Perdido Street Station - China Mieville [31]
“How do you steal someone’s choice?”
“No idea. I suppose if you nick someone’s spear, they don’t have the choice of using it . . . What about if you lie about where some tasty lichen is, so you deprive others of the choice of going for it . . . ?”
“Maybe some choice-thefts are analogies of stuff we’d consider crimes and some have absolutely no equivalent,” said Isaac.
“I’d imagine so.”
“What’s an abstract individual and a concrete individual?”
Ged was gazing at Isaac in wonder.
“My good arse, Isaac . . . you’ve made friends with some garuda, haven’t you?”
Isaac raised one eyebrow, and nodded quickly.
“Damn!” Ged shouted. People at the surrounding tables turned to him with brief surprise. “And a Cymek garuda . . . ! Isaac, you have to make him—him? her?—come and talk to me about the Cymek!”
“I don’t know, Ged. He’s a bit . . . taciturn . . .”
“Oh please oh please . . .”
“All right, all right, I’ll ask him. But don’t get your hopes up. Now tell me what the difference is between a fucking abstract and concrete individual.”
“Oh, this is fascinating. I suppose you aren’t allowed to tell me what the job is . . . ? No, didn’t think so. Well, put simply, and as far as I understand it, they’re egalitarian because they respect the individual so much, right? And you can’t respect other people’s individuality if you focus on your own individuality in a kind of abstract, isolated way. The point is that you are an individual inasmuch as you exist in a social matrix of others who respect your individuality and your right to make choices. That’s concrete individuality: an individuality that recognizes that it owes its existence to a kind of communal respect on the part of all the other individualities, and that it had better therefore respect them similarly.
“So an abstract individual is a garuda who forgot, for some time, that he or she is part of a larger unit, and owes respect to all the other choosing individuals.”
There was a long pause.
“Are you any wiser, Isaac?” asked Ged gently, and broke off into giggles.
Isaac wasn’t sure if he was or not.
“So look, Ged, if I said to you ‘second-degree choice-theft with disrespect,’ would you know what a garuda had done?”
“No . . .” Ged looked thoughtful. “No, I wouldn’t. Sounds bad . . . I think there are some books in the library that might explain, though . . .”
At that moment, Lemuel Pigeon strode into Isaac’s view.
“Ged, look,” Isaac interrupted hurriedly. “Beg pardon and all that, I really have to have a word with Lemuel. Can I talk to you later?”
Ged grinned without rancour and waved Isaac away.
“Lemuel . . . a word in your ear. Could be profitable.”
“Isaac! Always a pleasure to deal with a man of science. How’s the life of the mind?”
Lemuel leant back in his chair. He was dressed foppishly. His jacket was burgundy, his waistcoat yellow. He wore a small top hat. A mass of yellow curls burst out from under it in a ponytail they clearly resented.
“The life of the mind, Lemuel, has reached something of an impasse. And that, my friend, is where you come in.”
“Me?” Lemuel Pigeon smiled lopsidedly.
“Yes, Lemuel,” said Isaac portentously. “You too can forward the cause of science.”
Isaac enjoyed bantering with Lemuel, although the younger man made him a little uneasy. Lemuel was a chancer, a snitch, a fence . . . the quintessential go-between. He had carved a profitable little niche for himself out of being a most efficient middle-man. Packages, information, offers, messages, refugees, goods: anything that two people wanted to exchange without actually meeting, Lemuel would courier. He was invaluable to those like Isaac who wanted to dredge the New Crobuzon underworld without getting their feet wet or their hands dirty. Similarly, the denizens of that other city could use Lemuel to reach into the realm of the more-or-less legal