Point of View

The point of view throughout this novel is that of the omniscient author/narrator which enables him to both describe and deride his characters. The reader must rely on the author to pick his or her way through this dark mosaic, but the author's point of view about all the proceedings is rather mordant. One way of reading this novel is on the level of allegory wherein characters and events are meant to be remotely symbolic of their counterparts in the world. Other works of a similar allegorical point of view include George Orwell's "Animal Farm" and Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels."

Is New Crobuzon an allegorical post-apocalyptic community of mutants and hybrids because of the unleashing of Torque bombs in 1545? It is well-established that nuclear explosions and unprotected exposure to atomic energy can modify the human DNA. Perhaps New Crobuzon is a glimpse into the future...