Between the City and the City Symbol Analysis

Dr. David Bowden’s book Between the City and the City—which argues the existence of a mythical third city, Orciny, between Besźel and Ul Qoma—symbolizes both the power and pitfalls of illicit, dissident knowledge. The book was published some years before the time at which the novel is set by a “long-gone anarcho-hippy press.” When it first came out it was very popular, but is now seen as a “mildly embarrassing throwback.” It is technically banned, although like most censorship of books, this is not strictly enforced. Overall, then, Between the City and the City is presented in a somewhat paradoxical light—it would be treated as dangerous if people took it seriously, yet because they don’t, it is largely dismissed as silly and unimportant. This illustrates the way in which dissident knowledge only becomes powerful if people actually take it seriously. In Besźel and Ul Qoma (as in the rest of the world) conspiracy theories abound, but only the ones that are persuasive enough for people to actually believe them have any power. For much of the novel, Borlú thinks that Mahalia believed in Orciny, and sees her heavily annotated copy of Between the City and the City as proof of this. However, the twist at the end of the novel is that Mahalia didn’t believe in Orciny and realized that Orciny was in fact a cover for the theft committed by Sear and Core. Borlú eventually comes to understand that her annotations in the book reflect this realization. Between the City and the City thus illustrates that when it comes to subversive knowledge, distinguishing between truth, myth, and conspiracy is extremely difficult, requiring people to reverse their assumptions about the way the world works often more than once.