The Review of Contemporary Fiction
City of Saints & Madmen by Jeff Vander MeerBrian Evenson
Jeff VanderMeer. City of Saints & Madmen. Intro. Michael Moorcock. Prime, 2002. 460 pp. $40.00.
Though City of Saints & Madmen was originally published in paperback in 2001, the fact that this hardback reissue is twice as long, containing more than 50,000 words of new material, makes it a profoundly expanded edition and, in many senses, a much different book. Gathered here are VanderMeer’s writings concerning the imaginary and otherworldly city of Ambergris, writings that are quite varied in effect and scope. At the heart of the book are four strong novellas, including one about a priest in love, a history of Ambergris, a Millhauser-like esquisse of the imagined painter Martin Lake, and a fiction about an author, X, who has lost his ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Supplementing these are materials belonging to X, including several stories (one of which is written in code), a treatise on different types of squid (with annotated bibliography), a family history, and a glossary. The fiction extends to the jacket of the book, with a story written on the cover and a fake author’s note on the flaps. One might be tempted to see the book as fantasy/science fiction’s attempt to move into a more appropriative and contemporary space, but there is a great deal that is literarily savvy about this book that makes it go beyond genre. In his allusiveness, game-playing, and verbal manipulations, VanderMeer allies himself with literary modernism and postmodernism, with authors such as Nabokov, Borges, and Lem. Just as Borges and Lem are willing to draw on genre fiction to get somewhere quite different, so too is VanderMeer more interested in using genre as a springboard into a literary space. The work here is often marvelously dark and grotesque, and VanderMeer’s creation of his world is complex and convincing. To read this book is not merely to read a story, but to enter into a complex and vivid world. [Brian Evenson]