lin 'creates' or practices her art;--that bastard-zone, is the point between reason and intuition, between intellect and emotion, between the conscious and the subconscious.

"Bastard" , I think in this case implying a mix or a crossing between two varieties of something; {dictionary: 2. Not genuine; spurious: a bastard style of architecture and: 2.A mongrel. A biological cross between different breeds, groups or varieties} or, "of uncertain origin" : from Medieval Latin bastum , of uncertain origin.

Thanks for the clarification, Traveller.

My literary memory passes over things occasionally. I remember that conversation now.

Yours may be a spot on analysis.

But either way, your observations on the creative process have altered my on thinking concerning experiences I am struggling with at this time.

Aint litratchur cool?

Oh yes! Is why we read it, wrestle with it, love it, hate it, and most importantly, talk about it! :)

Trav, I like your analysis of the Bastard Zone" comment in post 18.

The only point of difference would be that I don't quite agree with your view that Lin or creativity transitions from one state to another and then back again.

There are definitely two (or more?) states of being.

However, I wonder whether together they form part of a dialectic that emerges with or gives birth to a new synthesis?

So in a sense, a third state, the creative work, emerges.

This is a dynamic process, while not necessarily having to be a transition from one existing state to another existing state (and back again).

There is a transition from the two original states to the newly birthed state, the result of a dialectical process.

The Bastard Zone might actually be the dialectic, the process.

I don't like Motley's choice of "ignorance" to describe the second limb of the dialectic.

Personally, I read a negative connotation into "ignorance", in the sense of wilful ignorance or deliberate lack of knowledge.

For me, the idea of a blank slate expresses my interpretation better: it allows the absence of certainty to be filled with these other things you mention: intuition, emotion, the subconscious, to which I would add dreams, a major concern of the novel.

At the level of Lin's analysis, Motley was obviously hoping that Lin would come back from what he thought was ignorance and result in a better understanding of him.

To this extent, the work was unfinished and he expected her to emerge from the Bastard Zone into understanding (the right, Motley's, understanding).

Whereas I think that Lin was dismissive of this line of reasoning. If anything, she wanted to remain in the Bastard Zone and let it generate the artistic work.

The Bastard Zone (even if improperly defined by Motley) is still a good term for the dialectical, creative process.

It doesn't have to resolve itself into rational understanding.

In art, it's OK if something remains outside the realm of understanding.

At the risk of spoilers, Motley's view of the work and the approach behind it is oppressive of Lin, because he won't accept that she has finished the work, until she has reached an understanding of him consistent with his own self-definition.

From his point of view, she must continue to work on it, until she gets it "right", until the portrait achieves at least symbolic verisimilitude.

Whereas, she might already have finished it on page 99, when it was still in a state of flux. That was what she wanted to capture, and it was already captured.

Just as I love the expression "bastard zone", I love another expression in this chapter, "the ruptured moment".

"You're still interested in what was and how it went wrong. This is not error or absence or mutancy: this is image and essence...this is totality...this piece before us makes it clear that you have a sense of the ruptured moment...so maybe you yourself contain that moment. Part of you understands without recourse to words, even if your higher mind asks questions in a format which renders an answer impossible."

Rupture is such a dynamic and evocative word.

But what does it evoke?

Rupture = transition? Emergence? ...like the rupture of the cocoon and the rupture of the state of stasis at the moments when a pupa-turned-moth is galvanised into action and emerges from the cocoon?

A note to keep in mind, that Lin is at this point still busy working on the sculpture. (view spoiler)[ Her going to Motley's place regularly, has been disrupted by the escape of the moths, and not terminated due to the fact that she is supposed to be finished with the work. (hide spoiler)]

I have to say - I never really thought that transition is a perfect theme for this book. I was fascinated with possibility being the underlying theme of 'The Scar' but I never thought of something similar to PSS. This is why I love discussion threads like this - they always shed so much new light on the book you thought you knew.

Trav, I think "Rupture = transition" is spot-on, by the way. Now I'm off to actually reread that part after which I think I can contribute more to this wonderful discussion.

All good suggestions. Its most obvious meaning is the breaking open or bursting open of something, e.g., the cocoon.

In the case of a cocoon, there is a directional transition. Although it might not be obvious to an observer, there is a transition from one state to a pre-ordained state, dictated by genes.

In the case of an art work, it needn't be so directional.

Something new altogether might emerge form the [dialectical?] process.

Re whether Lin had finished the work or not, it is clear that Motley wanted her to do more work on it, which she felt compelled to do.

I just wasn't sure how to read the original comment on page 99: "He had not realised she was finished". This might have applied to one khepri-spit, not the whole work.

Nataliya wrote: "I have to say - I never really thought that transition is a perfect theme for this book. I was fascinated with possibility being the underlying theme of 'The Scar' but I never thought of something ..."

I've been forced to re-read, due to, you know, having to do the little summaries and having to refresh for the discussion, so yeah, a re-read of a work like this one always makes you chance upon some new 'aha!' moments, especially now that you know the full story; and even more so if you've read a bit more of the author's other work in the meantime, i think.

Ian wrote: "I just wasn't sure how to read the original comment on page 99: "He had not realised she was finished". This might have applied to one khepri-spit, not the whole work. "

Read that part again, Ian. Lin is tired and finishing up for the day. (Only for the day, not the entire sculpture, which is still a work-in-progress)

You might want to re-read again from the start of Chapter 10.

She is still at a relatively early point in her sculpture, she is currently busy with one of the legs, and hadn't started on the other leg yet.

Note:
It was only at the end of hours of work, bloated and exhausted, her mouth foul
with berry acid and the musty chalk of the paste, that Lin could turn and see her creation. That was the skill of the gland-artist, who had to work blind.
The first of Mr. Motley’s legs was coming along, she had decided, with some pride.

The clouds just visible through the skylight moiled vigorously, dissolving and recombining in scraps and shards in new parts of the sky. The air in the attic was very still, by comparison. Dust hung motionless. Mr. Motley stood poised against the light.

and a bit later:

Isaac would be surprised that she was not taking part. She had decided to hint at some monumental work-in-progress, something to keep him from asking questions for some time.
Of course, she reflected, if his garuda thing’s still going on, he won’t really notice if I enter or not.

There was a sour note to her thoughts. She was not being fair, she realized. She was prone to the same kind of obsessing: she found it difficult, now, not to see the monstrous shape of Mr. Motley hovering at the corner of her vision at every hour. It was just bad timing that Isaac should be obsessed at the same time as her, she thought desultorily. This job was swallowing her up. She wanted to come home every night to freshly mixed fruit salad and theatre tickets and sex.

and then:

Lin looked up and saw that the shadows had moved some way since she had come
into the attic. Her mind felt foggy. Her delicate forelegs cleaned her mouth and eyes and antennae in quick passes. She chewed what she had decided would be the day’s last clutch of colourberries. The tartness of the blueberries was tempered by the sweet pinkberries. She was mixing carefully, adding an unripe pearlberry or a nearly fermenting yellowberry.

She knew exactly the taste she was striving for: the sickly, cloying bitterness of a colour like vivid, greying salmon, the colour of Mr. Motley’s calf muscle.

Also, note a bit later,
Mr. Motley nodded approvingly.
“You know,� he ventured quietly, “my sense of the grand moment makes me wish there was some way I could avoid seeing anything more of this until it’s finished. I think it is very fine so far, you know. Very fine. But it’s dangerous to offer praise too early. Can lead to complacency ... or to the opposite. So please don’t be downhearted, Ms. Lin, if that is the last word I say, positive or negative, on the matter, until the very end. Are we agreed?�

Thanks, Trav. That makes sense.

There are a number of key discussions of transition:

1 (Motley/Lin):

“Have you ever created a statue of a cactus?� Lin shook her head. “Nonetheless you have seen them up close? My associate who led you here, for example. Did you happen to notice his feet, or his fingers, or his neck? There is a moment when the skin, the skin of the sentient creature, becomes mindless plant. Cut the fat round base of a cactus’s foot, he can’t feel a thing. Poke him in the thigh where he’s a bit softer, he’ll squeal. But there in that zone…it’s an altogether different thing…the nerves are intertwining, learning to be succulent plant, and pain is distant, blunt, diffuse, worrying rather than agonizing.
“You can think of others. The torso of the Cray or the Inchmen, the sudden transition of a Remade limb, many other races and species in this city, and countless more in the world, who live with a mongrel physiognomy. You will perhaps say that you do not recognize any transition, that the khepri are complete and whole in themselves, that to see ‘human� features is anthropocentric of me. But leaving aside the irony of that accusation-an irony you can’t yet appreciate-you would surely recognize the transition in other races from your own. And perhaps in the human.
“And what of the city itself? Perched where two rivers strive to become the sea, where mountains become a plateau, where the clumps of trees coagulate to the south and-quantity becomes quality-are suddenly a forest. New Crobuzon’s architecture moves from the industrial to the residential to the opulent to the slum to the underground to the airborne to the modern to the ancient to the colourful to the drab to the fecund to the barren…You take my point. I won’t go on.
“This is what makes the world, Ms. Lin. I believe this to be the fundamental dynamic. Transition. The point where one thing becomes another. It is what makes you, the city, the world, what they are. And that is the theme I’m interested in. The zone where the disparate become part of the whole. The hybrid zone.
“Could this theme interest you, d’you think? And if the answer is yes…then I am going to ask you to work for me."

2(Motley/Lin):

She had no clear picture of her boss, only a sense of the ragged discordance of his flesh. Snippets of visual memory teased her: one hand terminating in five equally spaced crabs� claws; a spiralling horn bursting from a nest of eyes; a reptilian ridge winding along goats� fur. It was impossible to tell what race Mr. Motley had started out as. She had never heard of Remaking so extensive, so monstrous and chaotic. Anyone as rich as he must be could surely afford the best Remakers to fashion him into something more human-or whatever. She could only think that he chose this form.
Either that, or he was a victim of Torque.
Lin wondered if his obsession with the transition zone reflected his form, or if his obsession came first.

3 (Isaac):

“See, potential energy’s all about placing something in a situation where it’s teetering, where it’s about to change its state. Just like when you put enough strain on a group of people, they’ll suddenly explode. They’ll go from grumpy and quiescent to violent and creative in one moment. The transition from one state to another’s affected by taking something-a social group, a piece of wood, a hex-to a place where its interactions with other forces make its own energy pull against its current state.
“I’m talking about taking things to the point of crisis!�

Ian wrote: "There are a number of key discussions of transition:

1 (Motley/Lin):

“Have you ever created a statue of a cactus?� Lin shook her head. “Nonetheless you have seen ..."

Nice catch, Ian!

Thanks, Trav. I thought you might also have been interested in the dialectical process in the context of some comments Nathan might have made (but do you think I can remember where?).

I'll have to follow up on that tomorrow--i'm off for the day--have fun in the meantime!

It's getting more political, though I hope it's not primarily a political novel.

Traveller wrote (comment 1): "...In Chapter 11, I found Isaac's dealings with his poor live subjects of study, rather callous. ...I find most vivisection rather cruel..."

I agree, and it's at odds with his concern for those on display at the freak show a couple of chapters earlier. But he does care about Yag (and Lin), and is taking personal risks by his relationships with both.

Traveller wrote (comment 2): "Of course, in Chapter 12, what we read about how the pigs are treated at Ben's slaughterhouse isn't too pleasant either."

What struck me was that (from my limited knowledge) the process of slitting throats and letting blood drain away sounded akin to halal or kosher slaugher - except that these are pigs! Still, it's another example of the importance of different food and diets in New Crobuzon. Or is that theme a red herring? ;)

Andrea wrote (comment 7): "I'm not quite sure what Mr Motley means when he says: "your art takes place where your ignorance and your understanding blur." I do feel this is a very important statement, any ideas?..."

My own thoughts were along similar lines to many of the responses above, especially the importance of borders, transition, cleavage etc, which seem to be recurring themes in Mieville. It also sounds rather like drug-pushing: daring her to cross her own boundaries to experience something new, even if it ends up so individualized that she can't convey it to an audience.

Cecily wrote: "It's getting more political, though I hope it's not primarily a political novel.
"
Not primarily, no--less so than Ghormenghast, for instance. ;)

Cecily wrote: "especially the importance of borders, transition, cleavage etc, which seem to be recurring themes in Mieville. It also sounds rather like drug-pushing: daring her to cross her own boundaries to experience something new, even if it ends up so individualized that she can't convey it to an audience."

Interesting observations! Read on... ;)