This Census-Taker - Kirjakasa

English language

Published March 25, 2017

ISBN:: 978-1-5098-1213-4

(2 reviews)

This Census-Taker is a 2016 novella by British author China Miéville. It tells the story of a boy who witnesses a violent event, which he recalls initially as his mother killing his father, but later as his father killing his mother. Centred on the mysterious events surrounding the alleged murder, it is told alternately in the first and third-person by an unreliable narrator. The writing style is sparse, Kafkaesque and a departure from the detailed world-building of Miéville's prior work. The book explores the uncertainty and trauma experienced by the boy and features secret messages and keys as motifs. Reviewers found the story creative and praised its eerie atmosphere, but were divided about the plot due to its open-endedness. NPR described the novella as "a beautiful chocolate that you bite into and find filled with blood", and The Scotsman found its unresolved nature tantalising, while The New York Times termed …

This Census-Taker is a 2016 novella by British author China Miéville. It tells the story of a boy who witnesses a violent event, which he recalls initially as his mother killing his father, but later as his father killing his mother. Centred on the mysterious events surrounding the alleged murder, it is told alternately in the first and third-person by an unreliable narrator. The writing style is sparse, Kafkaesque and a departure from the detailed world-building of Miéville's prior work. The book explores the uncertainty and trauma experienced by the boy and features secret messages and keys as motifs. Reviewers found the story creative and praised its eerie atmosphere, but were divided about the plot due to its open-endedness. NPR described the novella as "a beautiful chocolate that you bite into and find filled with blood", and The Scotsman found its unresolved nature tantalising, while The New York Times termed it "an exercise in haunting, lovely frustration".

3 editions

mikerickson@bookwyrm.social reviewed This Census-Taker by China Miéville

Review of 'This Census-Taker' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I feel like such a fake sometimes. I say stuff like, "I like eerie, atmospheric books," and think that there's nothing inherently wrong with an unreliable narrator or open endings. And yet when I read a story like this that has all three I'm just left thinking: wow, this was not for me!

Definitely a unique, lonely, and melancholic book. Kind of gave me James and the Giant Peach/Coraline/Series of Unfortunate Events-kind of vibes with respect to children in strange environments and an innate distrust of adults, especially parents. It's not necessarily a coming-of-age story so much as an adult man reflecting back on an unusual period of his childhood, but it feels like so little dramatic action is actually happening that I never felt unease or tension. It also has a fairly abrupt ending, which really got me because the last twenty pages or so of the physical book …

I feel like such a fake sometimes. I say stuff like, "I like eerie, atmospheric books," and think that there's nothing inherently wrong with an unreliable narrator or open endings. And yet when I read a story like this that has all three I'm just left thinking: wow, this was not for me!

Definitely a unique, lonely, and melancholic book. Kind of gave me James and the Giant Peach/Coraline/Series of Unfortunate Events-kind of vibes with respect to children in strange environments and an innate distrust of adults, especially parents. It's not necessarily a coming-of-age story so much as an adult man reflecting back on an unusual period of his childhood, but it feels like so little dramatic action is actually happening that I never felt unease or tension. It also has a fairly abrupt ending, which really got me because the last twenty pages or so of the physical book version is actually an excerpt from a different book by the same author, so I was holding several pages thinking I had that much more to go when I really didn't.

This is another candidate for my "Goodreads should give us half-star increments" campaign, because I'm treating this as a 2.5 rounded up for uniqueness. I try to think who I would recommend a book to at the end of my reviews, but this one is tricky. I guess if you're looking for a sort of Rorschach test situation where two people can look at the same thing and come up with wildly different interpretations, this would be a good one to consider; would be fun to do in a book club situation.

Sami Sundell reviewed This Census-Taker by China Miéville

Review of 'This Census-Taker' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

This is a story about a boy. The boy witnesses one of his parents killing the other. This launches a narrative that takes us through the aftermath.

This Census-Taker is a weird book. There are some hints that the story is set in post-apocalyptic future, but it might just as well happen in early 1900s - I'm not exactly sure what tipped me towards that era, but that feeling stuck.

It moves between first, second and third person story-telling, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, and seemingly without any function or structure. Some people suggest this is to convey how the memories of the protagonist are in disarray. For me, it just adds some mild annoyance.

I'm fine with leaving things in the dark, being open-ended, (somewhat) non-linear story-telling. I just don't find any true content in this book. Miéville uses lots of pages to tell us nothing.

According …

This is a story about a boy. The boy witnesses one of his parents killing the other. This launches a narrative that takes us through the aftermath.

This Census-Taker is a weird book. There are some hints that the story is set in post-apocalyptic future, but it might just as well happen in early 1900s - I'm not exactly sure what tipped me towards that era, but that feeling stuck.

It moves between first, second and third person story-telling, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, and seemingly without any function or structure. Some people suggest this is to convey how the memories of the protagonist are in disarray. For me, it just adds some mild annoyance.

I'm fine with leaving things in the dark, being open-ended, (somewhat) non-linear story-telling. I just don't find any true content in this book. Miéville uses lots of pages to tell us nothing.

According to the census-taker, you keep three books, and one of them you need to write because it costs too much to not write it. It may well be that Miéville needed to write this book. I just don't see any reason to read (or recommend) it.