He categorized them as primitive but in fact their society was highly evolved and ritualized according to the descriptions in the journals of the priest. Manzikert I named the city because he was a whaler whilst ignoring that there was a population of grey caps thriving there.
It also later became the center of the religious quarter of Ambergris. Small tangent: it's been speculated that the Truffidian priest isn't even a priest and made up the religion to run away from a past life.
One the first Truffidian priest wrote because Manzikert I (first ruler of Ambergris) told him to and a journal he kept of the "truth" of what happened. For example, when recounting the history of early Ambergris, there are two versions. There is a running theme of authorship and history throughout most of the shorts. It's a place of anarchy that is home to two different worlds depending on whether the sun is up and you're never quite sure what is real and what is not. It's a place where its people worship the King Squid and subscribe to strange religions involving saints who fart, ejaculate, defecate or urinate depending on the order to which they belong. It's a place where artists can thrive if given the correct opportunities and motivations. It's a place where spores grow in cracks and crevices infecting the city. It's a place of no government and a street war between the Greens and the Reds. It's a place that used to be the home of the mushroom dwellers (previously called the grey caps by first settlers) who massacre people at night and sleep underground during the day all the while picking up all the refuse in the city overnight. So what is Ambergris? Ambergris is a rare substance formed in the digestive tract of a whale (thank you Wikipedia), but it's also the name of a city (although X might disagree about its existence). I don't know that I would reread this book, but if I did, I'd probably have a different experience with it than I did this first time. The important bits tend to connect back to information given in other parts of the book. Moreover, it's unclear what is meant to just be absurd and what is important. There are sections with copious footnotes that directly speak to the reader about the implications or the author's opinions about what's just been told. It's bizarre but the book seems to be self-aware of how bizarre it is. There's no overarching plot nor is there a consistent cast of characters. City of Saints & Madmen is a book of four short stories/novellas and a collection of documents pertaining to Ambergris.
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