Weird Stereotyping
Metaphors—especially the comparison offered by similes—are fantastically effective for the purpose preying upon reader stereotypes. One can exploit expectations efficiently for the purpose of making a character more vivid. Even better is when an author seems to be creating his own stereotype:
“I did not recognise all of the twenty-one Besź representatives. Some. A woman in her middle ages, severe skunk-stripe hair like a film-studies academic.”
The Breach
Breaching is the ultimate offense in both cities. Although complicated, it is essentially the crime of pointing that borders are illusions devised solely for the purpose of conferring authority and claiming control. The only proof that a border exists between the two cities is the punishment that comes with proving it doesn’t.
“The Breach has no embassies, no army, no sights to see. The Breach has no currency. If you commit it it will envelop you. Breach is void full of angry police.”
Police Work
Many of the metaphors in the book are related to the job of police investigation. Of course, the language that is used it not the sort that you will ever hear any real policeman ever say in any realistic fiction. But it’s forgivable in this case because, after all, it is a story that also contains two cities sharing one space:
“I read Mahalia’s annotations. I could discern phases of annotation, though not in any pagewise chronology—all the notes were layered, a palimpsest of evolving interpretation. I did archaeology.”
Science!
Thanks primarily to the early 2000’s sitcom The Big Bang Theory, when someone alludes to a certain scientific theorem regarding a cat inside a box, it is no longer considered abstruse. Helped along by a more than fair share of internet memes, a metaphor based on that notion of a cat existing as both dead and living at the same time is now easily understood by the mainstream:
“He walked with equipoise, possibly in either city. Schrödinger’s pedestrian.”
The Border Crossing
Both cities do exist which means, of course, that sometimes a resident in one does have to go to the other for whatever reason. The thing is that with the border being an illusion based upon an agreement that it exists and punishment for transgression, one cannot simply walk into the other city where one likes. Because borders are all and only about control, it is necessary always to have an official checkpoint. In this case, that official crossing point is known as Copula Hall:
“Copula Hall like the waist of an hourglass, the point of ingress and egress, the navel between the cities. The whole edifice a funnel, letting visitors from one city into the other, and the other into the one.”
