The Vorrh - Brian Catling, China Mieville, Witold Gombrowicz - Ferdydurke

I found The Vorrh while browsing the science fiction table in Waterstones in Tunbridge Wells, being a place that I escape to when having to be in Tunbridge Wells for a short time. I was attracted by the first few pages, by Philip Pullman's high praise, but I wouldn't have bogt it unless I had been  in a physical bookshop looking for new authors - I must have missed the reviews when it came out, or else glossed over them. So this post is in praise of the casual looking through the shelves as much as it is in praise of the book itself. And of course this is how I used to read, but it wasn't Waterstone's I lingered in, it was our local public library, housed in an old house behind a circular drive, with its wooden counters and infamous notice in elegant letters on one of the posts.

"NO 

DOGS 

SMOKING 

PRAMS" 

I found the Hobbit there, I found the Lord of the Rings there, and I also found Witold Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke, a scurrilous surreal piece of literature that fascinated me. I'm trying to remember what else I found there, because I remember being so pleased when I finally got an adult ticket and could take out I think about eight books at once.  Ferdydurke was a strange concoction about which I can remember nothing very much, but it does lead into to talking about The Vorrh, a fantasy/ steam punky cross over science fiction novel that has fascinating strands of narrative carried along by inventive prose. Reminds me of China Mieville, one of those writers I have always desperately wanted to like, but have never been able to finish a book by him because his books always seem to lack an emotional core, whereas The Vorrh has all the strangeness and alienness but still has something more recognizable and connectable with at its core. I tried reading Perdido Station so many times, and Mievilles book blurbs always seem to promise so much, plus he seems an incredibly serious and complex writer whose novels I should enjoy.