Book Recommendations Terry Pratchett Book Club

Terry Pratchett Book Club: Unseen Academicals, Part II

May your sherry whisper wonderful things to you, too

By Emmet Asher-Perrin

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Published on April 12, 2024

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Who’s up for practice? Who wants Rincewind on their team? (Me, I do.)

Summary

Glenda and Juliet head back to the university to give themselves an alibi for not being at the match. Ottimony comes in to tell them all about it after leading the wizards there, and he swears that Juliet looks like the girl at the match. Glenda is summoned to the Stollops because Juliet’s dad got a letter from Vetinari, asking him to attend a dinner with the wizards to talk about the future of football. Trev finds Nutt asleep at the university, having eaten a large quotient of Glenda’s pies. He tells Glenda and Juliet what happened, and when Nutt comes to, he start up his work again. But he says a few things about how Trev really feels about his late father that sends Trev catatonic. Glenda asks Nutt how he knows all these things, how he managed not to die, and where he comes from. Nutt isn’t entirely sure; he only knows how he came to be in Ladyship’s castle and that there’s a door in his mind that he can’t access. Nutt thinks about writing love poetry for Trev to give Juliet, and Juliet bothers Glenda the next day about going to a fashion show, which has an ad in the paper next to an article about the origins of football going back a millennia. Glenda agrees to the show, but only after she gets a chance to listen in on the University Council meeting.

The wizards are putting together thoughts for what they need as a team, including the pies, the uniforms, and the fans. Glenda is bemused by the whole conversation and accidentally interjects herself, letting them know that they’ve got it largely wrong—they won’t be able to change much about how football functions, and they won’t be able to dictate how people enjoy it. She also tells them not to make their uniforms sport a UU across the front, or it’ll make the team look like they have bosoms. Ridcully asks what she does, and they all learn that she runs the Night Kitchen and makes the incredible pies they’re all so fond of. After she leaves, Ponder notes that Glenda’s talk of football invoked memories in the group, whether or not they had them; it was a kind of religious experience. Glenda goes with Juliet to a dwarf chainmail fashion show run by Madame Sharon, who has her assistant Pepe measure Juliet and asks them to help her because her model dropped a pickaxe on her foot. Glenda negotiates a hefty sum for Juliet to model the new cloth-like micromail. The wizards begin their first practice round of football, which they don’t rightly understand.

Glenda sees Juliet through her first fashion show. She’s very drunk and stumbles into the next room after it’s over, having a talking with Pepe, who turns out to have converted to being a dwarf with Madame Sharon’s help. They want Juliet to keep working for them, planning to pay her lots of money travel her around the Disc. They know Glenda is the key to her cooperation, so they ask her to consider it, and Glenda decides they’re going home for the night first. Despite the fact that Ridcully promised never to use it for these sorts of purposes, he demands that Ponder let them in to the Cabinet of Curiosity so that it can make them a proper football—because they don’t have one. They can only keep the ball outside the cabinet for about fourteen hours before causing trouble, so Ridcully stops Trev and Nutt in the hall and asks them if they know where to have the ball replicated. He gives them money for the job and they set off. Glenda tells Juliet that they’ll open up a bank account for her so that her father can’t get at her money. Trev and Nutt run into Andy again, and when he threatens Trev, Nutt threatens to break his hand. They make it to a dwarf shop, and ask him to replicate the ball in exchange for money and a university license to make more of them.

Juliet decides she agrees with Glenda about staying in her job at the university, which makes Glenda feel wretched; the next day her picture is in the paper. Trev goes to pee out back while Nutt and the dwarf artisan are working and sees two vampire women outside, which Butt later tells him are protection for Ladyship. Nutt delivers the love poem he wrote for Trev to Glenda, so she can give it to Juliet. Glenda reads the letter for Juliet and knows that Trev didn’t write it, but doesn’t tell her. Pepe wakes to Times reporters in their store and everyone asking about Juliet. King Rhys has the paper sent via clacks, and the grags are in a tizzy about Juliet’s appearance, deeming it undwarfish. Ponder returns the Cabinet’s ball to the Cabinet and they begin creating teams again. (Rincewind tries to get out of this to no avail.) The (former) Dean has arrived at the university, but the game is interrupted by Nutt, who means to tell Ridcully that they’re playing the game all wrong, and more strategy is needed and, indeed, more theater. Trev comes to Nutt’s defense to make sure no one gets upset with him for speaking out of turn, but Ridcully is amenable to the idea. Glenda sells a lot more for Stronginthearm and gives him ideas for whole new troll fashion lines.

Commentary

There are several overlays going on with the Juliet and Trev story, one of them obviously being the Romeo and Juliet angle that you get from her name and the “two houses” being their two football teams. This is mostly funny to me because I saw some Tumblr post just a few days ago that was pointing out that the Montagues and Capulets being “both alike in dignity” as houses did not preclude any level of poshness—they just needed to be the same. Hence, footballer families.

But the more intriguing slice here is the Cyrano parody, at least to me. Nutt is effectively playing the Cyrano part, writing letters on Trev’s behalf, who’s in the Christian role. But the intention isn’t to make a direct parallel, of course, because Nutt clearly isn’t interested in Juliet—he likes Glenda. And I appreciate the lack of conflict, but moreso, I find myself appreciating the fact that someone who’s as bright as Nutt isn’t really interested in someone who’s pretty if they’re not particularly thoughtful? Juliet’s not his type, so no issue there.

And conversely, Juliet’s route to becoming a fashion model for micromail is endearing too, namely due to Glenda learning some things for herself about snuffing out the desire to dream a little bigger. Do I like that it’s helped along by too much sherry? Yes, I do. I wish sherry talked to me like that. Tequila does, though, so I can’t complain too much.

We’re getting more clues on Nutt’s true identity as we go, but I do appreciate that the mystery is drawn out and viewed from multiple character perspectives, making it that much harder to guess point blank.

The bits where the wizards are practicing football are favorites for me because it reads like it’s written by someone who feels exactly the same way about sports that I do. There’s no sense, no real interest in the game itself, nor any inclination toward athleticism (aside from Ridcully’s own personal interest and physical prowess). The only time things make sense is when everyone is thinking about how exciting the game should be, how to generate narrative around it, how to make it a spectacle. I get that part. The rest is just window dressing.

Asides and little thoughts

• Of Vetinari being the wrong sort for Juliet despite being the only available “prince” around, Glenda thinks: Besides, no one was sure which side of the bed he got out of, or even if he went to bed at all. Meaning: We’re honestly not sure if the man is gay, straight, or ace.
• “By his own admission, he would rather run ten miles, leap a five-bar gate and climb a big hill than engage in any athletic activity.” Me too, Ponder.
• Ridcully’s entire response to the concept of possible gayness—that could really just be some wizard having an affair with a married woman and he’s not getting it—being that there’s not enough love in the world and also “Well done, that man!” (which is, itself, actually in response to people playing football and grabbing his attention) is pretty perfect, all things considered.

Pratchettisms

Next week we’ll read up to:

[end-mark]

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: <i>Unseen Academicals</i>, Part II appeared first on Reactor.

Book Recommendations Terry Pratchett Book Club

Terry Pratchett Book Club: Unseen Academicals, Part I

Archchancellor Preserved Bigger is a helluva name, really

By Emmet Asher-Perrin

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Published on April 5, 2024

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I regret to inform you that I know zero football chants. This will not be my finest hour.

Summary

Smeems, the Candle Knave of Unseen University, is doing his rounds in the middle of the night with Mr. Nutt, who is acting apprentice. They keep the candles lit all about the place, including the Emperor candle, which is never supposed to go out. (It does, frequently, but Smeems doesn’t discuss it.) Nutt is an unaccountably bright young man, who hopes to see more of the university as time goes on. The faculty finishing their Hunting of the Megapode, which Ponder signs into the record as their new Master of The Traditions. (Rincewind dressed up as the Megapode, and has to go for a lie down afterward.) Ponder has received this new position upon the revelation that no one has held the post for over two centuries. He takes it in part to help keep the staff’s mind off the fact that the Dean has just retired, a thing that wizards generally never do—and to teach at another university for money, no less. Ponder finds an important tradition that the university has ignored the past twenty years; they must play a football match or lose a very important bequeathal to the school from former Archchancellor Preserved Bigger. Downstairs, Glenda scolds her gorgeous friend Juliet for not showing up to work on time on account of watching football.

Turns out Nutt is a goblin, which is a group that endures a ton of prejudice thanks to a long-ago war that no one remembers very well. He does his best not to upset anyone as a candle dribbler, and does most of Trev’s work for him. Trevor Likely has also been watching football (on the opposite side to Juliet), and he takes Nutt up to the kitchens to get them some food from Glenda. Meanwhile, Ponder does some calculations and learns that they could get by without Bigger’s trust if they significantly cut down on food expenses. The wizards are horrified, and Ridcully uses that to get them on board with the football game (which they don’t have to win, but he’d like to). Trev tells Nutt he’s going to take him to the next football match and asks him to find out Juliet’s name from Glenda. Meanwhile, Juliet asks Glenda about Trev, while Glenda suggests that she could get a better gentleman if she tried to speak a little more posh. Nutt used to live in Uberwald in “Ladyship’s” castle, where he learned and read all the time and tried every discipline. He’s a bit bored at the university, but he’s safe there at the moment. Ridcully goes to see Vetinari, who already knows of their predicament and has already made plans to formalize football within the city, insisting that the wizards be a part to it.

It also turns out that Vetinari is aware of Nutt’s placement at the university (and is having him looked after there as a favor to Lady Margolotta). Ridcully asks a boy on the street where the next match will be so that he can observe it. Nutt asks Glenda for Juliet’s name, which Glenda gives knowing full well that Trev is the one who asked for it. She gives him Juliet’s last name too—Stollop, which is bound to cause more trouble for reasons Nutt doesn’t understand. Trev gets Nutt dressed in Dimmers football colors and is, in fact, upset to find out that Juliet is a Stollop because his dad was Dave Likely, a famous footballer who got more goals than anyone in a lifetime. They head to the match and Trev tries to teach Nutt to be more like one of the lads. The wizards are heading to their first match and Ridcully has asked they be accompanied by university bledlows, which makes the group nervous. On her half-day off, Glenda usually goes and sells wares to lady trolls for Mr. Stronginthearm, but she runs into Juliet again. The Librarian always goes to the football matches, and is bemused to find Nutt and his fellow wizards attending this time around. The wizards try to figure out where to stand and observe, while Trev introduces Nutt to Andy, whose dad is captain of Dimwell, and the rest of his friends.

Nutt is learning about being in the crowd of a game, and finds he’s very good and shoving his way through it. He spots Glenda, who has come with Juliet. As Trev is trying to talk to Juliet, she presses a Dollies team pin into his hand, which he hides on his person. Nutt catches an incoming ball, and asks what should be done with it—Glenda points toward the goal. Nutt makes the goal from a great distance, easily, and breaks the goal post. Trev knows this is going to get the crowd angry, so he drags them all away as fast as he can. While Trev is trying to find out about Nutt’s childhood and get help writing a love poem, Juliet’s brothers show up, and then Andy too. Trev tries to stop them from fighting, but Nutt makes a blithe comment, and Algernon Stollop hits him with a club, killing him instantly. The group dispatches, and Trev brings Nutt to Constables Haddock and Bluejohn, begging them to take Nutt to the Lady Sybil hospital. Angua questions Trev because if an Igor needs to revive you, Vetinari has decreed it was still murder. Doctor Lawn arrives to let them know that Nutt was apparently sleeping; he sat up in the hospital, asked for a sandwich, and left. On his way out, Trev is stopped by an Igor who tells him that he thinks Nutt is dangerous.

Commentary

As is sometimes the case in Pratchett narratives, the main arc of the plot is hardly a dour thing at all—the wizards aren’t going to starve regardless, and football’s induction into the larger societal fabric is hardly the most important political change the city has undergone in recent memory.

However, here we learn that Moist von Lipwig is far from the only person Vetinari is keen on giving their one shining chance to. Though, I suppose to a certain extent, we have always know this: Vimes was the first experiment the reader is exposed to on that front, and there have been many others. Vetinari’s entire schema is built upon it, and while it does nothing to eradicate poverty, war, or general suffering, it is true that on the Disc, if you are lucky enough to possess strange talents in need of nurturing, and happen to cross his path, Havelock Vetinari will do everything in his power to give you that one chance (and arguably many—Moist definitely gets more than one, no matter what he thinks) you need to reach your fullest potential.

It’s an imperfect system, but it does permit for a kinder than average world in certain respects. And, pointedly, if you squander the chance by using your own unique gifts to harm others, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork has no compunction about ending your journey, removing you from the body like a limb with gangrene. For an erstwhile assassin, he’s very particular about how death is employed, but has no difficulty being dispassionate about it.

This is how we wind up plunged into the story of Mr. Nutt, whose species has been basically unknown to us in some three dozen Discworld books so far. (We get out first real hint with Igor feeling the need to warn Trev about him.) There’s a deep Pygmalion-esque vein to this side of the story—even if the My Fair Lady reference goes to Juliet instead—though this is calling to mind my own favorite version, being the musical Bat Boy. Nutt is far closer to Edgar’s tale than he is to Eliza Dolittle.

Trev’s turnaround is one of the main factors that makes this book work, in my opinion. An entire novel that centers around all the terrible “lad” rules and behavior that football comes attached to would have been a slog for me. Having Trev snap to the moment he thinks that his friend has been killed by this sort of nonsense instantly makes me like him better as a character, and helps the story move along to more interesting places.

The structure of the book is still odd, however. It makes out as though we’re finally going to get a book that’s entirely about the university wizards instead of keeping them in their usual comic relief shenanigan sector. This works for a tiny sliver of time before we’re immediately introduced to the “below stairs” group at the university.

The satire is still strong with the collegiate stuffs, of course: Academicals is a word upended to more than one university team, and the Hunting of the Megapode is a send up of the Mallard Ceremony at Oxford. While in their version, someone carries a wooden duck around on a stick for the Fellows to follow, here we’re chasing Rincewind-with-feathers-on about the place. Why didn’t we didn’t get more of that.

Also, someone save Ponder. I realize the overworking is mostly his own fault, but he could use an assistant or something.

Asides and Little Thoughts

• The gap between this book and Making Money was the longest the world had gone without a Discworld book since the gap between its very first tomes. (This book is a bit longer than usual, at least.) And now I’ve made myself sad.
• The pickle carts? They have pickle carts? *cries in sadness that no one has wheeled a pickle cart over to me*
• Lord Vetinari forcing the Ankh-Morpork Explorers’ Society to rename to the Trespassers’ Society because everywhere they “discover” already has people living in it is… look, if you’re gonna be a tyrant, be this kind of tyrant. Inflict your correctness on people.
• Okay, but Alf and Nobby are related, right?

Pratchettisms

Next week we’ll read up to:

[end-mark]

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: <i>Unseen Academicals</i>, Part I appeared first on Reactor.

Rereads and Rewatches Terry Pratchett Book Club

Terry Pratchett Book Club: Nation, Part IV

By Emmet Asher-Perrin

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Published on March 29, 2024

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Even alternate history can’t stop this man from creating something kinder than what we’ve got.

Summary

The raiders arrive before dawn, and Mau has the alarm rung and brings his plan to fruition. Cox is in charge of the Raiders now as they feared, but it seems they’ve seen the cannons, so they want to talk. Mau knows they won’t talk to him because he looks like a boy with no tattoos even though he’s chief. He plans to send Milo or Pilu to speak. Cox talks to Daphne, tells her that he’s the new chief, and he’s teaching the heathens to speak his language. Daphne thinks the Raiders look just like men who work directly beneath the king, the ones who know it’s better to be advising the top than be at the top. She talks to Mau and finds out that only one cannon works and they only have gunpowder enough for one shot, but they use that shot to scare the group into single combat, chief against chief. The Raiders are panicked, so Cox agrees to the fight, thinking he’ll get to shoot Milo. Milo steps forward and announce that Mau is their chief, risen from the country of Locaha itself. The Raider priest steps forward to ask questions, disbelieving, but Daphne has all the right answers about Locaha’s country. It makes the priest nervous.

Daphne tries to talk Mau out of the fight because Cox has a revolver and another gun, at least seven shots he can fire before reloading, while Mau only has a spear and knife. He won’t hear of any dissent, however. They are both required to lay their weapons down and the fight begins when one of them reaches for theirs. Because that is the only rule, Mau reaches first for sand and throws it into Cox’s eyes. He runs toward the lagoon, remembering that guns don’t like water. He dives in and Cox continues to fire at him, only managing to hit his ear. Mau ducks under a tree in the lagoon, and Cox reloads the pistol while Mau finds an old axe he buried in the tree during practice as a boy. Cox tells him that the sharks are coming and he wants to watch them feast, but he’s getting frustrated, spending all his bullets. Mau comes up with the axe, hits Cox straight in the chest, and the man falls into the water, just in time for the sharks. Mau goes to the Raiders and tells them to bring their captives to shore and leave. When he comes to later, he learns that Daphne has been performing surgery on the wounded captives using the manual she found on Sweet Judy. The Unknown Woman seems like a completely different person, with a name now—she found her husband with the captives.

Daphne asks Mau if he would go back to a world without the wave if he could, but Mau cannot answer. There are two versions of himself, but this is who he is now. Daphne enjoys her life here and doesn’t want to leave it, but a ship has arrived. Daphne’s father is here, and she tells him about all the things that have happened to her, then brings him to the cave to show him all that Mau’s people have accomplished. Her father isn’t convinced and demands that she use scientific theory to back up her claims; he knows that others will try and disprove this. Daphne makes him promise that they won’t take anything from this place, that if others want to see it, they’ll need to make the journey, not steal away the Nation’s ancestral heritage. Daphne gets to spend nearly two weeks showing her father the island and helping him to learn that language. They play cricket with the Nation’s people. And then the Cutty Wren finds them. They explain to Daphne’s father that he’s king now and they need to do a cursory coronation right here. They’ve brought Daphne’s grandmother. But once the coronation is done, Daphne’s father finds his courage and manages to tell his mother to be silent and not insult their island hosts.

Cookie did indeed survive in his coffin at sea, and is reunited with Daphne. Daphne’s father gives the Nation the option to join the British Empire willingly, but Mau’s doesn’t want that; he wants to join the Royal Society, and says they will welcome all men of science to their island. In return, he will give the king the gold door to their sacred place of record. They ask for a telescope and a large ship the size of Sweet Judy filled with books and salted beef and other things. Mau also asks the scientists who comes to the island share their knowledge, and they ask for someone to teach them more about medicine. A week later, the king is loaded onto his boat. Mau shows Daphne that he has received his tattoos, and they say goodbye, despite wanting nothing of the sort—they both must go where they are needed. And then we move forward to Today, where an old man is telling this story to two children on the island. They learn that Daphne became queen and married a man from Holland, and that they died within two months of each other—and Daphne demanded to be buried at sea where he was. The children ask if he believes in Imo, and the old man tells them that he “just believes.”

Commentary

It’s killing me, y’all. Because he did it again.

We’re not even reading the Discworld, but Pratchett can’t stop himself. He created an alternate history to the world he lives in, and he made it to give us a kinder world. A world in which an island nation is protected from the horrors of imperialism because the princess of England (who rightly never believed she had any chance of becoming royalty at all) lived among its people and was clever enough and humane enough to understand how they should be treated.

Daphne takes her father to the temple and he makes literally every argument that colonizers make about why this place should be stripped and transported elsewhere. He says “it belongs to the world,” and Daphne tells him that is thinking like a thief because she knows that ‘belonging to the world’ to her people means ‘stolen and displayed at home.’ He tells her that the island is far away from anywhere important, and she tells him that this place holds import. He tells her that some will argue that the spectacles she found there were left by previous European explorers, and she tells him that they couldn’t have come here before because all the gold is still there. She makes this argument before she knows that she and her father will have the power to make that choice on behalf of their people, which is relevant only because it lets the reader know where her morals reside. But it’s likely that without this twist of fate, there would have been nothing they could do to protect Mau and his people from the rest of the world or England itself.

This book already started with the end of the world. It couldn’t end that way too. And it deserves marking because how often are alternate histories used to examine the worst options history had on offer? Nearly every time?

Not this time.

And it’s never done in a trite way that robs the story of meaning. The work is still hard, the thinking still needs to be done, and no one escapes without pain. There’s just that little golden lining at the end to reward people for trying their hardest and putting in the time.

It occurs to me that Mau is exactly like Nawi—over time, he learned to use his disability (in this case, his lack of soul) to his advantage. Because that manner of difference often gives a person a unique vantage point on the world and their place within it. And it’s poignant as always that the fight against Cox at the end takes up practically no time because that’s not where the meat of the story resides; Cox is simply the obstacle, and not a very absorbing one at that. He needs to be stopped, but his cruelty doesn’t merit our time or deep thoughts. There’s nothing interesting about evil, to paraphrase Ursula K. Le Guin.

In the end we come to a meditation on belief with the old man, a great-great-great-great-grandson of Pilu, living in present day. The children keep asking if he believes in Imo, and he gives them a lot of answers that aren’t yes or no. Until finally, he says:

I’m trying to put my finger on a thing, because this is pretty much exactly how I wish we handled religion of any sort, including the kind we make up for ourselves outside of institutions. It’s sort of the faith-based version of “Strong opinions, lightly held,” if that makes any sense? And I find it far more comforting than any answer-based faith can possibly be. Believe in things, generally. Which is to say, not specifically, and not virulently. Believe in some stuff, to exist. That works, too.

And I come back around to the question of whether or not this is Pratchett’s best book. He believed it was, which is all that matters as far as he is concerned—because belief is how we’re made up. Do I think it’s the best? Well, no, but part of the reason for that is I’ve never really liked “best” as a marker. It’s too broad. But this book is beautiful, and I’m glad to have read it. Which is really the best any author can ask for at the end of the day. To write something worth reading. In that, Pratchett never had to worry overmuch.

Asides and little thoughts

• When I started the book, I didn’t think I’d care too much about whether or not the parrot made it, but by the end I was so glad? It needs to live to fight the grandfather birds another day.
• A number of famous scientists get name-dropped for having visited the island in the modern-day section, including Einstein, Patrick Moore, and Carl Sagan. Darwin, too, of course. He liked the octopuses.

Pratchettisms

Next week we’re back to Discworld with Unseen Academicals! We’ll read up to:

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: <i>Nation</i>, Part IV appeared first on Reactor.

Rereads and Rewatches Terry Pratchett Book Club

Terry Pratchett Book Club: Nation, Part III

“One person is nothing. Two people are a nation.” Emmet Asher-Perrin discusses chapters 9 through 12 of Pratchett’s Nation.

By Emmet Asher-Perrin

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Published on March 22, 2024

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Can we separate out a nation from the concept of nationalism? In this book I’d argue that we can, which is a great thought exercise.

Summary

Daphne comes to and finds that Mau is still asleep, but no longer in a coma. She is hearing voices still, gods of the island, but not the Grandfathers—the Grandmothers. They tell her that she must tell Mau to roll away the stone, so she puts a new little girl named Blibi in charge of Mau and tells her to make sure he has soup on waking before setting off. Daphne heads through the jungle to the Man’s Place and yells at the Grandfathers for bullying Mau. She’s attacked by the grandfather birds, but Mau arrives with Blibi to give them beer, and they talk about the experience they just had. She tells him that the Grandmothers have started talking to her, and that they don’t want anyone else to die. Mau brings up the Raiders and Daphne suggests that perhaps they should hide, but then agrees that they should fight them off when they come. Mau tells her that he has figured out what Ataba thinks, that the trousermen left the stones and some tools ages ago. He wants to know why Daphne’s people are smarter, but she doesn’t think they are; she thinks that bad weather gets them working and moving. They gather a group to roll the stone away with a crowbar, and head inside with lamps.

Mau, Daphne, and Ataba enter the crypt and find hundreds upon hundreds of Grandfathers in this place, all bone, tied together with papervine. They get deep enough to find one Grandfather sitting on a white stone, and he and all the men around him looking in a different direction from the other bodies. They follow that direction to see where it leads. Mau finds the door to a sea cave and hacks away at it. They all enter to find statues of the gods and more white god stones. The air is too thin to them to survive long there, but Daphne notices that there’s a body there with something in its mouth, and she thinks that there could be an indication of Greek or Egyptian in the cave. One Grandfather falls over in the dark, and a line of them begin to fall like dominoes, so the group runs and runs as the dust of the Grandfathers makes to escape their tomb. When they finally make it back to daylight, Daphne sees boots—trousermen, Foxlip and Polegrave, some of the mutineers against Captain Roberts. Daphne tries to think how to keep everyone here safe when they’ve got pistols, but Ataba has seen his gods, and holy fervor seizes him. He waves a spear at Foxlip, who kills him.

Daphne knows she has to outthink these men so they don’t kill anyone else. She tells them to take her back to her father for a reward and leave the rest of these people alone because they don’t have enough pistol shots between them to take everyone out. She takes them to the Women’s Place and Mau and the others follow silently behind to help her. Daphne offers the men beer, which they insist she drink first. She learns that Cox is coming soon with the cannibal Raiders. Foxlip drinks his beer without spitting in it and singing the song, and he dies. Daphne breaks Polegrave’s nose and steals his gun, then tells him to run, which he does. Then she thinks on how she’s committed murder, and Foxlip and Ataba are buried at sea. Daphne insists on a trial for the murder, so everyone tries it out for her. She winds up needing to explain the whole story to them—how Cox came aboard Sweet Judy and made himself first mate, how the mutiny began, and how Captain Roberts didn’t wind up killing the man, but did set his group adrift in a small boat with pistols on a small island nearby. The group learn that these men kill dolphins and brown people for sport. They decide they’re demons and already dead, therefore Daphne is absolved of any wrongdoing.

Daphne tells Mau that he must follow her back into the crypt to see what she saw—a globe of the world that has fallen from Imo’s statue hands. She thinks that his people were exploring other parts of the world during the ice age. The white stone was brought there by their ancestors to make carvings and steps and statues of gods. Daphne wants scientific men to come here and explain what this place means, but Mau knows; it means his ancestors wanted people to know they were here. It also means that they are all connected, and Daphne’s explains that Mau’s people were incredibly advanced; their stories are descriptions of planets you should only be able to see with a telescope, and they made glass, and false teeth out of gold. (The Sky Woman takes the set they find.) Pilu tells the story to their band, that they were the first people and now they must fight the Raiders off with what the Sweet Judy has provided, namely cannons. Daphne warns against using them, but Mau promises he has plans. She tells them how to get the people ready for a battle more effectively and they practice. The Gentlemen of Last Resort stop to rescue someone in a floating coffin…

Commentary

This book is genuinely a great read, but it’s also just incredibly useful for getting your brain working? I dunno, you could take a philosophy class or you could read this, and I think this is a more engaging way of going about the subject. Both Mau and Daphne serve as perfect distillators of these thoughts, entirely wrapped up in questions of what building a society is and means. As Mau says of what he owes Daphne for saving his life (by making him want to live at all):

Again we come back around to this idea that we are nothing without each other. We are not beings made to exist in loneliness. It only takes two people to make meaning. And it’s true in the most mundane ways as well as the Big Idea ones, too. I think of that every time my partner and I cook dinner together—if it’s me alone, I’d probably just… starve? At any rate, I wouldn’t feed myself well. It’s hard to see the point in making good meals for only me. Making that meal for us is a different beast. Us has a purpose, it means something. Me doesn’t hold the same weight. It never has. (Is this why I had so many imaginary friends as a kid?)

There’s also the continual point that even our smallest thoughts are designed to make us more relevant, which is a helluva existential splinter to the foot. Mau is scared at the possibility of moving skeletons in the crypt, and knows he thinks of it because the idea is more interesting to his mind. Moving skeletons make him feel more important. And then he thinks:

…I don’t even know what to do with that. Because, again, we’re using this sort of supernatural example, but isn’t that exactly what anxiety is? The first point I always use to comfort the anxious people in my life is that no one is ever thinking about you as much as you assume they are. But that’s the functional bludgeon of anxiety; it’s making you scared via the fear that everyone is paying attention. Why is being a person like this.

Admittedly, I was worried that there wasn’t going to be much thought put into Mau’s frustration with trouserman technology, his feelings of inferiority and anger at their abundance. And I should’ve known better, of course: We’re being given the history of much of the world here, which comes with an acknowledgment that plenty of ancient civilizations were far more advanced than we give them credit for, and gained their knowledge through means that we still can’t piece together. Mau’s people sailed the world in ages past, and knew the shape of the heavens. They had many of the same inventions and came to them far earlier than Westerners, but the record has been lost and dwindled down into mythology.

This is true the world over, and is often the reason behind “Ancient Aliens” theories. There’s obviously racism bound up in that, and general superiority and fear as well—after all, if any great civilization could forget much of what they’d created over time, then it’s bound to happen again, right?

Mau understands the implication of all this immediately, and what it means for the origins of other peoples. He tells Daphne:

In this particular alternate history, my assumption is that Pratchett is intending Mau’s people as the Ur civilization that all others have sprung from. If that’s the case, it makes Mau’s survival and leadership of his people a far heavier tale. This is a brand new beginning, a major rebirth, if they can all survive it.

But even without Cox and his ilk, there’s still the very real question of imperialism to contend with. Will Daphne’s presence and connection to these people spare them any more than they would have been spared in our real-world timeline? I guess we’ll find out.

Asides and little thoughts

• Ataba tells Daphne that imperialism/colonialism is basically the same thing as cannibalism because it’s just another way of eating people and, damn. Just, uh. Yeah.
• Daphne thinks of Foxlip and Polegrave like those fish that swim around sharks (Cox) so they never get hurt—but she doesn’t know why the shark would allow it. Of course, now we know that it’s a sort of symbiosis thing, where the fish eat parasites off the sharks. I doubt Foxlip and Polegrave are doing anything so useful for Cox. It’s just useful for a bully to have other more malleable bullies around.

Pratchettisms

Next week we finish the book! [end-mark]

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: <i>Nation</i>, Part III appeared first on Reactor.

Rereads and Rewatches Terry Pratchett Book Club

Terry Pratchett Book Club: Nation, Part II

Emmet Asher-Perrin discusses chapters 5 through 8 of Nation.

By Emmet Asher-Perrin

|

Published on March 8, 2024

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We finally find out how to scare the shark away with a word. Well, it’s not a word, really. That’s the good bit.

Summary

Mau cooks yams and plantains in beer at the Women’s Place and brings that to a hog with babies so that he can get her drunk enough to take her milk for the baby. He has to do it again, and is not looking forward to it by any means, when another canoe shows up. In it are brothers Pilu and Milo; the latter’s wife, Cahle, is about to give birth. They’ve been searching the islands to find a proper place and people who know the rites. Mau tells them that Ataba will lead them to the Women’s Place and plans to send Daphne to help them. Ataba balks at this because she doesn’t know their ways, but Mau insists that there are no other options available to them. He goes to the Sweet Judy and manages to tell Daphne about the woman and the baby, but Daphne is horrified by the idea of having to help—she lost her mother in childbirth. She realizes that Mau has dealt with far worse and follows him. Pilu knows some English, and speaks to her, and Mau helps Daphne get Cahle into the Women’s Place. Daphne kicks Mau out of the hut and remembers that they said she needed to sing a song to welcome the baby. She begins to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” which calms Cahle down.

The men listen outside to the song Daphne sings, and Pilu translates best he can—they all believe it is a portentous song about a child who will be a guiding star, which they decide to name the child. Daphne tells the men to bring the Unknown Woman and her baby up to the hut to that the baby can be fed by Cahle. Two weeks pass, and Daphne is still helping the women, more people have arrived (an old woman and a boy named Oto-I), and Cahle has been carefully teaching Daphne the ways of their women so that she can find a husband, while the men strip the Sweet Judy down for its timber and tools. Pilu and Mau talk as they work and Mau asks if he’ll teach him more of the trouserman language so he can talk to Daphne. Pilu recommends that he wear a pair of salvaged trousers, since that’s very important to her people, and they discuss their strange ways. (Pilu and Milo lived among them very briefly and learned a few things.) Daphne gets a grass skirt to wear from the Unknown Woman while Mau tries on the trousers. Mau makes Pilu cry by continually questioning the existence of the gods and where Pilu’s people went, and then he hears the thundering of the grandfathers, only it’s much louder this time. He tells Pilu that they want him to bring up the last of the god anchors, the one for the god of Water.

Daphne makes the beer using a different song, and is encouraged to go to the beach. She and Mau see each other—her in the grass skirt, him in trousers—and the whole group laughs together. Milo spots sails and more people arrive. Now they number eleven women, eight men (not including Mau because he has no soul), and three dogs. These people believe that the final god anchor needs to be brought up to protect them. Mau tells them he will do it. The water god anchor will not nudge from the lagoon, however, stuck under a piece of coral. Mau tells Ataba that he thinks there’s a fourth god and it is a trouserman; he gathers Pilu and Milo to help him free the god anchor with trouserman tools. Mau tells them that there is another stone down there, and Ataba heads down to try and smash the new stone with a hammer, almost drowning. He jumps back in and hits the coral, bleeding, which calls a shark. Mau uses Nawi’s advice to scare the shark off (shouting at it) and they bring Ataba back to the shore. He knows the reason that the old man tried to smash the new stone—it had trouserman marks on it, and Mau thinks that the god anchors may have been made by them. Mau asks Ataba who made the god anchors, but the old man insists that Mau is wrong to ask, and that he won’t like the answers.

On the Cutty Wren, Mr. Black is informed about the tsunami and asked what they should do about finding the Sweet Judy. He decides to continue as their orders dictate and not veer off course to search the islands ahead of time. Daphne starts hearing voices of her own, but she’s unsure where they come from, or if she’s perhaps talking to herself. A voice tells her to go quickly and she finds Mau unresponsive—he appears to have succumbed to hypothermia and is comatose. Milo brings the two god anchors to shore despite Ataba being furious at the presence of the fourth. Pilu tells the story of how Mau saved Ataba from the shark and everyone is moved. Cahle believes that Mau is dying, but Daphne insists that he’s still there, so Cahle tells her to talk to the Sky Woman (the old woman Daphne has been calling Mrs. Gurgle in her head) because she is powerful and will know what to do. Mrs. Gurgle says Mau is caught in a shadow place between life and death, and Daphne volunteers to go get him. Mrs. Gurgle agrees to this, but says that the only way to get Daphne there is to poison her; she agrees. Mau is running from Locaha, who taunts him. Daphne arrives and pulls Mau in a different direction, toward life, though it is very hard to get back…

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Nation

Terry Pratchett

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Nation

Terry Pratchett

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Commentary

The philosophical musings just get deeper and gnarlier as we go, but it’s important that they’re being mused on in the wake of devastation. Because it’s different for Mau to make Pilu cry about the possibility of their gods and the afterlife being plumb made up when the young man is actively thinking of all the people he’s lost—which is everyone. And, pointedly, moments of active grief are often the only times people think of these things.

It makes Ataba’s smugness hard to swallow because when he tweaks at Mau about people needing their faith, it’s not really a fair argument. Faith is a thing that people often fall back on in the wake of tragedy and the book keeps pointing this out—the ways in which people bury themselves in tradition and dogma when they’re afraid because the brain doesn’t know how to make sense of larger tragedy. Ataba says they need it, but it’s more accurate to say that they simply can’t help it. The alternatives are too horrible. The alternative is feeling the way Mau feels, and he’s furious and miserable.

Daphne thinks this of Mau:

And like… it’s genuinely the same thing. Standards not being Upheld isn’t really any different from Mau’s anger because they’re both anger at the same thing; The world being wrong. I dunno, it just seems important that you can draw that line between two people who couldn’t have less in common because that’s clearly what this book is about, on one level. Humanity loves to poke the “we’re not so different, you and I” button in a million different ways, but it’s always a little extra poignant when you can do it with two people like that.

As always, Pratchett says the quiet part out loud with regard to religion and people. For example, here are thoughts on god(s):

And then on people:

Gods are what you rely on when you need an answer and can’t find one. Which is frequently, to be fair. Even the most learned members of our species don’t know all that much. It’s one aspect of the more virulent strain of atheism that I can never get behind—religion isn’t surprising or pathetic, even if it’s not your thing. We continually ask “why?” and sometimes we find an answer. When we don’t, we’re all going to cope with that differently.

Conversely, Pratchett has both Daphne and Mau coming to terms with people being the point. People being really all there is. People making things sacred by feeling and existing in a place. Even with all the frustrations and difficulties they bring, the more people come to the island, the better Mau feels. Locaha can’t have him yet.

Asides and little thoughts

• The fictional rule about cannibal raiders is that once you bring them up, they have to appear, right? That’s what’s going to happen, right? The most obvious and loaded Chekov’s Gun.
• I do love the bit with Mau trying on the pants and Daphne trying on the grass skirt because it’s that sort of scene that’s always used as a precursor to romance in a way that can often feel kinda icky? (Especially in this case because they’re very young?) But here it’s just so dang wholesome and ends with everyone laughing and feeling human and normal together for a moment.
• The bit with needing to sing to the beer reminds me of something I read that talked about how people used to recite prayers/hymns/rhymes/etc daily as a form of timing; meaning, if you needed to bake bread, you knew how long to knead the dough based on how many times you should recite the Lord’s Prayer. I assume that’s what’s going on here, too.

Pratchettisms

Next week we’ll read Chapters 9-12! [end-mark]

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Rereads and Rewatches Terry Pratchett Book Club

Terry Pratchett Book Club: Nation, Part I

Emmet gets started on the book Pratchett considered the best one he ever wrote…

By Emmet Asher-Perrin

|

Published on March 1, 2024

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Who is the Nation if its people are gone?

Summary

We are told a creation myth where Imo creates the world and creates Locaha, the god of death. But the world is flawed, so Locaha tells Imo to make another, better world while he looks after the mortal one. And if people are particularly good, they will be sent to Imo’s better world, but if not they will be reincarnated as dolphins until they’re ready to be people again. Captain Samson is tasked with the journey during an outbreak of Russian Influenza that has killed the King of England. He must take Mr. Black and his people (the Gentleman of Last Resort) to Port Mercia. His men will be well-paid for the journey—they must find one of the heirs to the throne and bring them back within nine months to claim their birthright according to the rules of Magna Carta. Captain Robert’s ship is lost, marooned in a forest, and there is only one human survivor (and a parrot). A boy named Mau, who has recently completed his time on Boys’ Island, is taking his canoe back to the Nation to celebrate his entry into manhood. On his journey he witnesses the largest wave he’s ever seen, and he’s uncertain what its effect has been on his people at home. He arrives back at the Nation, but his people have been wiped out by the tsunami.

Mau wakes (having barely slept), finds the bodies of his people and buries them at sea, though he blocks the memories out, thinking of himself as Locaha as he does it. A “toeless” creature leaves him food while he sleeps, and on waking he walks to the forest. The forest has been destroyed by something more than a wave—it’s the Sweet Judy, and Mau finds bodies of men from the ship. He briefly thinks that perhaps he is the one who died, but he hears the voices of the Grandfathers telling him that he is not and that he must continue the traditions of his people so that the Nation survives. Mau thinks of Granddad Nawi, a member of the village who was “cursed” by the gods because he had a bad leg. Mau talked to him once and found that Nawi didn’t consider himself cursed at all, and he told Mau a word for keeping sharks away. Later, Liu comes across a woman from the “trousermen” people, and she points a gun at him. She fires it in fear, and he sees it spark and believes she has given him the means to start a fire. He takes the gun and runs, making a fire with it, and a dinner of tubers.

On the Sweet Judy, the woman who survived the shipwreck writes a card to Mau. Her name is Ermintrude Fanshaw, and she delivers the card in the night. Mau wakes up and believes that the card’s rudimentary pictogram is telling him to throw a spear at the ship. He goes to the Women’s Place (where he was not allowed before), and gets beer to bring to the Grandfathers, who scold him for not doing everything they have commanded. He goes to meet Ermintrude who introduces herself by the name Daphne (she never liked her name), and Mau assumes she’s telling him where she’s from. She asks for his help in burying Captain Roberts at sea, which he does. When the captain’s hat bobs to the surface, Daphne tells him that the captain wants Mau to have it and she jumps into the water to get it… but she can’t swim, so Mau has to dive in after her. They both nearly drown, but Mau gets them to shore, retrieves the blanket from the ship (and accidentally releases the parrot in the cage beneath it), and watches over their camp all night. Daphne saw her life flashing before her eyes as she was drowning and remembers what brought her here: learning about geography and astronomy as a child; the death of her mother; her grandmother’s imperiousness; and her father’s insistence that he will go govern England’s island territories and that she will follow him once he’s settled.

Daphne wakes to the smell of stew that Mau has made. They both eat the stew and laugh over the fact that she keeps trying to be polite when she spits out the fish bones. Then they both fall asleep and when Mau wakes, Daphne has gone back into the jungle. Mau had considered letting himself die when he rescued her from the water, and he wants to teach Daphne his language so that someone will remember his people. He retrieves two of the god anchors at the behest of Grandfathers, large white stones that were thrown into the lagoon by the wave. Mau isn’t sure what he believes in anymore, or why he tries to keep his people’s traditions alive when they’re gone. Daphne returns with a book, and they begin to teach each other their languages so they can communicate. Then Mau draws the tsunami. Daphne shouts about a canoe, and Mau sees that one is trying to enter the island. He helps them to shore and meets Ataba (a priest from a neighboring island who studied in the Nation when he was young), a feeble young woman who will not eat, and her dying infant. Mau and Ataba argue about the gods, and Mau begins making a plan to get everyone fed so the baby will get the milk it needs to live.

Commentary

Pratchett said of Nation: “I believe that Nation is the best book I have ever written, or will write.” In fact, Pratchett said a lot of things about this book and how he writes in his acceptance of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Fiction Award for this novel.

Not to dispute him straight away (and, of course, I won’t have a complete opinion on that until I’ve finished it), but this aspect of being an artist fascinates me. In the acceptance, Pratchett talks about how he doesn’t really measure up to “real writers” who make lists and plan out their books and research things properly. And yet, his description of how he created “the best book I have ever written” is the opposite of that process in every way. What he tells us is that the narrative overtook him and wouldn’t leave his brain (despite needing to shelve the concept for a time due to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami) until he let it out, that the story is a culmination not of specific research, but of all the knowledge stacked into his brain over a lifetime. That the characters sort of created themselves and used him as a conduit.

What he’s describing is what most writers, I think, long for in the pursuit of their craft. An act of creation that simply pours out, a story that needs to be told, a feeling that makes one more like a vessel for fable than a human being.

Buy the Book

Nation

Terry Pratchett

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Nation

Terry Pratchett

Buy this book from:

• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble
• iBooks
• IndieBound
• Target

What I do appreciate is that Pratchett never suggests that Nation is his best book because it’s somehow more high brow or artistic, two labels that have less meaning than we think, and also far more baggage than we often allow. No, Pratchett seems to feel this is his best work because of the manner in which it exited him, and I can understand that feeling. There is only one place where I’d quibble with his reasoning, which is when he notes that Nation is not a very comical book, as he is often known for. And it seems as though that is an indication to him that the book might have more artistic merit than his usual fare—so said the man who was knighted for his contributions to literature and said “I suspect the ‘services to literature’ consisted of refraining from trying to write any.”

There is a humility in that, certainly, and humor can be a shield of sorts, too. A way to sidestep the deeper darker sadder bits. And there are facets to everything, dualities and complexities abounding. Nothing is ever only one thing. I suspect that sometimes the humor was a shield, or at least something that Pratchett felt was easy for him to fall back upon, and so easy to write off.

And yet, he still knows that it isn’t. I’m certain of that because he wrote this into Nation, his purported best book:

Laughter (and therefore comedy) is not a cheat or an aversion—at least not in every case. It is necessary to our ability to survive. It is built into us. And while we are all understandably wary of the person who makes everything into a joke, it is equally true that the person who believes that humor has no place in art, in life, in the making of meaning, is someone to be wary of.

I can’t say yet if I agree that this is Pratchett’s best book, but I do think it is looking more directly at the questions he is always wrestling with, and without the sly cutting edge of satire there to guarantee that his blows land. Instead, he is simply given over to people and their lives and what they think and how they feel. In the opening chapters, much of this is bound up Mau losing belief in… everything. Do I find it interesting that he chose to do this with a character whose culture is clearly an amalgam of many different folklores around the world rather than a Christian one? I suppose I do, insofar as I wish I could ask him questions about the desire to create a cultural amalgam in the first place, and also ask him whether he felt it would have been harder to tell this story from a perspective that was closer to his own lived experience day-to-day.

That said, Mau’s loss of everything leading to utter disillusion is an incredible place to begin with any character. It’s also a perfect place to ask much larger, darker questions about being, reality, and faith. As Pratchett has shown us over and over, people make meaning and belief things into being. How can you make meaning without other people? How can any of us find meaning when there’s no one to share that meaning with? And what does it say that these things cannot truly survive in a vacuum?

I have to take a moment to talk about Granddad Nawi. The segment where Mau remembers talking to him is as sharp a commentary on ableism I’ve ever seen, but particularly in the moment when Mau tells him that his word for keeping sharks away is a trick, and he replies:

Oh, this. This is the thing about being disabled and looking at the world around you. Our entire species is dependent upon creating things for ourselves so that we don’t die: clothes, agriculture, shelter, you name it. We are a species that exists by making modifications. But as soon as your disability is too uncommon for everyone to need the same accommodation, well… then it becomes a trick, then you become a problem. Granddad see that easily enough.

Asides and little thoughts

• Captain Samson and his wife who will be very happy for him to get knighted, eh? I see what you did there, sir.

• The use of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species helps to anchor the book to a time period, which is important when establishing an alternate history. Fashions and plagues and technologies can be said to occur at any point with the right events and incentives, but specific peoples and works are a far less malleable marker. So we know this story take place sometime after 1859, probably a few years following.

• Daphne thinking on Dad Jokes: “[…] concluded that Mrs Ethel J. Bunky’s Birthday Island was a Father Joke, i.e. not very funny but sort of lovable in its silliness.” I will now call them Father Jokes.

Pratchettisms

Next week we’ll read Chapters 5-8! [end-mark]

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: <i>Nation</i>, Part I appeared first on Reactor.

Rereads and Rewatches Terry Pratchett Book Club

Terry Pratchett Book Club: Making Money, Part IV

One last look at Ankh-Morpork’s odd banking situation…

By Emmet Asher-Perrin

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Published on February 23, 2024

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Of course you are Vetinari. We’re all Vetinari here.

Summary

Moist has Gladys press his gold suit, and Cosmo arrives with Vimes in tow to check on the vault and potentially arrest him. A gathering crowd is asking what Moist will do about having no gold. He insists this is not a problem, and Harry King suddenly arrives… to deposit more money into the bank. Cosmo advises the crowd to take their money back, leading Vimes to close the bank and threaten Cosmo for attempting to incite a riot. Adora Belle is brought to the bank because all the city’s golems have stopped moving—the ancient golems are arriving. Hicks and Flead show up with a portable magic circle, explaining that the four golden golems was a mistranslation, and it’s actually four thousand golems. They surround and flood the city, and go silent. There’s a meeting at the palace where everyone argues about how the golems should be used, since they look like a declaration of war, defending the city. Vetinari thinks to use them as a labor force, but Hubert insists they can’t or all the people would lose their jobs and the economy would collapse. Moist goes with Hicks and Flead and convinces the latter to translate Umnian for him while convincing that former to “insorcise” Flead from the department.

Moist gets the golems to follow him out of the city, getting them to bury themselves in a disused stretch of plains beyond. He wants to put their currency on the golem standard, based on the possibility of what they could achieve—were the city to put them to use—and he tells Sacharissa this. (He also thinks that one horse golem should be given to the dwarf king to smooth things over, a half dozen horse golems should go to the Post Office, and a few hundreds should man the clacks towers, while the rest are looked after by the Golem Trust.) Vimes and Vetinari arrive, and the Patrician is pleased with that plan, but he still has Moist and Mr. Fusspot arrested for the gold theft, and insists on a hearing the next day. Cosmo sends Cranberry to kill Mr. Bent. Bent awakes in his room to find Miss Drapes looking after him, and she tells him what has happened at the bank. Moist is brought to the inquiry the next day and is certain he’s about to be hung out to dry. Word comes to the hall that murdered men were found in Bent’s quarters—Cranberry and his associate. Slant begins to question Moist, but he realizes how to get out ahead: He confesses to being a criminal, ruining Cosmo and Cribbins’ plans.

Vetinari corroborates and gives an (only slightly) altered version of the events that landed Moist his job at the Post Office, confessing that Topsy Lavish asked for his help finding a member outside the family to run the bank. Mr. Bent arrives in full clown regalia and hits the Lavish family with custard pies; Moist catches the one meant for Vetinari to protect him. Miss Drapes comes in behind Bent with his ledgers—ledgers that show that the Lavishes are the ones who spent all the gold and forced him to hide it in their books all these years. Cosmo begins to unravel and draws his replica Vetinari sword. Moist tries to talk him down and addresses him as Patrician. He takes the man’s putrid glove off and beckons “Vetinari” outside to get the stygium replica ring in the light. Moist wakes up the next day in the Post Office as Vetinari’s clerks are going through the bank again. Gladys is reading a new book that Adora Belle gave her and no longer seems to have a crush on him. Pucci was taken away after blabbing everything, and Cosmo’s life was saved after some careful amputation. Vetinari’s coach is waiting outside, and he brings Moist and Adorable Belle to the Fool’s Guild to see Mr. Bent.

It turns out that Bent’s mother had an affair with a clown and when she died, his father took him back to the circus and put him in the family makeup as the Charlie Benito clown. There Bent was laughed at, a thing he could not endure, so he ran away. Moist asks Bent to come back to the bank and help him run things properly. Vetinari brings Moist and Adora Belle to the palace gardens and agrees to all of Moist’s earlier terms, as he has already figured out that the golems listened to him because of the golden suit—they think that makes him an Umnian priest. Moist suggests that the Patrician tell all the countries the golden suit secret so that no one can use them as an army. It turns out that someone has already sent a clacks message to that effect, which would be treason, of course. Despite being the most likely suspect, Moist knows Vetinari is the one who did it, and that no one will ever be able to pin it on him. Owlswick Clamp has also mysteriously “died,” though Vetinari assures Moist that if he needs any more design work done, there’s someone at the “palace” who will be able to help him. On the way back, Adora Belle’s life is threatened by Cribbins, but the man’s dentures explode before he can extort anything out of Moist. Vetinari thinks that perhaps he should apply Moist to the taxman’s position at some point in the future. Mr. Bent and Mrs. Drapes announce their upcoming nuptials on their return to the bank. Hubert orders Igor to use the Glooper to get all the gold back into the bank vault, which interrupts Moist and Adora Belle’s flirting. Cosmo awakens in a ward of the hospital where everyone thinks they are Vetinari—but obviously he’s the real one.

Commentary

The Moist von Lipwig books are so interesting because they are ultimately about the effects of the industrial era, right? And as I said previously of Going Postal, they manage to deal with very heavy and dour subjects by allowing fantasy to take the sting out of the wound, as it were. Though in the previous tome, it was handled far more literally—the person doing the majority of the harm was stopped and punished for his crimes. In this story, the solution is more fantastical than the last in one aspect, being that the banks are all revealed to be run by crooks, but Moist handily fixes the problem by changing their system.

It’s all a bit romantic, isn’t it? Which is very Moist, in its way. He devises a system of currency that is built on the value of the city in a literal sense; it becomes the buried golems rather than the denizens themselves, but it’s still ultimately what he proposed. The bank is backed by the potentiality of Ankh-Morpork’s industry and might. As a result, Pucci’s reveal that all the banks are constantly using their vault gold however they please doesn’t really touch anyone. The bank-owning class might be a bit nervous for a while, but they will ultimately go back to doing business as usual. More citizens will likely have access to the banking system now that Moist chose to open up lending, but it’s hardly the same sort of triumph that the Post Office was.

It’s accurate for satire, of course, which is merely mirroring the world we have at an angle. Because this is ultimately what industry did for the world: Lead us to globalization. Which has its own list of pros and cons certainly, but is, from a cynical vantage point, merely about getting along so that we can all make more money off of each other. As the Discworld books are bemusingly poised with one foot in the medieval(ish) era and one foot in the industrial one, that is the choice that Vetinari is presenting at the end of this story: Do we want an empire or a modern city of commerce? He’s already chosen the way, of course, but it’s hilarious seeing it laid out like an either-or choice rather than something that happened gradually over centuries.

The reveal of Mr. Bent’s heritage is not only a fun twist, but winds up making good on all of the Fool’s Guild jokes in previous books, at least for me. It’s fine to rib about clowns, but having one of them use their skills to bring down those in power is inspired and, more importantly, an actual tactic used by anti-fascists and anti-authoritarians. Moist is correct when he jumps to take the pie meant for Vetinari—most tyrannical powers cannot survive being made to look foolish. It strips them of their might. A pie to the face is quick and easy means to that end.

Having said that, while Drumknott and Vetinari are both keen to note Moist’s grasp of theatrics, it’s much funnier that they both roundly refuse to acknowledge Vetinari’s own. (Moist knows, of course. And appreciates the man’s timing as much as the rest of the city.) Grabbing a bit of custard out of the air and announcing that it’s pineapple is every bit as vaudevillian as his juggling act, after all.

There’s a softness to Vetinari at the end of this story that I have to note because it foils Vimes’ development in its own way; while Vimes seems to grow sharper in the mind’s eye, Vetinari rounds at the edges. The fact that he insists Cosmo’s cane-sword is a replica of a fiction (whether or not it is really isn’t the point so much as his desire not to be thought of as a man who murders thousands to get enough iron for his blade), the way he tests Moist by having him hold the replica (because he wants to be sure that Moist isn’t a violent man as well), and most of all… the way he adopts Mr. Fusspot simply by feeding him treats and calling him home. It makes me feel a little soft in turn, which is a weird way to feel about a self-professed tyrant. Only Pratchett could manage that.

Asides and little thoughts

• Would just like to point out that, though they are doing good in this particularly instance by keeping the people safe, one of Vimes’ officers accepts a bribe from Moist with those stamps. Kind of important, that.
• “Indeed, the leopard can change his shorts!” Look, I just need to know if the idiom is different on the Disc, or if Vetinari heard it wrong and everyone followed suit rather than telling him so. I need to know.
• The “Gladys Is Doing It For Herself” chapter subhead is a reference to the song “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves,” which I first heard in its Spice Girls cover form. Which probably says something about me, though I’m not sure what. (No, I do know. You are free to hazard a guess, though.)
• On a heartbreaking note, I’m feeling ways about the fact that I was on this book, where we learn that Vetinari lost Wuffles, when I lost my own pup. GNU Archer. Miss you, my sweet little guy.

Pratchettisms

Next week, I thought we’d take a detour and start Nation! Which I’ve definitely never read, so this should be fun. We’ll read Chapters 1-4. [end-mark]

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: <i>Making Money</i>, Part IV appeared first on Reactor.

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Terry Pratchett Book Club: Making Money, Part III

Back to Moist and Adora Belle…

By Emmet Asher-Perrin

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Published on February 9, 2024

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Time to talk about golems and gender and gendered golems?

Summary

Moist catches Adora Belle up on all that’s happened, including Gladys believing herself to be a woman (and possibly having a crush on him). Mr. Bent meets with Cosmo and mentions the run-in with Cribbins. Adora Belle explains what really happened out there during her mining operation to Moist; they’re fairly certain they’ve found four gold golems that were made by the Umbrians, but rather than take them out, Adora Belle had her own golems fake a tunnel collapse so that the golems underground could get out via the water and head straight for the city. Moist knows this is going to anger the dwarfs, who will consider golden golems partially theirs according to the mining agreement Adora Belle struck, but she insists that this won’t be an issue because the golems are alive and leaving on their own steam. They head to meet wizard John Hicks, Head of the Postmortem Communications Department (basically restyled necromancy), to conduct their ceremony to meet Professor Flead. He agrees to translate the Umnian on Adora Belle’s golem arm, though it will take time. Mr. Bent is in the midst of a self-effacing breakdown, uncertain of who to trust as the bank changes.

Mr. Bent lets Hammersmith Coots know he has made an error in his clerical computations only to learn that he is wrong for the very first time in the bank’s history. Cribbins researches Moist via back issues of the Times, knowing this is his shot at the gravy train. Back at the bank, Igor has bled so much of Mr. Clamp’s anxieties away that he can no longer produce good art, so Moist tells Igor to put him back the way he was. He gets up to the floor to find that Mr. Bent has vanished and the clerks are worried about him; they genuinely think he’s good at running their department and treats them all like people. Moist decides to see if he’s gone home and Miss Drapes volunteers to be the one who comes with him. Igor has made the Glooper impossible to adjust because it’s become like a witch’s wax doll, a thing Hubert could use to actually change the economy—but the Glooper is currently indicating that the bank has no gold. Heretofore tells Cosmo that he thinks he can get Lord Vetinari’s sword stick (he can’t, but he’s been making a replica), and Cosmo is delighted. Vetinari tries to relax with a number puzzle, bothered by the fact that even he doesn’t know the truth about Mr. Bent’s past.

Moist and Miss Drapes go to Mr. Bent’s rooms, but he’s not there. He heads back to the bank, having drawn the conclusion that Mr. Bent is a vampire. Adora Belle arrives at the bank for dinner (seemingly disappointing Gladys), and Moist takes her downstairs to see the new dollar bill that Clamp has drawn up. It looks brilliant and he’s decided to keep the first name Owlswick. Adora Belle also meets Hubert, who is incredibly shocked to be in the presence of a woman and insists that they haven’t done anything wrong with their work on the Glooper. Moist and Adorable Belle head upstairs to find Mr. Fusspot missing and Gladys standing over the pot holding their dinner. Moist briefly panics, assuming the worst, but Mr. Fusspot shows up with Peggy. Cribbins leaves the Times office with Ms. Houser, who is very interested in his opinions as a “reverend,” and is found by Heretofore, who means to take him to Cosmo. Moist and Adora Belle discover hidden drawers in Joshua’s old desk and then his sex cabinet. In it, Moist also find his journals and looks for information on Mr. Bent. As they sit down to dinner, Moist realizes that Mr. Bent is likely in the gold vault of the bank.

Unable to get into the vault because Mr. Bent has left the key in on the other side of the door, Moist realizes that Bent’s desk is right over the vault and he and Adora Belle asks Gladys to break the floor to get to him. Constable Haddock hears the commotion and asks Moist to explain it to him. Because Moist has lock picks on him, Detritus is called in, and because he can’t understand why this is happening, Carrot is called in. Carrot manages to corroborate most of what Moist tells him, but that still leave the matter of the bank vault being empty of gold. Cribbins has a meeting with Cosmo and tells him who Moist used to be, getting himself employed. Professor Flead shows up in Hicks’ office to tell him that he knows what kind of golems are coming, and he wants to see the fun for himself. Moist is being held at the bank, while Adora Belle is in the Watch cells for trying to step her stiletto heel through Detritus’ foot. In the course of all the commotion, Moist did manage to learn that Sergeant Angua is the Watch’s werewolf rather than Nobby. He heads down to see Hubert, and Igor fixes him a cup of splot, traditional Uberwaldian drink made of herbs (many of which are poisonous). Then Moist prays to Anoia to help him out of this mess, and decides he should probably wing it.

Commentary

I forgot how weirdly this book is laid out. For the most part, I like it, because it’s genuinely unexpected? But it also feels like the elements for a few different books tied together in oddly portioned amounts. Instead of a neat little carousel of different parts, we’re weighted in one direction or another at random intervals. Sometimes you get way more Cosmo Lavish that you’re expecting, and sometimes way more golem history, and so on. It’s bemusing how little time we actually spend on the concept of the banking system and what Moist means to do with it. The ploy is in there, but it’s utterly secondary to literally every other plot in the book. Which, again, speaks to the difficulty of trying to make a story about Building a Better Capitalism. It doesn’t actually make for great reading.

What we get from the other arms of the plot more than makes up for this, by and large. The golem piece is particularly interesting in my mind once we get to the overview of how golems came to be the way they are. There’s always a need to catch people up on the actions of previous Discworld novels in these moments, but it occurs to me that this might be the first time it’s ever couched fully as myth within the narrative? Often we get explanations by way of a close omniscient third person dump, or even one that’s aligned with a specific character. But this time we get the story of golems as it’s likely told, where Carrot’s role in changing the golem way of life is not noted as a historical fact with a name attached, but as part of a legend:

Someone did that. Some person who is a function in this story. The first name in the story is Dorfl’s because this is a story about golems and how they came to own themselves, and I love the choice to write it that way within the book.

I need to dig into Gladys’ journey for a moment because it’s such a sharp yet simple way of handling fiddly gendered stuff. It is incredibly funny that Adora Belle Dearheart devotes all of her time to helping golems, yet can’t quite get her head around the idea that their genders are constructs that they can easily choose. I mean, it’s not surprising, in that it’s frequently difficult for activists and socially aware folks to get all those intersectional angles when thinking of how oppression functions, but the fact that she finds Gladys choosing femininity strange while never once questioning the concept of a male golem is silly. Or it is to me, at any rate, because this is where my brain lives, and it’s always amusing to watch others accept it at face value.

Gladys’ journey here could be taken as a argument that gender (the way humans tend to stereotype gender, I mean) is entirely a social construct back-to-front; Moist is blaming the counter girls without acknowledging that this is Gladys’ environment, what she’s learning day-to-day from the women that surround her. And being surrounded by them, she’s adopting what they teach her. They think of her as a woman, so she’s assuming that she must be one and acting accordingly.

And this is where we come back around to the idea of the invisible default that I mentioned in part one: The only reason no one considers it strange that many golems have come to consider themselves nominally “male” is because male is our societal default, and therefore considered a “neutral” state of being. Being female then becomes “weird” as a choice because it’s a step away from that default, the simplicity and lack of thought we’re meant to believe it carries. (Because being male isn’t actually simple—it comes with just as many rules. We’re just taught to think of those rules as more “universal” when they’re not.) I’d love to know how many of the golems we’ve encountered so far truly consider themselves male as opposed to accepting the default that humans project onto them.

This becomes even funnier when you get into the decidedly gendered argument that Moist and Adora Belle are having over her actions with the golems, insisting that “only a man/woman” could think the way each of them think, which then ends on Adora Belle telling Moist not to be “hysterical.” Adora Belle Dearheart is completely aware of how everyday sexism might shape her life and the world around her, but she doesn’t seem to notice the myriad of ways that she bucks “traditional” femininity herself because she’s still mired that sexism regardless.

Having said that, Moist and Adora Belle are easily among Pratchett’s best-written couples. Their dialogue is crackly, yet easy—they feel like two people who understand and genuinely enjoy one another, who banter in a manner that feels far more modern than most of his relationships on the page. Okay, maybe I’m biased because I think that more fictional couples should accidentally stumble on giant fetish closets.

What? It’s a great scene.

Asides and little thoughts

• Super curious as to what ’Tis Pity She’s an Instructor in Unarmed Combat is about.

• The story Heretofore tells about how Vetinari’s sword stick blade looks is one of those hilarious details that you could only pull off with a person who knows literally nothing about how swords work? (Which is more surprising in this world where they’re far more common to wield and carry.) The fact that Cosmo thinks the blade is flecked with red because it’s got blood on it when no self-respecting user of sharp weapons would ever leave blood on a blade—and also blood doesn’t stay red, but that strays even further from the point—is endlessly funny.

• Vetinari deciding to keep tabs on anyone who can do a crossword puzzle as well as him. That’s it, that’s the entire thought, along with a gif of me silently screaming. (He’s right, of course. That’s the kicker.)

Pratchettisms

Next week we’ll finish the book![end-mark]

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: <i>Making Money</i>, Part III appeared first on Reactor.

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Terry Pratchett Book Club: Making Money, Part II

Back to Moist von Lipwig and the Royal Mint…

By Emmet Asher-Perrin

|

Published on February 2, 2024

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This week, we are all subject to the whims of Mr. Fusspot, and why would we have it any differently.

Summary

A week previous, a man named Heretofore is nearly blackmailed by a master craftsman who has made him a duplicate of Lord Vetinari’s signet ring, and has the craftsman killed (though he doesn’t want to do it). Presently, Cosmo Lavish offers to buy Mr. Fusspot, which Moist refuses. He heads to the palace to find out if Lord Vetinari somehow made this happen, which the Patrician resents. Vetinari explains that Topsy did Moist a favor and that he needs to start his new job and make the city money. Moist heads to the bank and finds Sacharissa Crisplock waiting to interview him. He tells her that he plans to get rid of the gold and spruce the place up. Then he meets the canine chefs for Mr. Fusspot, Aimsbury and Peggy. Aimsbury can’t hear the word “garlic” without throwing a knife and speaking Quirmian before he comes back to himself. Then Moist is taken to his new apartments, a large and lovely space, and given his “master of the Royal Mint” hat, which is a sad, worn black top hat. Moist thinks about how to fix the bank and realizes that value is in the city itself. He starts making plans. The person who wanted Vetinari’s ring forged turns out to be Cosmo Lavish, who is trying to become Vetinari. Heretofore has been employed to get old items belonging to Vetinari, while Cranberry kills anyone who might give away the plot.

Adora Belle’s mining operation appears to have been successful in retrieving many more golems, puzzling the dwarfs. The Lavishes attend Topsy’s funeral, and Cosmo is given a hard time for “his side” of the family losing the bank. He realizes that Lipwig’s lack of history is the key to solving this problem, and so is Mr. Bent, provided he can get the man on his side. Moist takes the first dollar note to Tenth Egg Street to try it out on the merchants there and see if they’ll buy into the concept. They seem to like it, but still have difficulty with the idea of a bank not backed by gold, so Moist knows he still has more work to do. He gets into a cab in Losing Street containing Cosmo’s sister, Pucci, trying to catch him in a “honey trap”-looking situation. He jumps out the window, with Colon and Nobby on the street watching. Nobby tells Fred that no one will bet against Moist in his usual book for the Watch—they all think he’s going to win. Back at the bank, Gladys almost kills Moist by trying to give him a back rub, and the Times believes Moist is just the man to run the mint. A few people want to close their accounts after seeing the article… but hundreds more want to open them. Pucci Lavish tries to disrupt the scene, deriding Moist’s new bank notes; this ignites a bidding war to buy the one she has.

Mr. Bent doesn’t like what Moist is doing and doesn’t understand what’s needed of him in this new world. They interview people for loans; Moist lends a small about to Dibbler and a very large amount to Harry King, who is looking to consolidate his businesses. Mr. Bent is besides himself at how Moist is running things, but Moist points out that they’ve taken in a lot of money today, mostly from people he’d consider too poor to do business at the bank. He goes to Temper and Spools to ask if they can start making bills, but Mr. Spools doesn’t think they can manage it without major issues in forging and the like… not without the artist who Moist testified against for forging stamps, who’s about to be hanged. Cosmo goes to visit Mr. Bent at Mrs. Cake’s boarding house where the clerk lives and asks him to do something about Moist. At night, Moist steals a Watch uniform and takes paperwork forms he’s stolen from Spools’ office to get the forger out of prison. The man, by the name of Owlswick Jenkins, kicks him in the groin and runs off. Moist thinks on it and figures that the man’s a bit off and has probably gone back home. He find Jenkins in his old place, painting again. When Jenkins threatens to kill himself with poisonous paint rather than go back to jail, Moist talks to him of angels.

Entering through a secret door that only Igor knows about, Moist asks Igor to give Jenkins a shave and haircut to change his appearance. They change his name to Exorbit Clamp, and Moist asks the forger to design the first note, telling him all the various bits he’ll need to render (because the man can’t come up with it on his own). Moist heads to bed and is summoned to see Vetinari in the morning; the Patrician insists that Jenkins was hanged and Moist wonders if he didn’t accidentally steal the forger Vetinari had intended to keep for himself. Vetinari shows Moist his signet ring and notes all the strange deaths occurring around him lately, but Moist can’t figure out why any of it should be happening. The Patrician also asks Moist to lend the city a half million dollars. Igor helps the new Mr. Clamp store his old bad memories and Clamp has already designed the new note. On the floor of the bank, Moist runs into a figure from his past by the name of Cribbins. He gives the men in the Mint their new deal, where they look after the new printing press fellows from Temper and Spools and get nice new uniforms. They agree to the deal, to Bent’s dismay. Adora Belle arrives and takes Moist to the Unseen University to look inside the Cabinet of Curiosity, a thing that wizards wish she didn’t know they had. Bigger on the inside and full of about eleven dimensions, the cabinet once showed Adora Belle an ancient golem foot that matches the markings on the ones she just found…

Commentary

Not saying that it’s surprising, but it’s definitely bemusing how many of the Ankh-Morpork-centered stories have several arms branching from the main action, one of which is inevitably: Someone is enacting a poorly-conceived plot against Lord Vetinari that he may or may not know everything about, and while said plot should be about taking control of the city, there’s frequently some unhinged aspect to it that involves people wanting to somehow sap/rob/absorb his innate powers through increasingly desperate and hilarious means.

You know, we started out normal, with him getting shot. And then the slightly more involved poisoning plot. And then he basically deposes himself for a bit to stop a war from happening while Old Money guys grouse about it. And then a bunch of one-percenters find a guy who can easily pass for him by daylight and try to frame him for murder and embezzlement using the imposter. And now another one of those one-percenters has decided that he can somehow commune with the man through his belongings and then assume his power and abilities and position? Gotta love the escalation; it makes my heart so happy. And it’s the perfect sort of distraction against all the more serious workings of Moist figuring out how to make money… happen.

It’s second nature in the art of the con, but there’s such an ease and preternatural likability to Moist when he’s working that feels almost superhuman? We start the book and he’s more than a little bit pathetic, all the shine rubbed off him, and the instant that his brain starts turning over, the charisma reasserts itself at brute force. I can’t really think of another character who elicits that sort of reaction from me: I like him better when he’s working, when his back is up against the wall.

We get the rudimentary economics conversation when Moist goes on about potatoes being worth more than gold, which is a good place to start, and then a slightly more involved economics lesson as he starts to piece together the city’s value and the need to move away from gold. But again, money is being made fun in this context because it’s part of his con. Even Moist is aware of how he’s manipulating the system and people to his advantage, and as readers, we want to see him succeed because we already know him. You had to do the stories in this order—if Vetinari had started Moist out at the bank before the post office, it wouldn’t be as enjoyable of a ride.

With the newly minted Mr. Clamp, Moist basically gets his own Leonard de Quirm—someone he can rely on to create the complicated mechanisms to make his plans work. (Igor is helping, of course, because Igors always do. They are one of the greatest gifts Pratchett gave himself, an easy solution to any number of narrative problems because there’s very little they can’t figure out.) But we’re currently in the thick of it, and there are key tenets to how Moist operates that are true in cons, in business, and in life in general: Making something look good is half the battle to getting people invested; if change happens quickly enough, it doesn’t seem like change at all; being a bit “real” with people will always help them to trust you.

Moist pointedly gives his first two loans to the sort of people that make the city run, but on very different scales: Dibbler and Harry King. The bank wouldn’t have let either of them set foot inside before he took over, and the bank was wrong. But changing the system doesn’t mean it’s better now in this particular instance—it only means that it can take advantage of more people. Where that leads us will come clear as we continue…

Asides and little thoughts

• Yet again, the fatphobia in this book gets pretty egregious between the descriptions of Cosmo and Pucci. It feels repetitive to keep noting it, but it’s one of the few things Pratchett does that I can’t help but find disappointing. There’s comedy enough in the fact that Cosmo is forcing a ring that’s too small for him onto his hand! But there’s always this extra layer to the avarice with fatness that gets used, and they’re plain cheap shots (that are obvious to boot), particularly with how often it comes up.
• I think this is the first time it’s confirmed that Quirmians speak French? So Quirm is France, for all intents and purposes. Which is somehow weirder to me than all the other not-other-country parallels on the Disc.
• As a person with ADHD, it’s fairly obvious that Pucci Lavish has it. The way she bounces between topics is, uh, reminiscent, shall we say, of talking to my mother.
• Again, it’s so enjoyable to get character’s opinions on characters from other books, and Moist noting that William de Worde is likely the same age as him but writes editorials “that suggested his bum was stuffed with tweed” is a beautiful thing.
• In the annals of Vetinari’s carefully curated preferences toward nothingness, eating the egg white off your hard boiled egg while leaving the yolk is a new level of blandness, I salute him. (And also agree that the grain gravel Drumknott eats is worse.)
• I couldn’t find any evidence that the phrase “drop-dead gorgeous” actually came from people painting their faces with arsenic to look paler, as Moist suggests to Owlswick Jenkins. People did paint their faces that way, I just couldn’t find a correlation to the term drop-dead gorgeous. I’m assuming this was done on purpose, as a sort of anachronistic malaphor, for lack of a better way of putting it?

Pratchettisms

Next week we’ll read Chapters 7-9![end-mark]

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: <i>Making Money</i>, Part II appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

There is a group lying in wait in the dark somewhere. Three weeks ago, Adora Belle Dearheart offered up a great deal of money to lease dwarf land for unknown reasons. Moist von Lipwig is already bored of his life and nearly gets caught scaling the Post Office Building (he’s part of a shadowy nighttime climbing fraternity). He’s an upstanding citizen now, with his picture in the paper, and calls to testify against conmen forging stamps. At a meeting with Lord Vetinari, he’s asked if he would like the opportunity to make some real money, but Moist insists that he’s very happy at the Post Office and scurries away. He goes back to work, looking through meeting minutes, signing forms, letting Tiddles the cat in and out of his office, walking through the place. The job isn’t exciting anymore. Gladys the golem informs him that Vetinari’s coach is waiting outside, and Moist keeps him waiting for a long while before breaking down and going to find out what this is all about. Vetinari informs him that he has a new proposition for Moist’s employment: master of the Royal Mint. He wants Moist to take control of the bank of Ankh-Morpork and literally make money for a living.

He’s certain that this will solve Moist’s current problem; his new job will be one of adventure and danger where he will never be bored. Moist asks what happened to the last men to run the Mint, and Vetinari informs him that they both died at old ages in their beds, but he’s sure Moist would do something to upset that balance. He asks after Miss Dearheart and her work with the golems; she’s currently checking on golems that might be mining on dwarf land carrying out their last orders. Vetinari introduces Moist to Mavolio Bent, the head cashier. Mr. Bent doesn’t much like Moist because he’s the creator of the “unsecured one-penny note”—being his stamps. Vetinari leaves the man to show him around, and Mr. Bent begins by fixing a clock on the floor that apparently loses one minute a week. He also shows Moist their gold reserves, explaining that coins are not gold, but a theoretical promise that the coin is worth a set amount of gold. Moist is taken to the Mint where the Bad Penny (an odd large treadmill) sits. Moist meets Mr. Shady, the hereditary foreman of the mint, who tells him how his position came to be and how much it costs to make the various coins, which is the reason the Mint doesn’t make nearly so much money as you might expect. They even employ families off site to make certain coins. (And if they work overtime, they have to work more overtime to pay the overtime.)

Moist and Bent discuss the purpose in using the gold standard, then head to meet the chairman, Mrs. Lavish. Her dog, Mr. Fusspot, takes an immediate liking to Moist, a rarity as far as she’s concerned. She has Mr. Bent take the dog for a walk, and beckons Moist closer so she can have a look at him. She knocks him to the ground and announces that he’s a thief and conman—but she likes him. She says that he can call her Topsy, and that Havelock sent him here to tell her how to run her bank. She tells him what she knows about the business, and then tells Mr. Bent to take Moist to Hubert to learn more. Moist learns that she has 51% of the bank’s shares—fifty to her and one percent left to Mr. Fusspot by her late husband. Mr. Bent shows Moist “his world” within the bank, and then takes him to Hubert. Hubert runs a system called the Glooper, which he calls an “analogy machine” that allows him to experiment with how the city changes and how that will affect the flow of money. He’s Mrs. Lavish’s nephew, and he and Moist get on well, but Mr. Bent warns him that most of the rest of Topsy’s family cannot be trusted—they are used to getting their own way and trying to have her declared insane.

Moist heads back to the Post Office and finds a clacks message from Adora saying that she’s heading back. He resolves not to get caught up in this banking business. He’ll be married to Miss Dearheart sometime soon, and dependable husbands don’t do any of this sort of thing. But he keeps thinking about how the stamps are being used as currency. Gladys brings him a meal and informs him that Lord Vetinari is downstairs. He comes down to find Vetinari helping the Blind Letters department and wondering how he feels about the bank. Moist insists that he is staying where he is, so Vetinari has Drumknott draw up paperwork to that effect and sign it. Mrs. Lavish dies in the night, and Moist gets a letter the next day threatening him though he doesn’t know who sent it. He’s informed that lawyers are downstairs. He briefly thinks of escaping his entire life, but Mr. Slant comes in with Nobby and Angua, and he’s informed that Mrs. Lavish left him Mr. Fusspot in her will. She also left the dog her shares in the bank, making him the chairman, and Moist his owner. If the dog dies, the shares will be distributed amongst the Lavish family. A letter from Topsy informs him that he’ll be paid handsomely for this service, but if he doesn’t do it or Mr. Fusspot dies, the Guild of Assassins will kill him. Moist is trapped. Everyone leaves, and he suits up Mr. Fusspot for his walk to go have words with Vetinari. A black carriage pulls up in front of the office and Moist jumps in, finding out too late that it is Cosmo Lavish’s carriage…

Commentary

Being a smart fellow, Pratchett did note that the subject of this book was fantasy in every direction, as the Discworld is a fantasy realm, and money is a fantasy we all agree to believe in.

There’s a reason they tend not to teach much by way of economics in public schools as you grow up, and it’s that, one has to assume—the knowledge that global economies are a shared societal hallucination built on deliberately byzantine systems intended to discourage any person not well-versed in finance from involving themselves. Of course, now we’re going to get the creation of a more robust economy from Mr. Lipwig, and the conman angle is meant to make that easier to stomach. It’s a smart twist, I’ll give Pratchett that, because it’s otherwise pretty hard to sell me on any story that is about people making that system chug along.

And it works because Vetinari rightly senses that you have to keep Moist busy or he’s liable to do something ridiculous to get that thrill he needs to keep existing. The dramatics the Patrician goes to on this one are so good because you can see him upping the stakes purely for the purpose of interesting the conman. He’s being deliberately more obtuse, more sneaky, more blunt, because he knows it’ll make the man uneasy and get the wheels turning. It doesn’t take much, after all. A few mentions of the stamps being currency here, a meeting with an extremely sharp old woman there…

Terrible as she and her whole family seem to be, I have an unyielding respect for women like Topsy Lavish. And there’s something special about being the sort of person Moist von Lipwig can relax around too. In the previous book, the only person who truly saw him was Reacher Gilt, a man you could by no means chill out around. But Topsy Lavish can take him by the arm and ask him what he’s really about, how he concocts his little schemes, and laugh the whole time. Too bad he didn’t get the chance to spend a little more time with a person like that. I think it’s probably good for him.

Extremely rolling my eyes at Moist trying to pretend he should stay on the straight and narrow path for Adora, though, when Mrs. Lavish figures out what she’s after two sentences into a description of the woman: “A contrast, I trust.” Miss Dearheart doesn’t like you for your staid, sensible choices, guy. But then, he’s looking for any excuse at that point, any reason not to do the thing Lord Vetinari wants him to do.

The setup to this story moves along with an enviable ease, and you can see the trap well before it snaps shut. Even if you don’t suspect precisely how Mrs. Lavish will get Moist wrapped up in the bank, you know it’s bound to happen. And you know that Vetinari is happily watching for the places where Drumknott’s pencils ought to be, almost like a parent checking in on their depressed child.

Asides and little thoughts:

• I don’t suppose we could introduce Miss Maccalariat to the concept of the “invisible default,” right? Because that’s the whole reason the golems are presumed male despite having none of the functioning aspects of maleness. It’s not as though Gladys is likely to mind (since the golems don’t really have gender), but it is exceedingly silly.
• Why are banks built to looks like temples, Moist wonders. Oh, buddy. In this case, the building genuinely was a temple, albeit one without an assigned deity, but the reasoning here isn’t hard to parse. What is money but the cleverest form of faith—i.e. the sort that gets to pretend it’s utterly rational and in no way powered by anything so wooly as belief.
• To my recollection, the expense of creating coins has been a real problem throughout history. In the U.S. it costs nearly three times the value of a penny to make a penny at the moment? So the bank’s problems are all too real, unfortunately.
• Topsy’s husband “always said that the only way to make money out of poor people is by keeping them poor.” A thing to keep in mind at all times. Especially whenever anyone tries to blame the plight of the poor on poor people.
• Moist makes a lot of logic leaps in his potential escape plan before deciding that he’ll probably create the persona that could go live at Mrs. Arcanum’s, which is making me wonder how well that house is known to your average single gentleman around the city.

Pratchettisms:

Next week we’ll read Chapters 4-6![end-mark]

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Summary

We are reading Where’s My Cow? through the vantage point of Young Sam and his father (less young Sam). The story begins with the similar framing we’re given in Thud! explaining that Sam Vimes is sure to be home at six o’clock every evening to read Sam his book. Sam Vimes reads the book, and we’re told how well he does the various noises for all the animals—a lovely bit of meta-commentary within the story itself.

But Vimes knows that the story is silly, and tells Young Sam that the subject of the book should report their lost cow to the City Watch. He thinks there should be a different version of the book that more accurately reflects his son’s experiences in the city where he’s growing up—not the country that he’s never seen. The very next night, he makes up a new version of book, about the reader looking for his father. He meets all sorts of strange folk though the city and learns their funny catchphrases. Suddenly, Sybil enters the room, wanting to be sure that Vimes isn’t getting Young Sam too excited. Sam pretends to go back to the regular version of the text.

When Sybil has gone, Vimes finishes the story with the subject of the tale finding his daddy, who arrests people in the name of the law. Then he tucks Young Sam in and bids him goodnight.

Commentary

The picture book version of Where’s My Cow? is illustrated by Melvyn Grant, and it’s those illustrations that really make the whole exercise worth it. There are three distinct styles at play within the artwork: the illustrations from the original book itself, which are simple line drawings; the world outside, which is rendered more realistically, but also drab in color; and Sam’s nursery, which is also rendered in a realistic fashion, but full of color and light and anthropomorphized movement of inanimate objects. By the end of the story, all these styles combine on each page in an avalanche of movement and silliness.

There’s the additional enjoyment of seeing various Discworld characters so fully rendered: Vetinari, Dibbler, Detritus, and so on. (And Sybil, my beloved, with her looming figure, so commanding and affectionate at the same time.) You can even see Gaspode with Foul Ole Ron. And then there’s the meta-fun of seeing the cover of the book inside the book itself as you’re reading the book. So you are being made into the snake eating its own tail, as it were. You’re participating in circle.

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Where’s My Cow?

Terry Pratchett

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Where's My Cow?

Terry Pratchett

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The movement within Sam’s nursery is perfectly indicative of the imagination of childhood and how alive our surroundings can seem when we’re very young and imbue anything with a personality. We’ve got a family dragon following them around, but Sam’s toys are alive, and so are his books, and all the furniture as well. Even the paint on the walls comes to life. On the last page, we can see that Sam’s toys are going to sleep along with him—but that painting with the flowers above his crib is still looking awfully three-dimensional, popping out of its frame. Probably because that’s always how Sam perceives it.

Vimes is very clearly based on Pete Postlethwaite, which Pratchett always insisted was the Sam Vimes in his head. Grant gets a lot of mileage out of that by both being a great illustrator and having a great subject. Postlethwaite was a very expressive fellow, after all.

Ultimately, however, this is a book about exactly what Vimes would want it to be about: a father enjoying time with his son. Every page is plastered with images of them together, having fun and making each other laugh. Because some things are important, as he says. And if you happen to read it to your own kids (or share it with people you care for), you can participate in that ritual as well.

Asides and little thoughts:

• Melvyn Grant has done illustrations for plenty of books, but his most interesting credits are definitely his Iron Maiden album covers. He did five of them, including Fear of the Dark.
• There’s an illustration of Pratchett on the wall of Sam’s nursery (you can see him on the last page), which would make him one of Sybil’s relatives presumably within the story? I wonder which one…
• Okay, but I posit that if Pete Postlethwaite was the person Pratchett envisioned for Vimes and he is no longer with us, the logical successor to that mantle is Christopher Eccleston. (It’s difficult because they’re both too tall to my mind, but Eccleston is still the right fit from Postlethwaite.)

Pratchettisms:

Next week we’ll start Making Money! We’ll read Chapters 1-3.

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Summary

The winter gets worse and worse and all Tiffany can do is help Annagramma get better, and use the cornucopia to make sure there’s enough food to see people through; all the witches are running ragged trying to keep their villages alive through the bitter cold. The Wintersmith has finally completed a body and knows what it is to be a man. Granny wakes Tiffany one day and tells her she should go home and be with her people, and that she thinks she expected too much of the girl, thinking she’d come into Summer’s power. Except, she points out that Tiffany did make an oak sapling, and tells her that she suspects Tiffany will be stopping by Miss Treason’s cottage on her way home; Tiffany realizes that Granny knew what Tiffany and the other girls had been doing all along, and had probably planned it that way. Tiffany goes to Miss Treason’s and finds notes on her grave that villagers are leaving to get her help. The Wintersmith shows up, but Annagramma appears in full stereotypical witch garb (she bought the whole Boffo catalogue) to bat him away from Tiffany. She loads Tiffany onto her own broom—as Tiffany is a bit delirious from panic and lack of sleep—and sends her home.

Granny sends the Feegle to train Roland to be a Hero for the story, and to send him to the Underworld to fetch the Summer Lady. Tiffany continues her journey home and stops briefly at Mrs. Umbridge’s to sleep; she dreams of the Summer Lady telling her that she’s ruined everything. When she wakes, Mrs. Umbridge is there and she’s got all the mail for Tiffany that’s been held up, including three letters from Roland and a very expensive paint box. Tiffany makes it the rest of the way home while Granny and Nanny send the Feegles to their task. Once Tiffany is home she feels more herself; she gets to see her family, and feels the ground beneath her feet, and she paints with her new paint box. She knows that people from the Chalk will be asking for her help soon, and it feels like a good day. The Feegle show up in Roland’s room and realize that he doesn’t have any practical fighting experience. They bring him into the armory and get into a suit of armor so that he has someone to practice against. At home, Tiffany’s mother is confused about her inability to use magic to do housecleaning. Roland stands up to his aunts and pauses his fight training to see his father—if he doesn’t see the man every day, his father forgets who he is.

Wentworth, Tiffany’s brother, catches a very large pike from the river, and Tiffany cleans it out for supper the following day. As she finishes cleaning it, she goes to remove the lure and finds it’s actually her silver horse. The Wintersmith knows where she is, and she will have to face him, here, in her home. But first, she finds her father so they can see to their flock of sheep. And with that, we catch up to the start of the book: Tiffany has been taken by the Wintersmith and wakes in a palace he has made for her. Tiffany tries to cow him, but he’s getting better at being a man, and insists that he is keeping her safe from death here. The Feegles get Roland kitted out and are sending him to the Underworld to find the Summer Lady. He encounters bogles, and only manages to survive the encounter because he’s too scared to run. Rob tells him that’s alright, and they make it all the way to the ferry, where Death is waiting to take them across. (Death is not happy to see the Feegle again.) Roland gets rid of his sword because the Feegle admit it’s no use against the bogles. They tell him he’ll have to kiss Summer to wake her; Roland gets to her and she looks just like Tiffany.

The Wintersmith has finally worked out that Tiffany is not the Summer Lady. He promises to bring summer to the Chalk to make Tiffany happy and then they will be happy. Roland retrieves the Summer Lady and fights off the bogles with a sword made of light that he creates in his own head, that is never too heavy. Tiffany knows that the Wintersmith cannot be human because he constructed himself according to the folk song but cannot understand the last three lines because they are not things to build himself from, but attributes he cannot possess. She kisses him and brings down the sun, ending the story. The Summer Lady comes to retrieve her crown from Tiffany and means to give her a reward, but Tiffany refuses: Witches don’t accept payment. The Summer Lady shows Tiffany the beauty and terror of summer, warning her to fear it as much as winter. Tiffany visit Nanny Ogg to tell her the whole story, slips in to see that Annagramma is getting on alright, then heads to Granny Weatherwax’s, and tries to call her on the set-up with Annagramma. Granny doesn’t react. She asks about Tiffany’s new ring, made from the nail the Wintersmith used to become human. Then she brings Tiffany to the Morris dance in Lancre, and Tiffany asks her how to move pain out of a body so she can help the Baron. Granny tells her she’s playing with fire, but seems pleased at Tiffany’s choices. Tiffany sees Summer in the dance, and gives the iron ring to the Fool.

Commentary

Tiffany spends this story in the throes of growing up, and the whole conceit is framed as a romance… but ultimately ends with compassion. And this is true for the previous story as well, with the hiver, but it’s more personal here, of course. Because the Wintersmith believed he was in love with her, but also because she understands better what his mistake was in trying to make himself human, the aspects he would always lack.

There’s one line from the Wintersmith that is underplayed, but actually hit me the hardest, when he says that he and Tiffany will be together and happy: “Happiness is when things are correct.” The gaping flaw in that thought, partly being that plenty of people do think that’s the definition of happiness, but also that imposing “correctness” on the idea of happiness is in itself utterly backward. Ouch.

I also do love the moment when the Wintersmith palace realm creates that dress for Tiffany and we get this:

She was shocked, then angry. Then she wished she had a mirror, felt guilt about that, and went back to being angry again. And resolved that if by chance she did find a mirror, the only reason she’d look in it would be to check how angry she was.

Just the extremely relatable feeling of not having time for this nonsense! But being young and curious and kind of wishing that you did.

The idea that Tiffany’s formative romance, or formative idea of romance (because the Wintersmith is a concept more than a sentient being) is fundamentally tragic seems important as well. Whether it’s because she’s a witch, or because she’s more aligned to Esme Weatherwax’s manner of doing the job, it’s a clue to readers about the sort of adult Tiffany will become. While I appreciate that it feels entirely right for Tiffany, I always want a bit more of Nanny’s perspective on things like this. Just a little, for balance.

There’s the “reckoning” language that gets more prominent as the story finishes, with Tiffany thinking the word more and more frequently whenever she is angry, and I love how dramatic it is? Tiffany’s anger is always her clearest emotion, too, which is so refreshing to see both for the rarity of this being allowed to young women in fiction, but also for how it focuses her. When Tiffany is angry, she knows what she needs, what she has to do. Anger provides clarity. Which is a commonality among Pratchett’s protagonists, but I particularly love the way he executes it in her.

And the way these books seamlessly weave the Feegle plots in, much in the manner Pratchett uses with the university wizards: They’re here to cause mayhem and make jokes, but they’re so enjoyable that you’re never really sorry about it?

These endings with Tiffany and Granny, though… they bring the story back around to its heart, yet again. These moments when you can see how proud Granny is of Tiffany, how comforted she is in knowing that someone like her will be around when she’s gone, and the genuine childlike joy we get from Esme when she shares things with the girl. It anchors these stories in something far deeper than simple coming-of-age mechanics. Being a witch is so much more than that, after all.

Asides and little thoughts:

• FTW being for “Friendly To Witches” is excellent. And the “witch sign” to let people know about it is, of course, similar to the Hobo Code, a way that travelers used to leave each other notes made of symbols to help each other find safe places to rest and eat.

• Orpheo and Euniphon are, of course, just the Disc version of Orpheus and Eurydice, which gets reenacted by Roland here when he retrieves the Summer Lady. That’s why Rob tells him not to look back, of course, the tragic mistake Orpheus makes when enacting his own rescue.

• “He was great at air sword.” The entire bit about Roland’s difficulty with the heaviness of real swords… as a person who adores stage combat, but doesn’t have fully working wrists, and is also a bit small for your average broadsword, I feel all of Roland’s complaints in my bones. Literally.

• Rob on this particular Underworld: ’This one used tae be called Limbo, ye ken, ‘cuz the door was verra low.” How dare he make that joke. It is so good.

Pratchettisms:

The woods weren’t silent. They were holding their breath.

A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.

Before, he hadn’t been apart; he’d been a part, a part of the whole universe of tug and pressure, sound and light, flowing, dancing. He’d run storms against mountains forever, but he’d never known what a mountain was until today.

You couldn’t make a picture by pouring a lot of paint into a bucket. If you were human, you knew that.

Okay, one of them was a cheese that rolled around of its own accord, but nobody was perfect.

It was easier here, and because it was easier it was worse, because he was bringing winter into her heart.

There are times when everything that you can do has been done and there’s nothing for it now but to curl up and wait for the thunder to die down.

We’ve got a break into the new year, but we’ll be back in 2024 with Where’s My Cow?

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: Wintersmith, Part III appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

As Tiffany works through the funeral, she hears that Granny has put her name forward for Miss Treason’s cottage, which has Annagramma very upset. Tiffany assures her that she doesn’t want the cottage, but she asks Miss Tick why they’re going to allow Annagramma to take the position when they know she’s a terrible fit for the area. Miss Tick doesn’t have an answer for her. The funeral finishes up and everyone heads home, leaving Tiffany with Miss Treason for the final night. She cleans the cottage, writes down everything she can think of about the area to help Annagramma, then goes to talk to Miss Treason. The witch gives Tiffany her broom, a dictionary and one other book (Tiffany selects the mythology book). She teaches Tiffany poker, and tells her to be mindful of her young man, then they fall asleep. When they wake in the morning, the town is on the lawn, there to praise Miss Treason and get last bits of advice. Tiffany takes her down into her grave (which the Feegle dug for her), and Miss Treason is taken by Death. Tiffany puts her boffos into the grave with her so no one knows her secrets, cleans the house up, and goes outside, running into the Wintersmith again. He insists that Tiffany is “her” and tries to grab hold of her.

Granny shows up to stop him, and asks for Tiffany’s necklace—it’s how the Wintersmith finds her. Tiffany hands it over, and Granny and Mrs. Earwig have a very chilly meeting as the cottage is handed over to Annagramma. The Wintersmith remembers that Tiffany said she needed a person made of human stuff and goes looking for things to build himself out of so that he can be right for her. Tiffany and Granny head to Lancre and Granny gives Tiffany the necklace to drop into the river, so it’ll be carried far from her. That night at Nanny Ogg’s, Tiffany has a dream that she’s on a ship heading to an iceberg version of herself. The Wintersmith tells her that he wishes to marry her. The Feegle arrive in her dream to help, but the ship does hit the iceberg. She wakes being given tea by one of Nanny’s daughter-in-laws, and finds that Horace has made a home with the Feegle. When Tiffany puts her feet on Nanny’s floorboards, they sprout and grow. Nanny gives her slippers, and she, Granny, and Miss Tick explain that Tiffany is taking on the attributes of the Summer Lady because she joined the dance. They think she’ll have to embody the role a little more fully and help send winter on his way when the seasons change.

Tiffany does the rounds with Nanny and comes back to a book the Feegle got her from the library, which is a romance novel. Tiffany has a hard time understanding why no one is doing any work, and why the heroine feels she needs to marry one of her two suitors. Roland continues to write letters to Tiffany as his aunts find his escape routes and try to wall him into his room. The Wintersmith keeps obtaining more and more advice about how to build a human form. Annagramma arrives at Nanny’s in a panic one evening: She can’t handle the steading. She wants the skulls back and she doesn’t know anything about medicine or childbirth or staying up all night with the dead. She asks Tiffany if she’ll come do those thing for her. Tiffany agrees to help her through the first few rough tasks, but that’s it. She thinks that Granny did this on purpose so people would learn that Mrs. Earwig is a bad teacher, which she doesn’t think is right. Nanny tells her not to assume and that Tiffany can do this as long as she’s still working for her. Tiffany aids Annagramma, who comes out looking alright despite not knowing anything. Tiffany heads back to Nanny Ogg, who tells her that she ought to treat the Wintersmith more imperiously, like a queen, if she wants him to back off.

Tiffany has a letter from Roland where he tells her that he went to a ball and danced with Lord Driver’s daughter and looked at her watercolors. She gets jealous hearing this, and goes downstairs to eat, but can’t get the cutlery drawer to open, which summons Anoia (Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers). Anoia tells Tiffany to send the Wintersmith packing, as men are always “raining on your lava” (she used to be a volcano goddess). Annagramma shows up again—she sent Mrs. Sumpter’s pig up a tree, and she hates all these people with their piddly little problems. Tiffany tells her off and also insists that she tells the truth; it turns out that Annagramma’s family is poor and doesn’t even have a cottage. Tiffany says that the other young witches will help her, but that she’s got to listen and be grateful. The coven doesn’t want to help, but they listen to Tiffany once Petulia agrees. Tiffany tells the Wintersmith to leave her be and stop making ice in her shape and name. After Hogswatch, a cornucopia lands. You (Granny’s kitten) gets lost inside it and they have to send the Feegle after her. Once they’ve returned, Tiffany learns how it works: You simply ask it for any kind of food or drink, and it provides it.

Commentary

Thought I was safe from crying for once in this set of books, but I forgot about Miss Treason’s send off.

There’s a great throughline here, that stretches all the way back to the earlier books, but particularly Witches Abroad, with the old woman who is being callously neglected by her community, and Granny Weatherwax setting that right. Miss Treason is mythological to her community, and she worked hard at that story because it made her impossible to ignore, but also protected her from harm. And she did it so well that these people loved her, even as they were afraid or confused by her. She was a fixture of their lives, and they all needed to see her go. To be there for her, and to be a part of the story as well.

People becoming myths is a central piece of this book, and it’s utilized in a number of fun ways. We’ve got Miss Treason, we’ve got Tiffany learning to be Summer, we’ve got the Wintersmith trying to become a human and further mythologize himself as a person, and we’ve got Annagramma… who thinks that she’s already achieved mythology because her mentor was all sight and no substance.

Tiffany believes that Granny is allowing Annagramma to fail to make a point about Mrs. Earwig, and Nanny rightly suggests that she check that impulse. The one thing that Tiffany will never be able to see in her own story is how the work of generations passes down—she’s too young for that yet. Granny needs Tiffany to take up her place in the witching community. That means Tiffany needs to see to her own generation, and that includes getting the rest of the young witches to pull Annagramma together because if they don’t, people will get hurt.

And that’s difficult to read because there are some people who truly can get away with never thinking of others before themselves. Pratchett is always adamant about including those people and showing how best to handle them—and it’s never telling them off and leaving them to flounder. Because the consequences of that are too great, and you are never above thinking of everyone in the blast radius of your choices.

Angered decency. His favorite attribute to give central characters. You can know that people are sometimes terrible, maybe even undeserving, but that doesn’t mean you can be petty, and let others take the brunt of their ignorance. Not if you can fix it.

I will say that I’ve missed Gytha Ogg terribly in recent books, and having her around again makes everything just a little bit more… comfy. Granny is the best, but you miss out on the cushions and the brandy and the general lewdness when Nanny’s not about. And there’s an auntie-ness that Nanny bring as well, which Granny obviously cannot add to the proceedings. It’s a profound shift, going from the wonderful eeriness of Miss Treason’s home into the bric-a-brac and thick mattresses and plentiful dinners of Nanny Ogg’s, like being swaddled in kitsch and warmth. Tiffany deserves that experience too.

Asides and little thoughts:

• I need Terry Pratchett to know that wherever he is, in whatever sort of beyond, I cannot ever pass from this life to anything else because he has informed me that pickles don’t make it. Sorry. Not going where I can’t have pickles. Why would he tell me that.

• The Wintersmith has purple-gray eyes. If you were ever involved in the fanfiction community, you know that one of the tendencies of “Mary Sue” writing was to always give the girl or woman super special features, with purple eyes being one of the most common attributes. It seems fitting that the Wintersmith, a mythological aspect who is trying to shape himself into the right sort of young man for Tiffany, would take a cue from that line of thinking.

• Tiffany, trying to go to sleep: “The trouble is, you can shut your eyes but you can’t shut your mind.” Yeah. Me too, sweetie. Me too.

Pratchettisms:

Like an oyster dealing with a piece of grit, Tiffany coated it with people and hard work.

“We make happy endings, child, day to day. But you see, for the witch there are no happy endings. There are just endings. And here we are…”

The house feels like it’s dying and I’m going outside.

Tiffany nodded. She wasn’t crying, which is not the same as, well, not crying.

Mrs. Ogg’s face broke into a huge grin that should have been locked up for the sake of public decency, and for some reason Tiffany felt a lot better.

Change the Story, even if you don’t mean to, and the Story changes you.

Nanny stood up and tried to look haughty, which is hard to do when you have a face like a happy apple.

“You cussed. Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer.”

People wanted the world to be a story, because stories had to sound right and make sense. People wanted the world to make sense.

Next week we finish the book!

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: Wintersmith, Part II appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

There’s the usual Feegle glossary of terms, and then the story begins. Rob Anybody pokes his head up in the middle of a terrible snowstorm, knowing that the Wintersmith has come for their big wee hag. He goes down into the Feegle mound and says it’s time to fetch the “Hero” who hasn’t had many lessons, but will do his job well enough for her. Tiffany has been asked by her father, by her village, to save the lambs and her little brother from the snow (he went out to help the men dig and got lost). She commands them to build a fire and not let it go out. She balances things in her mind and takes the heat of the fire into her to let it burn a tunnel through the snow, unearthing lambs, finally finding her brother. This is her fault, because she danced with the Wintersmith: When the fire goes out, she sees him. We’re told that these events might not happen, but they began last autumn… Tiffany had gone to visit Granny Weatherwax, who showed her the trick of helping heat and cold to swap places, using your own body as the center point that lets everything pass through. Tiffany gave her a kitten, then headed back to Miss Treason’s, a blind and deaf witch she’d been staying with for a few months who is very adept at borrowing animals for senses.

Miss Treason tells Tiffany that tonight they are going to a dance, but won’t give any more information. Tiffany guides Miss Treason through the forest on her broom until they reach a clearing where there are men. Tiffany can hear a beat and they begin dancing, while Miss Treason tells her that she must be silent and not join in; Tiffany recognizes it as the Morris dance, done at the wrong time of year. In the spring, men come with white with bells on, dance through the village, and then summer arrives. But these men are dancing at the wrong time of year and they don’t have the Fool with them. Knowing seven are required to do the dance properly, Tiffany joins the men, and suddenly there’s another presence asking who she is. Far away, Miss Tick has just saved herself from being killed by a suspicious town on account of spreading about a book she’s written called ‘Witch Hunting for Dumb People,’ and has a thought about Tiffany. She makes a shamble and it explodes. The Feegle show up at Miss Treason’s house and she questions them until they admit that the kelda sent them because she’s been having terrible dreams about Tiffany. Tiffany wakes and learns that her dance made something real that should have been metaphor, and that the Wintersmith is now looking for her.

The Feegles give Tiffany a letter from Roland, which they’ve read, as they read all her correspondence to him (and her diary). When Miss Treason chastises Tiffany for her mistake last night, she heads outside and calls to the Wintersmith and he appears, with her horse necklace from Roland. Tiffany knows she shouldn’t take it from him, but she does anyway and it burns her with cold. The Feegles bring her back inside and Miss Treason scolds her again for thinking that the necklace is important to being a witch. Tiffany calls her out about “Boffos,” how a witch uses the art of expectation to get people to listen to them (like Treason’s own special skulls that are from Boffo’s novelty and joke shop). Tiffany goes into the dairy to stop Horace the living cheese from eating butter, then writes in her diary about what’s happened and reads Roland’s letter. After she’s gone to sleep the Feegles steal her diary to read it because Jeannie wants to know what she’s thinking of Roland; Rob thinks that if Tiffany wound up marrying Roland, it would stop him from plowing the Chalk to plant wheat since she’s Granny Aching’s kin, who once stopped the Baron from doing the same. But Billy Bigchin notices that the Wintersmith also seems to have Tiffany on his mind—the snowflakes look like her.

Miss Tick has taken the mailcoach all the way to Granny Weatherwax to figure out how they can help Tiffany, but Granny says the girl is on her own. Roland writes Tiffany another letter and tries to ignore his aunts, who are waiting for his father to die and keep stealing from them. The next day, the 113-year-old Miss Treason tells Tiffany that she’s going to die soon, and has Tiffany send out correspondence and plan the funeral for before she’s gone. No one in town seems to believe that Miss Treason will die, so Tiffany heads to her coven meeting. None of the girls noticed that the snow looked like her, to Tiffany’s disappointment, so she tells Petulia on their way back. Petulia decides that the Wintersmith is behaving like a boy, and that Tiffany should tell him to go away, if that’s the case. Granny and Miss Tick look in on the conversation and Granny sees that Petulia asked the important question: Has the Wintersmith ever even seen a girl? She thinks that Tiffany took the place of Summer in the dance and has confused things, making the Wintersmith more human. They discuss who will take Miss Treason’s place once she dies, and Granny thinks it should be Tiffany. Tiffany sees ice roses in the morning and shows Petulia. Then they prepare for the funeral and talk to all the villagers about how impressive Miss Treason was (though she won’t die until tomorrow).

Commentary

Now that Tiffany is reaching her teen years, the story shifts, and again, the period in which it’s written tells us a lot of what Pratchett is intending to riff on. While there’s very little in common in terms of setting or characters, I find it telling that we’re getting a sort of “love triangle” between Tiffany, Roland, and the Wintersmith at a point in time when those dynamics were just hitting their peak popularity. (Don’t forget, Twilight came out the year before this book.) But, of course, this triangle is far less about the work of finding a romantic partner—Tiffany is growing up, but she’s still a kid at this point—than it is about how it feels to find that you suddenly might care about romantic interest from other people.

Is it a little squiffy that one of those love interests is a fair bit older than her at this point in time? (Roland is four years older than her, making him about seventeen at the point that she’s thirteen.) Yes, but it’s also realistic for the environment that she’s grown up in—not an excuse full stop, but it bothers me less if it’s executed with care the way it is here. And the fact that it doesn’t really move beyond this point helps assuage the weirdness. They write nerdy letters to each other. Roland helps Tiffany expand her knowledge and also gives her an important tie to her home. They both need each other in some capacity, and knowing one another becomes a boon.

As to the romantic piece here, Pratchett balances that act perfectly in Tiffany’s interest being more about the newness of feeling than the desire for active romance in her life. She’s a little excited, awkward, even panicked about the idea of the Wintersmith’s attention. And I appreciate, too, that there’s a vein of the story that discusses the need for this to all take place because it helps smooth out the bits that feel too “convenient” from a narrative perspective, e.g. Miss Treason tells Tiffany that she can’t join the dance, but there’s no explanation as to why, which is a pet peeve of mine. It seems authority figures always want their charges to listen without needed information, which is a bad lesson on its face and obtuse to boot—no one owes you obedience just because you’re old and wise.

But within the confines of this tale, Granny explains that this is something Tiffany has to suss out for herself; making the mistake is, in fact, part of her development as a person. And that’s an important lesson, too, arguably far more important than knowing when to heed the warnings of elders. It has a cost, certainly, but that’s just living in the world. We cannot exist without affecting everything around us, and so the story doesn’t suggest that Tiffany’s mistakes are wrong for the toll they levy, but necessary to her becoming the person she’s meant to be.

And it’s relevant that all of this is occurring when she’s bound to start asking other questions about her life that she hasn’t yet entertained. To that point, we have the section below, where Tiffany is thinking about the lives of the children she’s grown up with, and how different her own life is becoming when compared to her peers:

They were going to do the jobs their fathers did, or raise children like their mothers did. And that was fine, Tiffany added hurriedly to herself. But they hadn’t decided. It was just happening to them, and they didn’t notice.

…I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to having this exact same flow of thoughts at (more than) one point in my life. It comes clear when you follow any sort of path that isn’t what your general community expects. And you always have that same rush to say “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” because there isn’t, of course. It’s the lack of thought that makes it confusing to people like Tiffany (and me).

We’ll get deeper into death and funerals and probably Boffos next week…

Asides and little thoughts:

• Tiffany wears blue or green because she thinks that the only reason witches wear black is because they always have, and that is the kind of thought process I can get behind. Nothing guarantees that I will flout a rule so readily as “well, that’s just what we’ve always done” without an actual reason attached.

• Granny considers Mrs. Earwig’s sort of witching to be “wizarding with a dress on,” which again gets into the gendered aspects of magic in his world and how it plays into identity, but it’s odd to have this brought up with no mention of Esk… which thankfully won’t be the case forever.

• There’s a bit of Labyrinth about this story, and Legend too, those ‘80s fantasies that play on the coming-of-age trials that girls face, and how fraught they can become when an otherworldly entity is paying you too much attention.

Pratchettisms:

It wasn’t a spell, except in her own head, but if you couldn’t make spells work in your own head, you couldn’t make them work at all.

In the middle of the seesaw is a place that never moves…

Tiffany was an excellent cheesemaker and it did keep them moist, but Tiffany distrusted black cheeses. They always looked as though they were plotting something.

It looked pretty authoritative, too, without too many long (and therefore untrustworthy) words, like “marmalade.”

If a cheese ever looked thoughtful, Horace looked thoughtful now.

They say that there can never be two snowflakes that are exactly alike, but has anyone checked lately?

It wasn’t her fault that people slipped on packed layers of her, or couldn’t open the door because she was piled up outside it, or got hit by handfuls of her thrown by small children.

“But she—“ Miss Tick began, because no teacher like to hear anyone else talk for very long.

Next week we’ll read Chapters 5-8!

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: Wintersmith, Part I appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

Vimes, Sir Reynold, and Sybil head into the Ramkin family attics and find Sybil’s replica of The Battle of Koom Valley. As they’re looking over it, Vimes realizes that the deep-down dwarfs believe that the painting is a map that will lead them to something important. He decides he’s going to Koom Valley and Sybil insists on coming along with Young Sam despite his protestations. Vimes tells Vetinari that he’s doing this with a crew of officers and Bashfullsson, and cannot be dissuaded. He secretly meets with Ridcully and asks if there’s anything the wizards can do to help his party get to Koom Valley faster since they’re a day behind the dwarfs. Ridcully agrees that he can do something to their coaches and that they obviously never had this conversation. Vimes wakes in the morning and Carrot informs him that the wizards have altered the carriages so that they weigh literally nothing, even with passengers. The horses have also been given some help with special harnesses. Detritus gets permission to take Brick along. The coaches set off, and when the harnesses for the horses kick into gear, the carriages lift off the ground and manage to hit sixty miles per hour.

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After going at that pace for a short burst, Vimes manages to stop the carriages and get them back to a normal speed, but Willikins points out that they could get to Koom Valley that day if they kept it up and that the dwarfs likely had brooms or some other fast mode of transit. They make it to twenty miles outside, but Sybil insists that they go the rest of the way normally so everyone can get rest in town and be fresh the following day. They stay with an old friend of Sybil’s named Bunty. She doesn’t consider trolls to be people of any sort, though Detritus takes this in stride. Angua and Sally are asked to bunk together and Sally leaves in the middle of the night. The next day the group head into the valley with the sketch of the painting, but Vimes is having a hard time matching up the landscape until he accidentally sits on the real painting. He finds a cave entrance and knows that this is where the cube was found. He also knows that there’s a tunnel below and decides to investigate before everyone else catches up to him, dropping into water below. He comes to on a dark beach in the cave and knows he must press on, despite the fact that he’d only come this far because of the voice in his head that told him to jump down into the cave.

Vimes is having a near death experience (which Death shows up for) as Sybil assures her friend that he will be home to read to Young Sam soon. The Gooseberry tells Vimes that he only has a few minutes to get back, and Vimes latches onto that to keep going. He comes upon a mine with dwarfs and is no longer himself, but a creature demanding of the dwarfs: Where’s my cow? Far away, Young Sam can hear him. He hones in on his target as the dwarfs scrabble to stop him and Sally arrives to help. Eventually, Vimes reaches his target… and stops. Inside Vimes, the Summoning Dark meets Vimes’ inner Watchman, and he tells the Summoning Dark to beat it. He comes to having been tackled by Angua, and surrounded by the Low King’s dwarfs. The deep-downers had been destroying this site where trolls and dwarfs had died side by side. Bashfullson explains that Vimes was possessed by the Summoning Dark, but he managed to beat it. Vimes goes to see his officers and tells the Low King’s captain that Detritus and Brick are to be better treated. The captain agrees to this when he sees the Summoning Dark symbol etched on Vimes as a scar. King Rhys arrives and learns that his men haven’t found the cube. Vimes has a hunch and tells Nobby to hand it over.

Rhys wants the cube, but balks when Vimes tells him to take it. He figures out the opening word (the dwarf word for “say” that sounds like “Awk!”), and the cube begins by speaking Things Tak Wrote… only the ending is different and suggests that dwarfs created the trolls and found them very good indeed. Then the voice of B’hrian Bloodaxe tells the tale: The cave was flooded and they won’t make it out, but dwarfs and trolls came here to make peace, and then someone shouted ambush and a fight broke out. They want the world to know that they brokered that treaty and dwarf and troll died side by side. Ardent is furious and insists it’s a hoax, and goes to fight Bashfullsson for lies; he’s quickly dispatched. Trolls have arrived to parley, and Rhys agrees to see them. Trolls and dwarfs work quickly to preserve the scene, then plan to seal it up. Vimes takes Sally aside and confronts her about being a spy for Rhys, but insists on keeping her. Sybil takes Vimes for their family portrait, finally: She has Otto take their picture. Carrot shows Vetinari the mines under the city, which now belong to Ankh-Morpork. Nobby decides to break up with Tawneee, Brick has a new watchman job, and Vimes reads his book to Young Sam.

Commentary

If I’m not mistaken, this is the first time Pratchett has created a mystical entity and admitted to what it was before the main character was properly introduced. Usually it’s all “the thing/being/creature did such-and-so” for every passage until the relevant person comes into direct contact with it. But in this instance, once Vetinari insists that Ridcully thinks that Summoning Dark is a real entity, it’s named in the next section from its vantage point. Almost as though either the Chancellor or the Patrician’s vote of confidence is enough to tell the reader, yeah, that’s definitely what it is, we’re going with that.

Sam Vimes is running on fumes as always, but this time he’s possessed by the Summoning Dark, and mad with grief at the thought of not being able to read to his son at six. The setup on that climax is admittedly flawless, and so much more interesting than your usual rampage sequence all because they’ve managed to fuel Vimes’ rage with something that truly does matter more than anything in the world—his love for his son.

Which is interesting because it means that you can’t really write this particular story until Vimes is a father. His relationship with Sybil wouldn’t have this hold; Sam Vimes loves his wife, but he’s very practical about that love. Young Sam is the one he’s pinned all his expectations onto. Sybil loves him in turn for all of his mess, but with his child, there’s an ideal that he needs to live up to.

It’s telling that for Vimes, the last two books have basically been about the same thing—they’re marking out that line where his morality lives and asking if a cop can stay above corruption. I’d argue that the need for this conversation springs directly from Vimes’ actions in The Fifth Elephant, and proceeds in a straight line. And the answer is roughly the same on both tales: most of the time. The difference is that this book makes that ability to watch himself a manner of superpower… which is cool from a storytelling perspective, but maybe less impressive from a realism standpoint. The idea of other people keeping an eye on Sam Vimes is still important, no matter what line he’s holding for himself. He needs Sybil and Carrot and Angua and Vetinari for that.

I do love that it’s not difficult for Vimes to write off the Summoning Dark at all. People believe what they want to, even—or maybe especially—when they’re being possessed by ancient supernatural entities.

The other part of the tale is zeroed in on how far people will go to perpetuate their prejudices and cultural givens. And again, it’s made a point of (more than once) how horribly Detritus (and Brick by extension) is treated and how much of that treatment he takes on the chin. The hunting trophies at the embassy in Bonk are sprung on everyone in The Fifth Elephant, but here we have a school pal of Sybil’s essentially treat Detritus like an animal. He’s the one who defuses the situation, and by doing so, prevents Vimes and Sybil from having to say anything on his behalf. In many ways this almost reads like both a self-own and sharp audience check on Pratchett’s part—we get this far along in the series and he turns around and points out that the reader probably has some notions about troll ability and intelligence based on the way he’s written them.

And with all that said and done, it’s time for another story. Possibly a long nap, too.

Asides and little thoughts:

• About Sybil’s family attics: “Maybe that was the reason for their wealth: they had bought things that were built to last, and now they seldom had to buy anything at all.” I’ve talked a bit about this before, but as an addendum to Vimes’ Boots Theory, this is completely accurate to how “old money” thinking works: If you’ve got quality and space to keep it, you are likely to always have what you need indefinitely. Unfortunately, “new money” seems to have largely embraced the capitalist consumerism message of “just buy more stuff and throw away the old stuff.”

• Look, I really love the phrase “mad as a spoon” because it inevitably forces me to consider what makes the spoon mad, and I wind up thinking things like “it’s having a bowl, isn’t it,” which is exactly the sort of thought I want to be having about phrases like “mad as a spoon.”

• There’s also a description of a rocking horse that’s “all teeth and mad glass eyes” and I know exactly the one he means.

Pratchettisms:

Difficult reading, too, because a lot of them were half-burned, and in any case Rascal’s handwriting was what might have been achieved by a spider on a trampoline during an earthquake.

And that was his life: one huge oblong of canvas. Methodia Rascal: born, painted famous picture, thought he was a chicken, died.

He heard a brief scream as the rear coach tore past and swerved into a field full of cauliflowers where, eventually, it squelched to a flatulent halt.

With that, Sam Vimes walked back to the milestone, sat down next to it, put his arms around it, and held on tight until he felt better.

His ribs were carrying the melody of pain, but knees, elbows, and head were all adding trills and arpeggios.

He shuffled on, aching and bleeding, while the dark curled its tail around him.

HAS IT NEVER STRUCK YOU THAT THE CONCEPT OF THE WRITTEN NARRATIVE IS SOMEWHAT STRANGE? said Death.

Vimes thought that was a bit too pat, but nature can be like that. Sometimes you got sunsets so pink that they had no style at all.

We’re gonna pause for the next two weeks, and then we’re back with Wintersmith! We’ll read Chapters 1-4.

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: Thud! Part IV appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

Vetinari explains to Vimes that it’s important that this case get solved; if it isn’t soon, it’s likely that the Low King will be deposed and war will break out, spreading everywhere including Ankh-Morpork. The creature from earlier is having trouble latching onto the mind it’s chosen. Brick is let go from the Watch House and decides that someone is going to try to pin that dwarf killing on him, so he decides it’s time to go see Mr. Shine. Angua and Sally make it back to Pseudopolis Yard and she gives all the information on the dead dwarfs to Carrot, along with the symbol drawn in blood by one of them. Carrot doesn’t recognize it, but Mr. Shine arrives and knows it well: It’s the symbol of the Summoning Dark. He advises them to always keep the symbol in light, and delivers Brick back to them with the information he possesses. It takes some time to get anything coherent, but Brick does admit that he saw a dwarf hitting another dwarf over the head down in the mine. He gives Vimes the facts as he can remember them, and when Vimes asks about Mr. Shine, Detritus gets very angry with him for being easy on the dwarfs but hard on his people. A rock from Mr. Shine breaks open, giving his address.

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While the Watch dwarfs prepare to raid the mines and find the bodies, Vimes goes to see Mr. Shine, who is king of the trolls because he’s literally made of diamond. He runs a little cellar where trolls, dwarfs, and humans come to play Thud, and learn from one another how to think like their enemies. He wants Vimes to get to the bottom of this case too, and urges him to think hard. Detritus shows up to let him know that the war club of the trolls is being sent around, the Low King is rumored to be sending troops to Kool Valley, and Carrot found three of the dead bodies, definitely killed by other dwarfs. The dark dwarfs have fled, so Vimes tells them to send a message out on the clacks to let him know where they’re fleeing to. Vimes goes home to read to Young Sam. As he reads, he realizes that Helmclever had wanted him to get angry when they visited the mine. He hears a sound and goes to the cellar to find that the dwarfs dug into his home; Willikins killed one and stopped another, but a third makes it to Sam’s nursery and Vimes tears after the figure. Young Sam is safe, but another headed out back to Sybil’s dragon shed. He goes to her, and she uses the dragons to dispatch the next intruder. One of the dead dwarfs is green at the mouth and Willikins insists that he didn’t kill him.

Vimes brings the whole family and the dead bodies to Pseudopolis Yard, and asks Carrot what the dwarfs could be looking for that talks. Carrot brings up something called “cubes,” a device that dwarfs find in mining that contain sounds since the beginning of world, and can be reprogrammed to contain dwarfish speech and stories. Vimes thinks the dwarfs were looking for those under the city. Sally and Angua get cleaned up, and Sally convinces Angua to go out with her and Cheery and Tawneee despite her protestations. Vimes starts working through the info he’s got and wonders if the painter of The Battle of Koom Valley went mad because he had a cube. A. E. Pessimal comes in to ask a question; Vimes knows what it is, and says he’ll happily hire the man once he’s done his report for Vetinari. There are dwarfs who’ve come to see Vimes, leaders in the community, and they’ve brought a new sort of grag with them named Bashfull Bashfullsson. He wants to be present when Vimes questions Helmclever, and Vimes realizes that the impulse isn’t a bad one. He finds out that one of the dwarfs killed was Ironcrust’s son, and these dwarfs vouch for Bashfullson. Vimes asks the grag to teach him to play Thud as fast as he can.

Vimes sets up the game to play with Helmclever and asks questions as they go. He learns that they found a cube with the voice of B’hrian Bloodaxe, the dwarf king during Koom Valley. Hamcrusher had the miners killed because they had heard the cube speak lies about the battle. He tried to destroy the cube for those lies, so one of the grags—they’re not sure which—killed him in turn for the crime of trying to destroy words. They all came to the city because Helmclever went to study in the mountains and he brought the codex book with him. That gave Ardent the idea to search for the cube. The club used to fake a “troll” bashing in Hamcrusher’s head belonged to Helmclever… given to him by Mr. Shine for being so good at Thud. The deep-downers have the cube and the painting, and Vimes doesn’t have anyone fit to testify. The candles fall on the floor and when they get the light back, Helmclever has passed from fear. Bashfullson promises he will say that the Watch treated him fairly, and asks Vimes to take him to Koom Valley if (when) he decides to go. He also learns that Sybil copied the stolen painting as a young woman, and they’ve got the copy in their attic. Angua, Cheery, and Sally are called back in from their Girls Night.

Commentary

The dance is getting complicated with Vimes and Vetinari, is all I’m saying. Just the two bros having whole side conversations without saying words. Just a couple of guys keeping eagle eyes on each other to make certain they don’t become megalomaniacs. Just dudes being public servants at each other in increasingly labyrinthian ways that this time involve Vimes converting a Patrician’s man into a Watchman via one night of action. Now he’s got a Vetinari-grade clerk going through all his paperwork.

I hate it, is what I’m saying. It couldn’t go off better if they planned it. (It wouldn’t work, frankly.) And then Vetinari tells him to go get sleep because the future of the world is currently in his hands, and Vimes knows he’s right, so he just… does it. Vetinari gives Vimes the rundown of how the world sees him, how everyone talks of his incorruptibility and stalwart skill, and you know that when all of this gossiping got back to Vetinari the first time, his head was just a neon billboard flashing the words I DID THAT.

It becomes clear in this section that something is hanging on in Vimes’ brain, and though we can probably guess what that is, we haven’t got the full story yet. What’s clever is that the internal monologue is never so far off from Vimes battling his usual demons as to feel totally out-of-character. You can tell that’s something’s up, but it’s not overwrought. Well, okay, maybe in the places where you see the words kill and burn a lot.

The Da Vinci Code aspect of the book gets more serious at this point with the conspiracy aspect and the religious aspect and all the puzzles around art and symbols. The Discworld series gets much shrewder with parody as it goes on, and I’d argue that this is one of the best examples; Pratchett has taken the shape of something, but overplayed a completely new story onto it. You don’t need to have read or care about Dan Brown’s oeuvre to get it, but it does make things a tiny bit funnier when you do. And Pratchett’s use of those same themes is better, in fact.

The ways in which the prejudices play out in both directions on this are absolutely devastating throughout, but I think the section where Detritus gets angry with Vimes hits hardest. Because Vimes is seeing Koom Valley everywhere, but all I’m seeing is Detritus, who puts up with a lot of jokes at his own expense, who takes a lot on the chin when he shouldn’t, finally pointing out that Vimes is doing that thing the assimilating culture always does; he sees Detritus as a good officer first and a troll second. He erases that part of him so that Detritus fits better in his mind. It’s not just Koom Valley tension—it’s the difficulty of being in that position every day. Detritus finally points out the parts of him that are always there that everyone is very keen to ignore, draws a line, and says not right now. It means a lot that Vimes listens and apologizes.

Even with a specter in his head.

Asides and little thoughts:

• Sybil on their neighbors’ shrubbery being on fire while they’re on holiday: “Well, if they’re not ready for that sort of thing they shouldn’t be growing rhododendrons.” I could scream, she is perfect.

• Angua literally making a bondage joke to Sally about them bonding, just ugh! Let them date! This is the hill I’ll die on.

• And on another subject, let Nobby date! He just wants someone to hang out with who maybe won’t always throw fish at him. Angua and Sally both have an unfortunate tendency toward elitism due to being part of the fancy werewolf family and a vampire respectively, and their preoccupation with getting Tawneee into her “league” is kinda gross, particularly since the league is entirely based on their assessment of her looks.

Pratchettisms:

Let’s hear it for the mob, Vimes thought. Grab it by its sentimental heart.

Hell, I’m probably a spoon.

After the terror came that drunken feeling, when you were still alive and suddenly everything was funny.

“Indeed, sir? I apprised myself of its use, sir, and tested my understanding by firing it down the tunnel they had arrived by until it ran out of igniferous juice, sir. Just in case there were more. It is for this reason, I suspect, that the shrubbery of Number Five is on fire.”

Vimes detected just a soupçon of a smidgen of a reproach there.

He felt like a man crossing a river of stepping-stones. He was halfway across, but the next stone was just a bit too far and could only be reached with serious groinal stress.

A knife dropped into Vimes’s head. It slipped down his wind-pipe, sliced his heart, cut through his stomach, and disappeared. Where the rage had been, there was a chill.

Next week we finish the book!

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: Thud! Part III appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

Sally gets her first hazing with garlic in her locker, but she is already prepared, and gets the officer back immediately (with a turnip full of chili seeds carved to look like garlic and eaten on a dare). Carrot calls her in to discuss her handling of the situation and recruit her to the Hamcrusher case. The imp in Vimes’s Gooseberry insists that it can help with his sums and Vimes winds up asking it to help by sorting through his paperwork and find out if dwarfs have been shifting much in all their digging underneath the city. Cheery tells Vimes that some trolls have come to see him, and they tell him that Chrysophrase wants to see him. When they threaten his family, Detritus hammers one of them on the head for having no manners. Vimes knows he needs to meet the troll regardless, and hearing about a few more resignations, he makes a speech to the officers about knowing where they stand and who they stand with. There is an ancient creature in the city, clinging to a mine. Vimes meets Chrysophrase in the Pork Futures Warehouse, and the troll tells him that a troll killed Hamcrusher, and that he wants Vimes on the case or the trolls will be very unhappy and harder to control. They’ll wait for the Watch to sort things out for now.

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Vimes asks who Mr. Shine is and gets told that it’s an old troll folk hero; he also gets a tip about some old lady making cakes on Turn Again Lane and a new troll drug called Slide, which is much worse than Slab. He tells Detritus to gather a crew and check out Turn Again Lane. He learns that it’s nearly six o’clock; he doesn’t have enough time to get home. He sends up a message via the clacks and Carrot shuts down two major thoroughfares at rush hour to get him to his front door: It’s time to read to Young Sam, and Vimes has promised never to be late for that. He wakes hours later and comes into the library where Sybil is with Carrot and Sally. They went down into the mine and found further evidence of a troll interloper, which strangely seemed to panic Ardent into believing the troll was still there. Angua picks up a scent, bothered by the presence of Sally, and asks them to open a door they claimed had water behind it. They do so and dwarfs come forward to burn the space with flamethrowers to be certain it’s “safe.” The scent makes Angua faint. Vimes is stunned to hear about the flamethrowers as they could easily be used as weapons, and wants it known that no one should be aboveground with them.

Vimes tries to pare down the problems, since they’re rapidly approaching a redux of Koom Valley with the evidence found. He asks about the Following Dark sign again, and Carrot explains that dwarfs draw signs as a sort of vote-by-grafitti for a mine’s general mood. They also believe that certain types of dark are alive, and influence dwarfs to write them out. The Following Dark is one of the worst of these—it’s a pervading sense of dread. The dwarfs and trolls are setting up for a riot in the city center. Carrot has already made the arrangements, but Vimes insists on being there because he can’t tell Vetinari that he was at home if something terrible breaks out. Sybil has already packed him food. Brick has fallen in with a gang of trolls and is hiding amidst them, not being sure what else to do. He gets back to the Watch House where everything is getting more frantic by the minute and the “Specials” squad has been rounded up—that’s special constables that they deputize in moments when there’s too much heat and not enough officers. Mr. Pessimal begins to bother Vimes again, so he’s put into the Specials roundup too. They set up in the center between the groups, Carrot and Cheery taking the dwarfs and Vimes and Detritus taking the trolls.

Angua is down in the mine, trying to figure out what happened, and she can smell Sally down there. She comes across three dwarf bodies, and Sally, who insists that the dwarfs found something that killed them. The two of them are naked—changing back from a group of bats and a werewolf does that (though not to vampire men, oddly)—and begins to argue about Carrot. Sally points out that they should charge admission given the nudity, and the fighting, and the mud all around them. They continue investigating and come across another body that wrote a very bad sign on the wall in blood. The riot has been avoided thanks to the Watch, but Vimes still has two broken ribs and an order to report to Vetinari. Angua and Sally make it to the surface, but Angua can smell Nobby nearby and is determined not to be seen naked by him. Nobby and Fred are at the Pink PussyCat Club watching Tawneee (real name Betty) dance, and hear Angua’s voice from below, directing them to get clothes immediately. Vetinari wants to know why the riot seems to have been avoided by suspiciously-appearing very strong alcohols, and Vimes declines to answer. The Patrician is also shocked to hear that his clerk sustained injuries fighting a troll… which he sustained in combat with a very confused Brick.

Commentary

This is one of the few Discworld books that plays with time in bits of flashback, the kind where a character relays what happened previously to another character, and I love how it’s used. Especially the one at the end of this section (which I should have pushed later), mainly due to Vetinari’s reaction about his clerk going for broke on a troll thirty times his size. We can talk about that next week.

But the trick to stop the riot is a damned clever one, frankly. And I do appreciate the suggestion that trickery is necessary in this instance because sometimes you simply can’t talk people down. (And sometimes you can and should work much harder to do so. But they’ve got limited means at the moment.) We’ve had points in these books where Carrot could stand between people and get them to listen, but that’s never going to work every time. Vimes actually managed a solution that, while morally gray as hell, still ultimately got a better result than the one they walked into Sator Square with.

There’s a lot here about changes bringing a certain level of anonymity that irks. Nevermind not knowing about the dwarfs mining below the city and trying to cover up murder—Vimes thinks about how he doesn’t really know the majority of the Watch now, specifically that he doesn’t know most of these people down to their bones, understand them as people: “It wasn’t really his Watch anymore. It was the city’s Watch. He just ran it.” And that’s what the social contract is meant to create, something for the entire city, but this brings up a difficult point; the larger a system gets, the easier it is for corruption to seep in because you can’t know every piece of it. Too many faces, too much paperwork.

We get a very clear juxtaposition with two uses of the phrase “a leopard couldn’t change its shorts,” once from Vimes thinking that Detritus is proof that a leopard can do so, while Angua is thinking of Sally as proof that they can’t. This isn’t the first time that Angua has had prejudices that she couches in how much the world downplays her difficulties. And, of course, many of the things she has understandable angst over are things that Sally would probably recognize too—the constant urge to revert to instinct, the expectation that they can and should be “tamed” to human cultural norms, the stereotyping and physical discomfort.

I do love that Pratchett manages to make a “women in a mud fight” joke that’s funny. But I’m also always aggravated by the story not going a more entertaining route on this Boy-Is-Mine tiff: Make them a throuple! Sally is clearly bi, and Angua frequently gives those vibes, too, really. And yes, the idea would freak Carrot out, which would probably be good for him when all is said and done. Plus you’d get extra comedy from how much it would confuse everyone in the Watch, Vimes especially.

Sorry, I just think that’s a much more entertaining way of ending a “step off my man” fight. And would be far from the weirdest thing to happen in these books.

But I come back to the leopard changing shorts bit because the themes throughout the book hit hard on the idea of whether or not people can change, and is ultimately working toward an even more important point: People are never what you think at face value. Vimes is surprised that Detritus has changed from what he remembers, but that version of Detritus was always in there; he just needed an opportunity to be different. Sally, too, isn’t what she appears to be, something that Vimes is already cottoning on to without knowing why. No one is ever all their silly stereotypes.

I’m also always struck by the whole section of Vimes racing home and reading to Young Sam. Not just the urgency in not making excuses as a father (ugh, sometimes he is truly just so good, for all that he’s a right bastard), the fear that everything in his life has been too good and therefore must get destroyed (a relatable feeling if ever there was one, when you suddenly have a streak of good fortune that you don’t feel worthy of), but also the sense of quiet and peace in that nursery. The idea that Sam Vimes can’t really baby talk to his own infant son because it doesn’t feel… profound enough to him. He’s made fatherhood into something sacred, and that tells you so much about him as a human being.

Asides and little thoughts:

• Sally von Humpeding’s name comes with more than one reference attached, including Engelbert Humperdinck (and possibly The Princess Bride’s awful prince), and her first name is likely a shoutout to Sally Bowles of Cabaret fame, given the similarity of description and a few other character markers.

• Vimes joking that they’re the “thin brown streak” is, of course, meant to be a variant on the “thin blue line,” preferred by American cops.

• Look, I’m not saying that the point is that Carrot, Sybil, and Vetinari have a scheme by which they all work in concert to get Vimes to just barely take care of himself by getting him home on time to see his son and also forcing him to have boss appointments (which require doing humans things like sleeping and bathing and eating beforehand), but that’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s a plot and they’re all in on it.

Pratchettisms:

Three words, smacking into the silence like lead.

The room empties of all except those still laboring over the knotty problem of where they should put the comma.

Currently—that is to say, for the past ten thousands years, it had found work as superstition.

He’s learned, then, not to use his lantern. Light only ruined your vision, it blinded you. You stared into the dark until it blinked. You stared it down.

…Well, you just better not step over the line, okay?

The trouble was, the trolls up in the plaza probably weren’t bad trolls, and the dwarfs down in the square probably weren’t bad dwarfs. People who probably weren’t bad could kill you.

The nose was also the only organ that can see backwards in time.

The smell of old cabbage, acne ointment, and nonmalignant skin disease became transmuted, in Corporal Nobbs, into a strange odor that lay across the nose like a saw blade on a harp. It wasn’t bad, as such, but it was like its host: strange, ubiquitous, and hellishly difficult to forget.

Coffee was only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self.

Vetinari grabbed a helpful question from the gathering throng. “Why?”

Next week we read up to:

“When I say ‘the story of my life,’ obviously I don’t mean the whole story,” mumbled Cheery, apparently to herself, as she trailed behind them into a world blessedly without fun.

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: Thud! Part II appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

There are historical texts and translations around early dwarf and troll cultures. And then a murder, witnessed by a troll. Sam Vimes is shaving himself and Willikins is reading out the important bits from the Times, one of them being the current “dwarfish situation” and the other being a piece about how the Watch is going to be interviewing a vampire. There has been a murder beneath the city and all the dwarfs who have come across the body agree that no one should speak of it, and also that it was committed by a troll. Vimes has a waiting mob at the Watch House to protest the potential appointment of a vampire while Otto is standing there to take pictures. Cheery has been promoted to sergeant and got Angua to bring the vampire interviewee in through the back, which has Vimes worried given the tension between vampires and werewolves. Angua is having difficulty with the vampire, one Sally von Humpeding, but shows her around. In the meantime, Vimes has to deal with a city inspector named Mr. A. E. Pessimal, who refuses to call him anything but “Your Grace.” Pessimal asks for an office and tells Vimes that he’ll need to interview officers. Fred has been moved over to custody officer at the Old Lemonade Factory and tells Vimes that he’s hearing things on the streets from the dwarfs, who seem tetchy, and has seen troll graffiti about someone called Mr. Shine.

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Vimes reads up on Koom Valley, an old fight between dwarfs and trolls that made their mutual hatred “official.” Saturday is Koom Valley Day, and it’s more tense than usual since Grag Hamcrusher arrived a month ago and started preaching that dwarfs were superior and it was their duty to wipe trolls from the earth. Vimes breaks up a fight in the canteen between dwarf and troll officers and tells everyone to get to their jobs and not mess about. He has to go interview Sally, then, which gets off on the wrong foot when he mentions it to Angua, not noticing that Sally is behind her. Fred and Nobby are walking along elsewhere, and Fred mentions that he met Nobby’s current girlfriend… at a local strip club. Fred thinks this isn’t appropriate, but Nobby is quite taken with Tawneee. The curator of the Royal Museum of Art stops them in the street to let them know that a famous painting—The Battle of Koom Valley—has been stolen. They find that it’s been cut out of its frame, and learn about the painter, who worked on the piece for over fifteen years while he was poor and constantly moving about and maybe going a bit mad. People believe that there’s a secret hidden in the painting, but no one can agree what the secret is, and there’s a book for those interested in the mystery: The Koom Valley Codex.

Vimes does his interview with Sally, which doesn’t go well, but he decides to hire her anyway on probation. As they’re finishing up, Carrot bursts in to tell him that someone’s killed Grag Hamcrusher. Vimes learns that the dwarfs were planning on keeping all this a secret and that Carrot only found out because one of the dwarf officers is keen on being promoted. Vimes knows that this is sensitive, but he wants to drop by to ask after Hamcrusher and at least try to confirm if the murder is true. The deep-down dwarfs are wary of Carrot and Cheery, but Vimes insists on bringing Detritus in his crew regardless. On the way, he’s reminded by his new Dis-Organizer that he’s meant to sit for a family portrait, and has to send an officer to give Sybil his regrets (again). They arrive in the street and Angua can feel a thudding below, shaking the area. Vimes tells the guards at Hamcrusher’s house that he wants to see the dwarf and is told he’s not seeing anyone; knowing that he’s dead, Vimes asks the guards to ask someone in authority what should be done next—or he plans to bring Dorfl in to break the door down. They try to wait him out, but finally have to let him in with Angua. Eventually, they are greeted by a dwarf called Helmclever, who is the “daylight face” of this group.

Vimes finds that he has a copy of The Koom Valley Codex and demands that Helmclever let him see Hamcrusher’s body. Someone new emerges named Ardent, and Vimes and Angua are both brought to his office. He admits that Hamcrusher was murdered and insists that they are handling the issue. He also insists that a troll committed the crime because a troll’s club was found by the body. Vimes tells him that this is absurd and demands to see the other grags. Ardent insists that they won’t speak to him, that his joke to the Low King in Uberwald about being a blackboard monitor is a crime to true dwarfs—Vimes erased words. Vimes tells Ardent that if he won’t allow it, they’ll essentially be declaring war against the city, so Ardent agrees to take him. As they’re heading down, Vimes gashes his hand on a nail or rivet. Far off, a troll named Brick who is frequently high on Scrape vaguely remembers wandering into a hole and it turning out to be a dwarf place. When Vimes emerges from the mines (having gotten access to the crime scene for Carrot), a bystander throws a brick at dwarf officer Ringfounder; Detritus catches the brick-throwing dwarf and they arrest him. Heading back to the Watch House, Otto is there and ready to get a picture of Detritus holding the dwarf in the air. Carrot tells Vimes that the symbol he saw Helmcleaver draw in coffee is a reference to “The Following Dark,” which is… not good.

Commentary

This story is deceptively layered, when you get right down to it. It’s about prejudices and racism (or the allegorical fantasy equivalents), but it’s also about Sam Vimes’ own issues with control and how a belief in justice might be practiced in manners that are decidedly unjust.

What I’m saying is, it’s incredibly pointed that all of this is happening while the Watch is undergoing a city inspection, that Vimes thinks that said inspection should never be a thing, and that it’s coming on the heels of Vetinari having seen Vimes cross a line where Carcer was concerned in that cemetery in Night Watch. Basically, the Patrician is silently stating in no uncertain terms that Vimes’s claims as the person who watches the Watchmen are no longer sufficient, given the amount of power (and money) they wield. He’s right, even if the audit will turn up more than a fair share of silly concerns. He’s also right that Vimes cannot make his one diehard prejudice a policy within his sector, and that hiring a vampire is important.

But because these stories set no store by black-and-white thinking, the problem of Hamcrusher’s murder is incredibly wooly in all sorts of ugly ways. Large cities frequently have to deal with populations of people who want to create their own mini societies within the confines of those metropolises. The usual bottom line in those scenarios is that if you want to live somewhere with different laws than you’re accustomed to, you have to abide by them. That doesn’t stop some groups from trying to skirt those laws any more than than the general population often does (because that factor often gets left out of the conversation—plenty of folks flout laws, for all manner of reasons).

What Vimes is coming up against—what’s making him angry, and that’s a key factor in this—is that the deep-down dwarfs believe that their own home laws should apply in his home, and that they are acting constantly without any care for the other citizens around them. And while his anger is understandable, particularly where that last bit is concerned, it is still something that should be kept firmly out of his job. He knows that. But knowing it and enacting it are two different things.

Vimes immediately resorts to intimidation in this scenario. And yes, it’s because there has been a murder and he’s right that the dwarfs shouldn’t be allowed to hush it up from everyone else. They certainly shouldn’t be allowed to blame another species on weak circumstantial evidence to stoke racial tensions higher in the city. And it’s also relevant that Vimes tends toward an altogether fairer code than nearly anyone around him—it’s so, so pointed that Carrot is the one who suggests separating trolls and dwarfs on patrols, and that he’s a person who is often considered more good than goodness allows, and that this line of thinking is still entirely wrongheaded. Vimes knows that, too, and never considers following the suggestion because he understands that Carrot’s desire to keep people comfortable at all cost is preventing him from making good recommendations.

But Vimes still sits down on Hamcrusher’s stoop and threatens his people.

He does it in service of justice and he ultimately gets what he’s aiming for and what’s needed—the city finds out for sure that Hamcrusher is dead and he gets Watch access to the crime scene so they can hopefully solve the crime for real. But he still got all of that by amiably chatting with the guards and letting them know that if they didn’t cooperate, he would storm the premises with extreme prejudice using Constanble Dorfl. The use of coercion and intimidation to receive cooperation—even for something as heinous as murder—can only ever be wrong. Claiming to keep the peace by threatening to destroy it on a smaller scale doesn’t math out.

What the deep-down dwarfs are doing is also wrong, though; the way they treat anyone identifying as female as lesser, digging beneath the city without any consideration for the people above (who they barely believe are real to begin with—which is also wrong, no matter your cultural views), blaming a troll for Hamcrusher’s murder. But while the saying “two wrongs don’t make a right” is trite, it’s still getting at an ultimately true point: Trying to fix someone’s wrongs by committing your own is a quick and easy way to begin justifying all manner of atrocities. It’s better not to start.

As a side note, it only just now occurred to me how painstakingly Pratchett describes darkness, almost as an antidote to movie candlelight; we’ve all watched in films and television how one tiny candle can illuminate untold caverns of darkness. It’s sort of similar to how movie fires let you see everything in a room that should be nothing but smoke. Whenever dwarfen spaces are described in these books, whenever you’re in true darkness, the narrative is clear that no tiny amount of light is going to penetrate anything. That picking out details will be impossible and everything will be rendered in the strangest tones of gray and shadow.

Asides and little thoughts:

• “He knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky.” Good old Fred, coming in with the classic “I don’t know how to define pornography, I just know it when I see it” argument.

• Obviously all the references to people coming in to measure the painting and puzzle out what it means are in reference to The Da Vinci Code, which had been published a couple years ahead of Thud! and was massively (and somewhat annoyingly) popular at the time.

• Wow, the technology section here being just a gorgeous lesson in obsolescence: Vimes’ next Dis-Organizer is called the “Gooseberry,” now the most hilariously dated Blackberry joke ever made. Bluenose messaging works, however, because Bluetooth is more prevalent than ever. And then there’s iHUM, which… iPods vanished about a decade after this book came out, though iTunes still exists. Wild.

Pratchettisms:

Mr. Pessimal folded himself onto the chair in front of Vimes’s desk and opened the clasps of his briefcase with two little snaps of doom.

Vimes considered the admissibility of Fred Colon’s water as Exhibit A.

Now the melting pot was full of lumps again.

“That is certainly one of the theories,’ he said, speaking carefully, as people tended to after hearing the Colon-Nobbs Brains Trust crossing purposes.

Vimes sighed. He hated games. They made the world look too simple.

On the ceiling above them, vurms congregated, feasting on spittle and rage.

“You talk to bad dreams on their behalf?”

Next time we’ll read up to:

For Brick, everything went dar—

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: Thud! Part I appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

Moist is woken by Lord Vetinari, who has seen the paper: The Post Office made a bet that it could deliver faster to Genua than the clacks. (It takes hours to send a clacks to Genua and two months to get there by coach.) It’s an impossible mission, and Vetinari wants to make certain Moist isn’t intending to cheat. Moist begins setting up the run and learns that the Post Office workers are betting everything on him to win, and that the odds are somehow in his favor. The Grand Trunk board get together to make certain that the race goes according to plan, and Mr. Pony warns them that there are people who have figured out how to send messages that break the clacks, which is why they won’t run any other messages during the race. Moist asks Miss Dearheart for help after telling her everything about his past (including being responsible for her losing the job at the bank). She tells him to get onto the roof of the Post Office and pray. He does and meets Mad Al, Sane Alex, and Undecided Adrian, who claim to be pigeon fanciers, but Moist can see that’s not the case—they’re the Smoking Gnu. Two of them worked for the Grand Trunk and one had been an alchemist. They’d tried to work for the Second Trunk before John Dearheart died.

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The group call themselves “crackers” because they crack the system of the clacks. They can break the clacks with the right codes sent, but Gilt and Pony have everything locked up for the race, so they won’t be able to help Moist. They do have a code that might bring down every tower if they could get close, called the Woodpecker. Moist tells them that he can manage the people bit, if they’re willing to try. The only problem Moist has is that he knows bad things will happen if the clacks are truly down for months. When Moist wakes up the next afternoon, he thinks he knows how to make the plan work, well and truly, to destroy Reacher Gilt. He finds Miss Dearheart in Dolly Sisters and asks for any paperwork she has from her father’s end of the Grand Trunk. She insists this will do no good, but Moist is adamant about it, even though he tells her that she shouldn’t trust him. Alex finds Moist and tells him that they can’t make the plan work unless Moist can stall the race a half hour or so because they need darkness, so Moist sets about doing all of this paperwork before he leaves. He then saunters down to Sator Square very slowly to find the crowd, wizards (who have selected the message to be sent), and Mr. Pony all waiting to begin.

More time still has to be killed, so Moist continues to stall, giving the Grand Trunk a head start to code their message, since there are images in it. This brings Reacher Gilt out in a huff, insisting that the Post Office get moving… only he spots a broom painted with stars on the coach (as Moist asked Mr. Pump to make for him), and insists the Post Office not be allowed to use a magic broom. Moist contests the Grand Trunk’s use of horses between the towers when they break down, then: If it’s meant to be their equipment against one another, he can only use the coach, and the clacks can only use the towers. He then ropes Reacher Gilt into a personal wager of one-hundred thousand dollars, and asks Miss Dearheart to marry him—she says “not yet.” By the time he leaves, Gilt is livid and the crowd is happy. Moist gets to the Smoking Gnu’s old wizard tower setup and tells them that they won’t be sending the Woodpecker because destroying the towers won’t actually stop Gilt. But he thinks he has a message that might, if they send it along. Then Moist heads back into the city to the banquet at the Unseen University where they’ve set up an omniscope to talk to a wizard stationed there. He says that he’s gotten a clacks that is a message from the dead, and reads it out loud. Vetinari demands an investigation immediately and has Vimes lock down the premises.

Vetinari happily uses his status as a tyrant to shut down the Grand Trunk and seize its assets to get to the bottom of things, letting Vimes arrest the board—excepting Reacher Gilt, who is nowhere to be found. He then stops Moist from leaving and offers him a lift back to the Post Office. He suggests that the city take over the Grand Trunk, but Moist is adamant that it be given back to the people who created it. Vetinari wonders what their investigation will turn up… and tells Moist to make certain that no one is still in the old wizard tower. Mr. Pump is given new instructions—Moist assumes that he’s been tasked with hunting down Gilt and thinks of skipping town, but knows that he won’t. He also knows that he feels horrible for fooling everyone. Adora Belle comes in to ask him about what he did, and he realizes that he can continue with this life indefinitely, just so long as he believes he can leave whenever he wants. Finance works its magic to prevent banks from going under as the extent of the Grand Trunk’s thievery is discovered. Vetinari has Reacher Gilt brought in and offers to let him run the Royal Mint, the same manner of deal given to Moist. Gilt chooses to walk out the door to his death.

Commentary

It’s pretty astounding, when you get right down to it. Vetinari took a consummate confidence man and turned him into a truly dedicated public servant.

And not even intentionally, on Moist’s part, to be fair. It’s just relevant that he realizes the only true way to bring down Reacher Gilt is to use law and politics and public perception. There’s a bit of profound wisdom tied up in there, as well: Don’t break the system if it can be fixed.

It’s a difficult one for people to internalize because, well, it’s hard to believe that most systems made by people can be fixed. And it doesn’t sound as flashy, right? “Let’s put in some endless hard work to sort out this mess” isn’t anywhere near as sexy as “Burn it all down!” But the key lesson in this book has been Moist learning that doing what you please—even when you have no ill intentions—can always hurt someone. It’s kind of impossible to be a person fullstop without hurting people in some small way because we’re that interconnected. But you can prevent the big hurts, the major missteps, by remembering the likely collateral damage inherent in big chaotic plans. (Which is hard for me to say, as I’m generally in favor of those sorts of things.)

So Moist has the chance to bring down the entire clacks system, but realizes that won’t hit the right people. What will is turning the right people over to higher authorities and taking them apart piece by piece with laws and finance and public humiliation. It doesn’t feel as successful, but that’s what will get the job done.

And because this is the Discworld, we do get some Grade A drama out of it anyway: Poor Collabone reading the message aloud as people bark at him to stop and start, the board folding like a clapboard dollhouse, Vetinari going into Full Tyrant Mode and happily siccing Vimes on all of the commander’s least favorite people (it was a good day for them; they got to have fun). Reacher Gilt choosing death over public service. We get to enjoy the fallout in this instance, something that rarely happens in our own world.

Moist finally figures out what will keep him on this path, however: reminding himself that he can leave whenever he wants to. Ultimately, what he wants is the knowledge that he still has a choice. (That he ever did, really, as Vetinari’s initial gambit was a choice that wasn’t one.) And it always gets me because this need isn’t as specific to Moist as it reads at first glance.

Think about it—isn’t that what everyone would probably wish for, if they could get it? How many people get to feel like they could walk away from their job and truly start over or try something different if they needed to right now? Guaranteed that it’s not a high number, and it’s strange to realize that Moist von Lipwig has managed to eke out better options than most. The narrative puts it to us as though this is an option he needs and finds because he’s a conman, but there’s a far more universal desire at work here.

It occurs to me, also, that Moist and Adora Belle are sort of the platonic ideal of the woman-who-likes-bad-boys type of couple. (Okay, he’s not a “bad boy” so much as he’s a problem and needs some moral untwisting.) I can fix him is the joke, right? Adora Belle gets to say, he fixed himself, thanks. Or maybe, the Patrician fixed him for me. (It’s sort of both.) She never really has to do any work on his behalf, and I appreciate that oh-so-very much.

Asides and little thoughts:

• The omniscope picking up a fiery eye that turns out to be Devious Collabone with an allergy… the book did come out the year after the Lord of the Rings trilogy finished up, so it was an immediate reference in addition to just being a real good Eye of Sauron joke.

• All of the little hacking tidbits are great with the Smoking Gnu crew, as are the similarities between the clacks system and software coding. I sort of wish we’d gotten at least one more section with the group of kids working the tower, though. Felt like we needed a little more of them in the story to work properly.

• Discworld fans love to use the GNU marker as a way of remembering their own dear departed. Just a genuinely lovely fandom thing to remember in moments where it’s needed. Speaking of which… GNU Uncle David.

Pratchettisms:

“No, of course you haven’t,” said Lord Vetinari and gave him what could only be called… a look.

Always remember that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.

And out of all the sweat and swearing and mathematics had come this… thing, dropping words across the world as softly as starlight.

It was good to see the fine old traditions of idiot bigotry being handed down in a no-good-at-all kind of way.

This, it turned out, is because “nothing to see” is what most of the universe consists of, and many a wizard has peacefully trimmed his beard while gazing into the dark heart of the cosmos.

It wasn’t a very loud word, but it had an effect rather like that of a black drop of ink in a glass of clear water.

Next up is Thud! (after a one-week pause). We’ll read up to:

“Just remember you’re a copper, will you?” he said.

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: Going Postal, Part IV appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

Trymon has just taken up his place as head of the order at the Unseen University only to find that the Great A’Tuin is going to run into a star. He know they must find Rincewind to have access to the final spell of the Octavo, so he decides that they will use Rincewind’s horoscope to discover his location. (Trymon wants to be the one to utter all the spells because the prophecy of the Pyramid of Tsort states that the person who does this when the Disc is in danger will “obtain all that he truly desires.”) Rincewind has decided he wants to go home, but Twoflower suggests they stay the night at least, and be present for a very important ceremony. Said ceremony happens to contain a sacrifice, which Twoflower doesn’t take well at all.

As Trymon’s people close in and Twoflower attempts to stop the sacrifice, Rincewind is held at knifepoint by Cohen the Barbarian. Cohen attacks the druids to steal their treasure and make off with the sacrificee, Bethan, but in the ensuing ruckus, Twoflower gets hit with a poison projectile. The group rush away, and Rincewind realizes who they escaped with only to learn that Twoflower is gone. Cohen brings him to a necromancer, who gives him some medicine to help him cross over to find the tourist. Trymon has a meeting with the wizard council where they discuss his creation of “agendas” and what they’re all doing to find Rincewind—Trymon has employed a warrior to find him, since magic isn’t working out. Her name is Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan.

Rincewind is in Death’s Domain, where he finds the Luggage and Death’s home, on an outcropping over a giant vortex. Once inside, he meets Death’s adopted daughter Ysabell, who is very excited for living guests. They head to a study where Twoflower is teaching a card game to Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence. Rincewind extracts Twoflower, who doesn’t seem to realize that he’s dead and also wants to take pictures of Death’s house. Ysabell doesn’t want them to leave, and makes to sever their lifelines to the mortal realm, so Rincewind hits Twoflower and tosses him over his shoulder to make a run for it. The Luggage leads the way over the edge of the outcropping, and Rincewind decides to follow. Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence decide they’ll continue their game of cards.

Rincewind and Twoflower (and eventually the Luggage) are back in the Octavo, which tells the wizard that it has to keep his spell away from the wizards because it can’t be said before the proper time—that’s the reason they lodged the spell in his head in the first place, because the Octavo knew it could trust Rincewind to keep the spell safe. Rincewind tells the book off for that choice, then complains about wanting to go home, which conveniently pulls them back into their bodies. They wake up in the necromancer’s yurt with Cohen and Bethan, and the Luggage finds them. Rincewind looks at the last picture taken by Twoflower’s picture box and doesn’t much like what he sees. The next day, the necromancer’s people give them all horses so they ride the hundred miles to the Circle Sea.

The group end up in an area that’s got trolls all about. Rincewind goes to find onions for soup and ends up talking to a rock, while Twoflower explains dentures to Cohen, who is awed by the concept. The rock turns out to be a troll, and then a few more show up and tell Rincewind that they have a legend about him. They’re supposed to help him and not bite him, so he asks for their aid in making some soup. They agree, but when they get back to the camp site, they find that Rincewind’s whole band is gone and there’s been a fight. There’s a trail leading up into the hills where the troll’s Old Grandad lives, who’s gone a bit “rock” to take their meaning… The trolls grab up Rincewind, and set off to help him get his friends back.

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Book Club Chat

We’re told when one of Trymon’s people checks it out that Rincewind doesn’t have a wizard’s horoscope, which simultaneously tells you everything you need to know about the various wizard orders and also everything you need to know about Rincewind. But I’m also fascinated by the concept of Disc horoscopes in general, and in the fact that Pratchett loves bringing up horoscopes and poking fun at them—which is fair because they occupy a sort of liminal space in the realm of “believing the unbelievable.” Using myself as an example: Do I believe that horoscopes have any bearing whatsoever in my day to day life, and plan around them? Certainly not. Do I have a lot of opinions about my sun, moon, and rising signs, and still read up on them occasionally for some reason? Yes. (Hush, I know.) I suspect that Pratchett knows many people engage with them that way, and that tendency is part of what he’s highlighting.

Cohen is obviously a play on the concept of Conan the Barbarian… but if he lived to be a very old man. Which I appreciate, not only because it’s a fact of life that doesn’t occur to many people, but also because he’s really digging into the concept of aging when one’s purpose is tied to associations with youth, even from a comedic vantage point. For instance, Beowulf does actually get older in the course of his story, but he’s still permitted a “hero’s end”, as it were—we suspect big buff heroic figures to die in battle, generally because we assume that’s what they’d want, to die in glory and honor and what-have-you. But if one survives because they are the best, age is rarely so glamorous to anyone. So Cohen has no teeth (and it’s true, dental problems are one of the biggest issues of age, tweaks about dentures aside), and everything causes him pain, and he’s still just getting on with life despite all of that. And while everything that Pratchett writes comes with a sense of humor, I do think the reader is meant to truly engage with that idea. Is this what Conan would really become, eventually? What does it mean, to reckon with that?

We also finally learn that wizards don’t permit women into the Unseen University out of fear that women will be too good at magic, which is as scathing a commentary as you’ll ever hear about the nature of sexism and exclusionary practices. But then this section is where we really start to see more of what will become one of Pratchett’s hallmarks as an author—not just that he treats women as people, but that he does so in a way that readily acknowledges how sexism typically frames women, and then makes a point of not doing those things vocally within the prose. So the introduction of Herrena lets us know that, sure, if you scrubbed her clean and put her in lingerie, she’d probably look great, but she’s a working woman, so she’s dressed for her job, thanks.

There are times when Pratchett’s narrative has direct conversation with its audience, and it works particularly well in Herrena’s presentation, with its side-eye toward fantasy cover artists, and its insistence that for Herrena’s band of swarthy dudes, okay, “Look, they can wear leather if you like.” Pratchett gets to say in no uncertain terms, I know what you’re doing, and I’m not gonna stop you, but please know that I’m giving you A Look the whole time because you don’t have to engage tropes this way.

The whole description of Death’s Domain is particularly arresting, and I always forget it until I read it again. Also, we get to meet Ysabell, who will obviously come up again later, along with Mort. It’s strange to find Death playing cards with the Horseman, though—it’s an explicitly Christian reference that doesn’t quite play with the taxonomy of the Disc, as it were. Which makes me wonder if Pratchett just couldn’t resist the opportunity to use them for the sake of the gag, then found the better opportunity for it with Good Omens, where the need for Christian markers was explicit.

Rincewind and Twoflower have an argument about pictures on their way out of the house, which I love because I’ve had this exact same argument myself in real life. While I understand that some people are going to spend too much time behind a camera and forget to experience something in realtime, I firmly side with Twoflower on this one. Rincewind says it’s more “real” to remember something with your mind—but minds are fallible, memories imperfect, and bodies prone to decay. You can never remember something perfectly forever, but if you have a photograph, you can keep that image and look back on it. (Of course, the picture they wind up with isn’t of what they saw, which is a whole different issue.)

In any case, none of these things can prepare us for meeting so many very lovely trolls, who offer advice on where to obtain onions because the trees are currently napping. Good thing they’re about because given everything that’s happened to Rincewind of late, he could use some helpful transport a la Merry and Pippin with the ents.

Asides and little thoughts:

• “[…] and what about all those studded collars and oiled muscles down at the Young Men’s Pagan Association?” is the best possible way of referencing the Village People and YMCA that one could slip into a fantasy novel.
• Very few images make me as emotionally vulnerable as “It had a rather pathetic look, like a dog that’s just come home after a pleasant roll in the cowpats to find that the family has moved to the next continent.” It’s only a hypothetical, and the Luggage gets Twoflower back, and I still can’t freaking handle it.
• Death’s garden in black, white, and purple flowers sounds freaking lovely. (There’s this one particularly sort of black flower at the botanical gardens near where I live, and it mesmerizes me every time I see it.)
• Ysabell says that when heroes come to rescue their girlfriends, it’s “important not to look back”, which is of course a reference to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. (That’s the one where the hero is told he can have his love back provided, while they’re on the path leaving the underworld, he never looks back at her. He does, because it’s a tragedy and so forth.)

Pratchettisms:

Twoflower didn’t just look at the world through rose-tinted spectacles, Rincewind knew—he looked at it through a rose-tinted brain, too, and heard it through rose-tinted ears.

Rincewind couldn’t see his captor, but by the feel of it he had a body made of coat hangers.

In a distant forest a wolf howled, felt embarrassed when no one joined in, and stopped.

“And what does a gender do?” (THANK YOU, SIR TERRY, EXACTLY.)

While it was true that, as has already been indicated, Rincewind was to magic what a bicycle is to a bumblebee […]

The thought had crossed his mind, only very fast and looking nervously from side to side in case it got knocked over.

Next week we read up to:

“Very large mice?”
“That’s probably it.”

See you then!

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: The Light Fantastic, Part II appeared first on Reactor.

Terry Pratchett Book Club is trucking right along, and we’ve reached the second book! Which is named for a line in the John Milton poem L’Allegro, but you’ve probably heard the phrase all over the place because it’s still fairly common, even if it’s a bit more old-fashioned these days.

Let’s dance, friends.

Summary

Twoflower is in a ship and Rincewind is falling, and at the Unseen University, the Octavo is glowing with magic light. There’s an explosion that shoots through the University, turning things into many other things, while Galder (an eighth-level wizard) and his initiates run to catch up with the problem. Galder and his second in command, Trymon, witness a Change spell being cast over the whole world… but nothing seems to have changed. It has, in fact—the world has changed to save Rincewind, who is suddenly in a forest. He promptly gets into a conversation with a tree, which he just as promptly leaves.

Twoflower and the Luggage are also saved by this powerful spell, with Twoflower appearing on the hull of the Potent Voyager (which sinks into a lake), and the Luggage materializing in front of a shaman before scampering on its way. The two of them find Rincewind, and they sit together under a tree while it rains and Rincewind proceeds to give the wrong names for the vegetation around them. Meanwhile, the eight highest ranking wizards on the Disc meet to discuss their lack of understanding about what happened. Galder suggests the Rite of AshkEnte, they all agree, and roughly forty minutes later, the group have summoned Death (he’s holding a skewer with pineapple and cheese—they summoned him from a party).

Death explains that the Octavo readjusted reality to avoid losing Rincewind because he has its eighth spell lodged in his brain. The reason why is because all eight spells of the Octavo must be said next Hogswatchnight, or the Discworld will be destroyed according to a prophecy. Trymon immediately heads to the library to get a book on the prophecy Death mentioned (he had been listening to the whole ritual). Meanwhile, Rincewind and Twoflower are arguing about whether or not the very small person they’ve run across is or isn’t a gnome. The gnome (named Swires) offers to show them to shelter and food, and they agree, having no better options. He leads them to a gingerbread cottage abandoned by a witch. Galder has read that if Rincewind is dead, the spell lodged in his brain will simply hop to the next ready mind (this is not true), so he elects to send an arrow to him while the other wizard orders send out agents to fetch him.

The wizards break into the gingerbread cottage, but Twoflower finds a magic broomstick, allowing him and Rincewind to escape as the Luggage is hit by Galder’s arrow. Rincewind and Twoflower end up taking the broomstick far too high, and find out what is soon to befall the Disc—the Great A’Tuin is taking the world directly toward a red star. Elsewhere, the Luggage materializes directly on top of Galder, killing the man. Rincewind and Twoflower hit a rock in the sky, hidden by a cloud, and come across a druid computer hardware consultant named Belafon, who is delivering a replacement part for a large computer—the replacement part being the rock. The Luggage breaks out of the Unseen University after swallowing the Dean of Liberal Studies. Among the druids, Rincewind remembers the star they saw, then slips into a dream where voices of the Octavo Spells tell him that he must safeguard the Spell in his head so that they can all be said at the right moment.

Rincewind runs away.

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Book Club Chat

A note before we begin: I do know about L-Space, and its veritable library of excellent annotations! But I will not be bringing up every single reference that’s packed into these books because we would be here for a literal age, and also because we have a comments section full of you lovely folx. If I miss out talking about one of your favorite references, please, by all means, get in there and talk it up!

It’s fascinating to see how much the tone has solidified into something with a specific pace and rhythm, and how much more he packs into this book than the previous one. I’d forgotten what a clear shift it was, and how much shrewder the prose comes off as a result. I was startling myself by laughing aloud, which is my favorite kind of reading.

Meet Galder Weatherwax, who will not be the greatest character in the Discworld series to bear that surname, but it’s a fun prod about things to come. (Especially if you remember all the things Granny had to say about the guy. Such a lengthy diatribe…)

Because being contrary is sometimes a very worthy exercise, I always find myself particularly excited over moments where Pratchett just casually tears apart a cliché. Obviously, not all clichés are bad (and they can sometimes be amazing when employed well), but I have a lot of abiding love for the way that he begins a section toward the start of this book by saying that “Ankh-Morpork, largest city in the lands around the Circle Sea, slept” and then immediately proceeds to tear that thought to shreds by letting you know the myriad of ways in which it is not sleeping, all to eventually point out that “descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate.” And then launches into an aside about a Patrician of Ankh who wasn’t very into metaphors and similes and so forth. Which comes back at other points in the narrative, of course.

There are moments when I relate very heavily to Rincewind, and nowhere is that more evident than when his city-ness comes to the fore. Even the little bits when he’s thinking about how he would prefer a cobbled path to the dirt one he finds, or when he can’t really fathom what one would eat if they were stuck in the woods, or when he feebly tries to name the trees and bushes he cannot identify, and my brain immediately goes oh no it me. I am not a country person; I’ve spent my entire life either living in cities, or being close enough to get into the city in 15-20 minutes by car. Usually from very large suburbs that functioned more like small cities themselves. There are plenty of people who hate cities, which is a completely fine way of being, but I adore them. And I completely understand what it’s like to have been away from one too long, and start missing all the little conveniences that come from metropolis living, paved roads being among them.

Gonna talk about Death again, but before I do, a thing—Death technically isn’t gendered in these books until Reaper Man, where we are finally given a masculine gender. This has been the subject of some debate in translation as well because of the way certain languages gender their nouns, leading to translations where Death started out female and in later books had to be switched to male. My personal feeling on this as a non-binary person is probably somewhat obvious: Death could just be non-binary. In a lot of ways, that would make more sense, and is the opinion I’ve carried about most deities since I was a teen (look, I was a weird kid, I know). If you’re part of a pantheon, sure, have a bunch of different gods who have tons of genders. But if you’re a singular figure (like Death) or a monotheistic deity… why would gender apply at all? It’s frankly rather trivial on a universal scale.

Death’s character has cemented more fully by this point, his delivery and matter-of-fact wisdom on full display. I wonder about how others readers find Death sometimes because my take has always been very specific—to my mind, Death speaking in “all caps” imbues him with a deadpan overarching tone that I cannot unhear. While Pratchett gives him the ability to use proper nouns (capitals within the all-caps format) and emphasis, the use of all-caps makes all of his dialogue read with equal emphasis to me. Which means that I end up rather puzzled with they inevitably pick Shakespearean-style actors full of rumbling gravitas (see: Christopher Lee, Ian Richardson, Stephen Thorne) to voice Death in audio dramas and television miniseries because, to me, Death should always be played by a comedian capable of scathing monotone.

For this sequence, of course, there’s the fact that Death being pulled from a party is a reference to The Masque of the Red Death, which is always my personal preference if you’re gonna go for any Poe references at all. I somehow doubt that pineapple and cheese were being served at the party Edgar described, though.

Look all I’m saying is, the Luggage somehow does laundry and I really wish I knew how and also wish that I had a trunk that did laundry. Or that my dog did laundry. We all deserve that in our lives. On a completely different note, I do wish that someone would talk to the trees, they’re being ever so patient.

Pratchett does a thing where he’s able to switch tenses in his narrative—in this case, from past to present, as he moves to the section about Greyhald Spold trying to ward off Death—so effortlessly. And then the next section starts and he’s back to past tense. When you learn things about fiction writing in any sort of classroom environment, you are always going to be taught that there are rules that one shouldn’t break. But any good teacher worth their salt knows that all rules absolutely can and should be broken… you just have to do it with purpose. This is one of those examples.

Lots of fairy tale asides in this section, which is gonna happen if you have your protagonists hole up in a gingerbread house, though we get more references to Goldilocks and the Three Bears than we do to Hansel and Gretel ultimately. Rincewind and Twoflower escape by witch’s broom, and while Rincewind may be exasperated by his tourist pal, if Twoflower weren’t around, he’d have a much harder time staying alive in all of this.

But of course, we’ve still got a ways to go.

Asides and little thoughts:

• The Book of Going Forth Around Elevenish is a book I wish to own, please, as the title is an excellent life philosophy, no matter what mythical “morning people” say. (The fact that the actual title of the Egyptian Book of the Dead was, in fact, The Book of Going Forth By Day just makes it better, honestly.)
• I like the fact that the Unseen University has a vegetable chef.
• First mention of the Dungeon Dimensions, I believe, which is important for various and sundry reasons as we go along.
• Twoflower mentions that the Tooth Fairy was in The Little Folks’ Book of Flower Fairies.
• Rincewind thinks “Look, the life of gnomes and goblins is nasty, brutish, and short. So are they.” This is, of course, a reference to Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, where he talks of the state of nature for mankind. I never much liked it applied to humans, but maybe it serves better as the state of nature for gnomes.
• There a bit where Pratchett is talking about a sound and says that it is “‘spang!’ plus three days hard work in any decently equipped radiophonic workshop” and I love it, in large part because the Doctor Who theme is the result of the BBC’s radiophonic workshop, dontcha know.

And! I finally got around to making the Pratchettisms section (which is basically just “favorite quotes”, but that sounds horribly dull to my mind). Granted, this is a completely subjective culling on my end—feel free to add your own.

Pratchettisms:

The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn’t sure it was worth all the effort.

Picture it as a diving suit designed by men who have never seen the sea.

The silence of the room crowded in like a fist, slowly being clenched.

It is well known that things from undesirable universes are always seeking an entrance into this one, which is the psychic equivalent of handy for the buses and closer to the shops.

Some people, Galder thought grimly, would have had the decency to put an exclamation mark on the end of a statement like that.

On the high shelf above him various bottled impossibilities wallowed in their pickle jars and watched him with interest.

Swires and Rincewind’s kneecap exchanged glances.

There was a long silence. Then a slightly shorter silence.

Next week we’re reading up to: “If we meet Old Grandad I’ll try to explain…” See you then!

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: The Light Fantastic, Part I appeared first on Reactor.

We’ve come to the final section of The Colour of Magic, “Close to the Edge”. In this moment, it’s meant rather literally…

Summary

The Arch-astronomer of Krull is speaking with Goldeneyes Silverhand Dactylos, asking if he is the greatest craftsman on the Disc. Dactylos is reticent to agree because every time he makes some grand work, he is paid but simultaneously punished—his eyes taken, a hand cut off, held in prison. The Arch-astronomer of Krull had him build a fish of bronze (a ship) to traverse the cosmos in exchange for letting him keep his life, but he lied, and kills him with an arrow to the chest. The people of Krull are preparing for a launch and need sacrifices. In the meantime, Rincewind and Twoflower are stuck on a boat that’s about to sail off the edge of the world.

They are rescued by Tethis, a sea troll—their boat has hit the Circumfence, and the troll is taking them to his home. Once there, they are given some vul nut wine and Tethis explains that the Circumfence is owned by the Kingdom of Krull, which catches things in this net that are about to fall off the rim of the world; when they do, the kingdom keeps those things, including the people, which they turn into slaves. Tethis himself is also their slave and must now bring Rincewind and Twoflower to them as well. Rincewind insists that he’d rather go over the edge of the world than be a slave, but Tethis shows him the edge, and he abruptly reconsiders. Twoflower is fascinated, however, and wants to know more about what lays beyond. The sea troll explains that he fell off another world and passed by many more before arriving at the Circumfence and becoming a slave of Krull.

Rincewind thinks to overpower Tethis the next day, but they can’t, and a flyer is sent to pick them up—a transparent lens being maneuvered by wizards and hydrophobes. They believe that Rincewind is a very powerful wizard given all that he has survived, and demand his compliance. Marchesa, a wizard of the fifth level, keeps Ajandurah’s Wand of Utter Negativity on him. They are brought to Krull and greeted by Garhartra, the Guestmaster, who is meant to make their stay as pleasant as possible. He informs them that they will be sacrificed in the morning, due to the desires of a particularly irate god who requested them specifically. Rincewind is spoken to by the frog in his pocket (the one he rescued from plunging off the edge of the Disc), and finds that the frog had been serving as a vessel for the Lady, the one who won the game game earlier on in the book.

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The Lady is Luck, of course, though her name should not be spoken out loud by anyone who wishes to invoke her. The god set against Rincewind and Twoflower is Fate, who is aggravated with them both; he made a bargain with the people of Krull to have them sacrificed to smile on their voyage sending two travelers over the edge of the Disc in a vessel to determine the sex of the Great A’Tuin. The Lady lets Rincewind know that she can aid them by giving them the smallest chance, but making that chance work in their favor is up to them. In that moment, Garhartra reenters to fetch them, and his spell from earlier wears off, resulting in him getting hit in the head with a bottle of sea grape wine. Rincewind and Twoflower make a break for it. Death and Fate have a chat about the duo as they find themselves in a room full of stars and depictions of the universe, holding two space suits for the travelers Krull is intending to send over the edge.

The two chelonauts meant to wear the space suits show up and attempt to speak to them, but Rincewind and Twoflower knock them both unconscious. As the two intrepid travelers are expected to emerge in the suit, it’s clear that Rincewind and Twoflower must don them in their stead if they don’t want to be caught. They head out to the arena where the Krullians are awaiting the sacrifice and launch. Just as the Arch-astronomer realizes something is amiss and plans to do something about it, a great monster appears, and he has to fight the thing off. Once it’s vanquished in flame, only the Luggage remains behind (it had been eaten by the monster). The Arch-astronomer tells the magicians to have at it, and they all begin firing spells at Luggage, creating a concentration of magic that has not been seen since the Mage Wars. The Luggage survives that onslaught, reaches Twoflower, and opens to reveal Tethis.

They make for the ship to avoid capture, but it begins taking off. Rincewind thinks they should get out, but Twoflower is mesmerized by the idea of new worlds. Rincewind panics, and the Luggage dives after them as they launch… Rincewind wakes up in a tree on the rim. Death is there, only it isn’t really Death, it’s one of his minions, Scrofula. But before he can end the misfit with his scythe, a branch snaps and sends Rincewind plummeting through space.

Book Club Chat

This section is less based in parody than the previous two, and I’m always glad for it because Pratchett spends more time playing with language in this section and his prose just shines. There are also a lot of great worldbuilding concepts that we’re introduced to like the Rimbow, and Ghlen Livid (which is the best possible way of mispronouncing Glenlivet scotch, and the description is fit to match it), and the concept of dehydrated water, and hydrophobes—which are maybe my favorite kind of magic-users, if only for the sheer ridiculousness of the concept.

The descriptions of Tethis is the first part of this segment that always really grabs me (although this whole section of the book is very much my jam altogether). “It’s mouth opened with a little crest of foam, and shut again in exactly the same way that water closes over a stone.” The idea that a sea troll would change in size due to tides. So much of building a fantasy world is about what you choose to explain versus what you don’t, but Pratchett is particularly good at making the most out of details. Tethis is proof of that every time he shows up—particularly in the Luggage carting him all the way to Krull as a great big puddle of water.

Also, it’s kind of “dad joke” territory, but I adore Pratchett milking how often people say “here on the edge” when they’re trying to indicate how rough things are living on the literal edge of the world. It’s a very 80s action film kinda line, which would have been particularly timely when the book came out, but it’s still hilarious.

This is the first part of the book that really brings up how common slavery is on the Disc, and while I think it can come off a bit cavalier in places, there is an importance to how Pratchett treats it as commonplace—as it is a common part of Earth’s history, it must be common on the Discworld in order to be effective as satire. He’s not at a point in his overall narrative where he’s going to devote a great deal of time to dissecting that issue, but he also doesn’t shy away from it. We see it in several forms here, from the slaving ship to the many slaves that Krull uses to do their bidding. Even the death of Dactylos is bound up in servitude, the life of a master craftsman defined and ultimately ended by people who wanted to possess him and his work. It’s ugly in its mundanity, which is very much where Pratchett’s implicit criticisms live.

The scene between Fate and Death might be my favorite in the whole book? Pretty much anything with Death is my favorite because Pratchett gives him such a workable wisdom—it’s impossible not to be comforted by his presence. There’s also the imagery that Pratchett manages to work into scenes with Death that just seize me every time. “His words drifted across Death’s scythe and split tidily into two ribbons of consonants and vowels.” If I had a book full of huggable sentences, that one would be there. (It has a sharp instrument in it but it’s still huggable, okay, it’s my book, I make the rules.)

This is the week where I remember to bring up the fact that Pratchett capitalizes Death’s pronouns the same way that Christianity (and I believe other monotheistic religions) does for God. I have a lot of thoughts about this and how this plays into Pratchett’s view of the universe, but it’s better to get into those once we we’re deeper into the Death-centered books, so we’ll get there when we get there.

There’s a particular spectrum of delight to the satire we get in the depiction of Twoflower and his role as a tourist. In particular, this quote: “In an instant he became aware the the tourist was about to try his own peculiar brand of linguistics, which meant that he would speak loudly and slowly in his own language.” We all know one of those people (especially if we’re English-speakers because it’s a very English-speaker-thing to do), and it’s embarrassing enough to be standing next to them when they try this method without having to worry about human sacrifice like poor Rincewind. But there’s a clear-eyed optimism to Twoflower that Pratchett chose to imbue him with that I find myself more appreciative of this time around. Not because I think that more people should put optimism in the place of forethought and rationality, but because plenty of tourists do not venture away from home with so much good will and faith in others. It’s a cliché that tourists are often taken advantage of, sure, but that particular problem never dims Twoflower’s need to learn and experience the world for himself. He is not a being of chaos, but he’s happy to let chaos take him where it may—because the very best travelers have to adopt that sensibility.

I have a soft spot for the fact that this book technically fakes out the ending twice, once by having the words THE END in big block letters and still continuing the story beyond that point, and then again because it ends on a cliffhanger so unapologetically that you just have to shrug your shoulders and move immediately to the next volume. But I have a lot of questions about how the publisher felt about that choice when confronted with that plan—was there pushback against the thought, or were they happy to go along in good faith? Or did they have a hand in shaping the books that way?

It has been pointed out (here and all over the internet) that Pratchett himself said that The Colour of Magic was not the ideal introduction to the Discworld series. While I may agree as a fan (and for the more functional issue that very few other Disc novels follow this format), I still enjoyed starting at the beginning for the sake of another vantage point—experiencing a writer in the earlier days of their craft, how they hone their voice and skills over time. From a craft perspective, it’s very enjoyable to start at the beginning, to see what Pratchett started out with before discovering where he would end up. Also, I think there’s an enjoyment to be had in having the same experience readers had when the series started. And having completed the exercise, I’m still glad to have made that choice.

Asides and little thoughts:

• Getting back to the hydrophobes, I have a bit of an obsession with how Rincewind describes their creation as an imposition of loathing, the idea that they can’t simply hate water because hate is an attracting force like love.
• We get a little odd Star Trek shoutout in this section with the “boldly go” joke about the chelonauts.
• On the one hand, it can be trying as an author to come up with unique visual descriptions to entice readers. On the other hand, if you’re Terry Pratchett, sometimes you write things like: “One of them in fact turned into something best left undescribed and slunk off into some dismal dimension.” And that’s a glorious use of your verbal powers.
• I do feel for Death’s minions. Scrofula has a rough gig, man.

Next time: Tune in for the first segment of The Light Fantastic. I’ll probably get to adding the Pratchettisms section for that book! And we’ll go through roughly a quarter of the story, ending on “He could feel the dry rustling right in front of his nose… He ran away.”

Emmet Asher-Perrin is going develop some hydrophobia now. You can bug them on Twitter, and read more of their work here and elsewhere.

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With that in mind, let’s push on to the next section of our reading party, “The Lure of the Wyrm”.

Summary

The Wrymberg is an inverted mountain. Once in range of it, Rincewind realizes that they are in the presence of powerful magic; this magic dates back to the Mage Wars when the first men fought the gods. The Old High Ones had to put an end to the fighting and banished the gods up high while making men smaller, and sucking a lot of magic out of the earth. But the places that were hit with spells during that war still have magic warping the reality around them because magic doesn’t die—it simply fades away. Rincewind, Twoflower, and Hrun make to leave the area. They are spied by Liessa Wyrmbidder and her dead father, a wizard who is keen to get his hands on Luggage. Liessa wishes to break the deadlock on the throne to Wyrmberg, a throne that would have been hers, had she been born a man. She only needs a man to be the figurehead so she can rule, and she thinks Hrun might be it. She saddles up her dragon to hunt them down.

Hrun tries to fight the dragons head on, while Twoflower is distracted because he desperately wants to see one, leaving Rincewind to attempt at fleeing. He is knocked out, and when he comes to, he finds a semi-transparent dragon and a mostly naked man standing watch. He escapes and come across Kring the sword in the forest. He means to flee with Kring, but the sword wants to rescue their compatriots and resolves to teach Rincewind about being a hero. They hold up the dragon rider K!sdra and his steed, and force them to take them both to Wyrmberg. Once there, Lio!rt Dragonlord assumes that Rincewind is a hero who means to challenge him in combat. They both have magic swords and engage in a duel. As they are fighting, Death appears, and Rincewind starts trying a little harder.

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Hrun and Twoflower are in a cell and Liessa barges in. She goes to stab a sleeping Hrun, but he stops her in his sleep and awakens. Liessa explains that Hrun could be of great use to her if he passes three tests—and he’s just passed the first one. The next is to kill her brothers. Twoflower speaks up, so she has him carried off, while Hrun goes to handle his next tasks. Stuck in his cell, Twoflower thinks of how badly he wanted to see dragons, and accidentally summons one into his cell, creating the dragon from his thoughts. It is willing to do his bidding, and helps him escape the cell and continue out. He names the dragon Ninereeds, and as they move through Wyrmberg, they discover Liessa’s father, Griecha the First. Because he is dead, he is unmoored from time and isn’t certain of the order of things.

Griecha explains to Twoflower that he has the Power, the ability to imagine dragons into being. This is something that Griecha himself once did, but his daughter isn’t as skilled with the Power because she doesn’t really believe in dragons (though his sons are far worse). She poisoned him three months back—which is normally how it goes for their line of succession—but he refuses to leave until only one of his three children remains. He tells Twoflower to go rescue his friend Rincewind from one of his sons. Rincewind is in the process of falling to his death and almost gets his entire spell out before being caught up by Twoflower and Ninereeds. In the meantime, Liessa sets Hrun to challenge her bothers, Lio!rt and Liartes, but they choose dragons as their weapons, ruining the gambit for Hrun. He still manages to knock both of them out, but he refuses to kill them when they’re unconscious, so Liessa resolves to banish them. Hrun then must undergo the third test, which is the sleep with Liessa, but he’s snatched away by Twoflower and Rincewind trying to rescue him.

Death appears to take Griecha. Ninereeds travels higher and higher until there is no more atmosphere and they all fall unconscious, which causes Ninereeds to disappear. Liessa catches Hrun on her dragon. Twoflower won’t wake up, so Rincewind tries to imagine a dragon himself, but Death reminds him that he can’t manage it—he doesn’t believe in them. He ends up manifesting a passenger jet instead, or rather, appearing in a passenger jet on another plane of existence that he has always existed on, as a fellow named Dr. Rjinswand. Luggage appears on the plane and breaks the reality, causing them to shift a few hundred miles away and fall into the Circle Sea. They later use Luggage as a raft.

Book Club Chat

Okay, so this section is obviously a parody of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern, specifically Dragonflight (which, similar to this book, is basically several novellas pasted together into the novel). And that tickles me for one particular reason: the Pern novels are well-known for being very sexy fare, which is the complete opposite of Pratchett’s M.O. In fact, I seem to recall reading an interview with Pratchett once where he chuckled over the fact that he’d never written a graphic sex scene in the entirety of his work, and then wondered if he’d ever end up taking a crack at it. To my knowledge, he never did. And that’s fine, of course—that sort of writing isn’t going to be everyone’s cuppa, and it’s not as though Pratchett ever pretends that sex doesn’t exist in his books. He’s just not interested in depicting it.

But the Pern books are very, very interested in telling you about sex and how people (and dragons) have it, so having this parody show up is extra funny, particularly within the parameters of a first novel. Coming directly after the Lovecraft parody, I appreciate the fact that Pratchett chose to move to a pastiche of a well-known female author, even if the Pern books have never quite been my thing personally. His description of Liessa—which seems like he’s just taking the protagonist name, Lessa, and putting a “lie” into it—feels a bit like he’s poking fun at the “special girl” trope (her hair is red flecked with gold and she’s super hot!), but she is still written as a person with agency, who has clear goals and desires. Plus royal drama that’s centered around needing to off your family members is always good for a laugh. See: Stardust, et al.

My favorite aspect of this is the fact that Liessa frames sleeping with her as the third “test” for Hrun—point being that if he’s not up to snuff, she can still get rid of the guy because she’s smart like that. (They are both equally cutthroat about this arrangement, which is part of why it works.) The Pern books could get a little squicky on that front, at least in hindsight, so giving us a scenario in which Liessa actually has control, and isn’t influenced by a dragon (or anything else), and he’s completely game, is a welcome change up to my mind.

The whole bit explaining how everything is upside-down in Wyrmberg is just… for some reason I cannot get my head around the descriptions, which I’m aware is my own brain’s problem. The visual is still excellent, so I can’t figure out why my brain reads those words and kind of ‘nope’s away from them. It’s strange because I usually only come across this problem with horror books, not with fantasy descriptions? Go figure.

Outside of the parody, this is a great little section to watch Rincewind get roped into yet more things that he wants nothing to do with. His particular brand of cowardice is great because it’s completely understandable cowardice—he’s not without bravery, he just hits a limit and then decides that if people aren’t going to listen to him, he might as well save himself. You can’t really argue with the logic because he does his due diligence. Unfortunately, he’s spending his time with a guy who does big heroing for a living, and the world’s most clueless traveler.

I appreciate this section a great deal because it’s the first time within the story that Twoflower actually proves his usefulness. Up until now, it’s all been about his haplessness and his relative misunderstandings, and needing to be rescued by all and sundry, but we finally get a measure of his strengths… and pointedly, they are tied to imagination. In many ways, it’s sort of lovely that the Disc’s resident “tourist” has such an impressive knack for that because it is, often, what prompts people to travel, isn’t it? We imagine what other places are like, and we want to experience them up close.

But more importantly, I’m a great big sucker for the trope of Believing In Magic Is Itself A Form of Magic. Which is exactly what we have here—Twoflower believes in dragons, and that’s the reason he can manifest one. That belief gives him power, and that’s beautiful because it is one of the only truly layman types of magic, when you get right down to it. It’s an equalizer than has nothing to do with station or skill or even learning.

Rincewind, on the other hand, manifests something truly ordinary by our own standards—a world that is, or is similar to, our own. It speaks again to his desire for rationality, science, logic, things that make sense. It also speaks to his innate sense of the world, which doesn’t really waver. People often believe that good stories require massive loads of character development, and often they do. (I myself am partial to stories that contain boatloads of character development.) But it takes a special kind of skill to tell a story about characters who don’t really change, and still remain interesting. Pratchett has told stories about both types over the course of his career, but often his characters who shine the most are the ones who don’t really change overmuch. Their stickiness is what makes them interesting.

Asides and little thoughts:

• We learn that Death is coming to get Rincewind because Death comes for wizards—your average folk, Death sends his subordinates for.
• The detail about the dragons getting more real the closer you get to Wyrmberg is so satisfying.
• Rincewind’s fear of heights is… ugh, it me. Twoflower’s point about the distance you fall not making much difference is darned sensible, but that’s not really what a fear of heights is about.
• In calling his dragon Ninereeds, we find that naming conventions for Twoflower’s people, which is charming as all get out.

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: The Colour of Magic, Part III appeared first on Reactor.

Then you should be all set to move on, and think a bit about “The Sending of Eight”.

Summary

The prologue of this section is concerned with the gods of Discworld, who have a more interesting lot than gods of planets made with “less imagination but more mechanical aptitude”. At the Hub of the Disc, at the top of a high mountain, the Disc gods are currently sitting about and playing a board game that takes place on a carved map of the world. It is being played by Blind Io, Offler the Crocodile, Zephyrus the god of slight breezes, Fate, and the Lady. (Chance and Night are already out.) The Lady is assumed to be next to go, but there’s an interference in her dice roll. Blind Io gripes about playing fairly.

Rincewind and Twoflower are making their way down the road to Chirm as the wizard learns more words from Twoflower’s language, and Twoflower conversely learns that magic requires too much memorization. This is because when magic was tamed by the Olden Ones, they required it to respond to the Law of Conservation of Reality, which means that magic must operate using the same amount of effort that it would take to perform a task using physical means. Rincewind explains that he thinks the world ought to be more organized than all that, which Twoflower claims is fantasy. The wizard hears a sound and there’s a slight breeze, and suddenly a mountain troll is standing before them. Rincewind chucks his sword at it, which suddenly bounces off a boulder and sticks into the troll’s back, kicking it. The horses get spooked, sending Twoflower off into the woods. He comes across a stone with a spider-or-octopus carved on it, and words (that he can somehow understand) letting him know of the temple of Bel-Shamharoth is only a thousand paces away. He heads in that direction.

Rincewind finds himself at the mercy of all the animals Twoflower’s horse managed to irritate, and is hiding in a tree with a poisonous snake and Death, who would prefer it if the wizard finally gave up. He is saved by the appearance of a hornet’s next and a dryad, who prevents him from falling to his doom. (Back in the game of the gods, there are only two players left—the Lady and Fate, who has brought forward a figure of great terror with many suckers and tentacles.) Rincewind finds himself inside the tree with the dryad Druellae, who informs him of where Twoflower has gotten off to. Rincewind knows of Bel-Shamharoth—the Soul Eater—and Druellae insists that he come with her to watch his friend’s fate; he is her prisoner and will die shortly after. Rincewind had believed the dryads died out with the coming of humans to Discworld, but there are many in this tree, and they use magic to create a projection of what is happening to Twoflower.

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Twoflower arrives at the temple, and there is another horse. The other fellow at the temple is Hrun the Barbarian, one of the Disc’s greatest heroes. He arrived there because the Luggage lured him to the temple, and he is currently having a tiff with Kring, the sword he recently stole for his own. Rincewind decides to try and make a break for it, but he’s caught by the dryads and Druellae demands that he prove he is a true wizard by showing that he knows even a simple spell. The only spell Rincewind knows leaps to mind, and he tells her to read his mind as she did before and see it. She does, and it sends her into a panic, telling the other dryads to take him out of the tree and kill him. Rincewind vanishes from the tree and appears where Twoflower is inside the temple, warning the tourist not to say the number eight out loud if he wants to get out alive.

Rincewind then explains to Twoflower the incident that got him kicked out of the Unseen University, reading a spell from a grimoire once owned by the Creator of the Universe. (Magic books leak magic unless they’re properly contained, and this book was contained quite well, but he broke in to read it.) This spell vanished from the book and will only be known when he uses it, or once he dies. Twoflower seems to think they’ll be fine if they can just meet Bel-Shamharoth and explain what they’re doing there. The Luggage shows up, followed by Hrun, and Rincewind tells the hero not to say the number eight—but Kring says it anyway.

They’re all about to die and a great roving eye is on them, but Rincewind picks up Twoflower’s camera and the “flash” goes off, prompting Bel-Shamharoth to retreat into the depths. It turns out that the flash was a box of salamanders, which live off the octarine wavelength of light. Hrun tries to pry up the altar to look for treasure as Rincewind realizes that the temple is starting to come down around them—Time has finally come to show its affects on the temple all at once, having staying away for millennia. Hrun calls his horse, and Twoflower and Rincewind hitch a ride out of the temple while the Luggage runs out behind them. Twoflower wants Hrun to accompany them to Chirm to see that they arrive safely, but Rincewind knows the hero can’t be trusted… until he comes up with the plan to keep Hrun on the hook by claiming that only they can work the “magic box” that gives Hrun pictures of himself.

The Lady wins the board game.

Death watches Rincewind get away yet again, and can’t figure out what it is about the wizard that irks him so.

Book Club Chat

This section is obviously taking a lot of inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft and also from Dungeons and Dragons gameplay, which brings me to a question that might ruffle people a bit—do we think that Pratchett brought both of the elements to bear in his first book because he really loved them, or because he kind of wanted to get them out of the way? Or maybe some aspect of both these factors?

Pratchett is an extremely knowledgeable writer who loves his homages, but there’s something particularly bemusing about taking one of  fantasy’s most well-known authors and a game that was getting hugely popular by the 80s (when this was published), and just shoving them into a section of the first Discworld book. It’s hard not to imagine Pratchett thinking, oh good, I can get this out of the way now. Lovecraft isn’t really tonally matched to what Pratchett does overall, but everyone loves a great big tentacle monster and the temples built around them.

I remember being utterly puzzled by this section when I first read it, outside the conceit of the gameplay, which I genuinely loved—and I should add that I wasn’t a D&D player at the time, so that wasn’t the appeal. There’s a lot of great tension built into it, particularly because Pratchett is great at writing big unknowable things and pairing them down into terms that you can actually hold onto. The image of Fate’s eyes, the Lady being favored to be the next play out and taking the whole game, the fact that Blind Io has eyes everywhere, it’s all packed with these delicious images. (Hang on, I definitely wrote a short story about gods playing chess in college, I’m pretty sure I was homaging him without even thinking of it. Yeah, that’s kinda making my day right now. Thanks, Sir Terry.)

Rincewind getting captured by the dryads is a such a creepy little side quest. The dryads are a fun creature to fixate on here because they’re assumed female, and in creating a male version, Pratchett gets to play on that presumption. In most other aspects of fantasy (as in life), female is an addendum to a presumed baseline: she-devil, she-wolf, Entwives, satyress, and so on. In this case, with dryads presumed to be female, it is the appearance of male dryads that gets called out—so we get he-dryads. It’s also fun because they’re just big muscly tree dudes, while the dryads seem to be the ones in charge of the place and the magic overall.

Of course, there’s a major juxtaposition between old magic and current magic in this section. Rincewind had assumed that dryads died out, but they’re clearly alive and well and still hanging about. Their magic is elemental and tied to the earth, as opposed to average Disc magic, which is all tied up in learning and tedious complexities. Which is just another way of saying that people don’t get shortcuts—everything that we do still requires an output of effort relative to the task. Rowling tried to suggest this in the Potterverse and its version of magic, but never managed to explain it in a way that made much sense, but Pratchett manages to do so in a few sentences. It takes him no time at all to establish that magic isn’t a fun workaround, and when Rincewind complains that there isn’t more of an order to things, Twoflower’s response is “That’s fantasy.” Ouch.

Consequences are real on the Disc in a way that we don’t normally accept in other fictional universes. It occurred to me that Rincewind reading his spell from that grimoire is incredibly similar to Doctor Strange reading from the forbidden time book in his eponymous MCU film. But as always in Hollywood narratives, Strange is rewarded for his disobedience, becoming master of the Time Stone because he shows an affinity for it. Rincewind gets kicked out of school, and now owns a spell with consequences he cannot anticipate. (It occurs to me that this is also a very American v British dynamic in fiction—American narratives prize individuality and ignoring authority in practically every scenario, whereas British narratives are less enamored of the concept.)

But there are still things that don’t add up. Like Death wondering how this failed wizard keeps avoiding his appointments with him. The world can’t be free of irritants, after all.

Asides and little thoughts:

• The continued preoccupation with the camera—it’s affect on people, how it works—is so clever. People got so angry at the proliferation of cameras in phones and the advent of selfies that they forgot that we’ve always been this enamored of taking pictures of ourselves.
• I want a box of magical pink salamanders.
• Time suddenly rushing through and making its mark on the temple all at once is one of my favorite visuals in any fantasy novel.

Emmet Asher-Perrin would like to note that their favorite number has always been eight. You can bug them on Twitter, and read more of their work here and elsewhere.

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Summary

The Prologue describes the physical nature of Discworld, which rides on the back of the turtle the Great A’Tuin, balanced on top of four elephants.

A barbarian and a thief, Bravd and Weasel, are watching the city of Ankh-Morpork burn in a great fire, trying to decide what set it ablaze. Eventually, a man appears on the path out of the city, riding a horse—this man is Rincewind the wizard, and with him is a man named Twoflower and a luggage case that walks on hundreds of small feet. Rincewind agrees to tell the duo how they came to be in this position if they agree to share their food and wine:

Twoflower—an insurance clerk—arrives in Ankh-Morpork on a ship with The Luggage in tow, a special suitcase made of sapient pear-wood. He came from the counterweight continent, toting an obscene amount of gold and a phrasebook of his own making, and has Blind Hugh lead him to lodging at the Broken Drum. There, he meets Rincewind, who is one of the only people who can understand the language he speaks. Twoflower asks Rincewind to be his guide through the city, and the wizard agrees in exchange for a hefty sum of gold (that Twoflower does not realize is an overpayment).

Thinking of running off with a new horse and a lot of gold, Rincewind is instead captured by the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, who explains that he is in contact with the Emperor of the other continent, and that he needs Rincewind to look after Twolfower. The two tour the city together with Twoflower’s small black box that makes “iconographs”, and the fellow eventually gets kidnapped by thieves Ymor and his right-hand Withel. At the same time, the Patrician of the city is informed by another powerful head of state on the counterweight continent that they would prefer Twoflower was killed rather than making his way back home and filling other denizen’s heads with dissatisfaction after seeing the big city. The Patrician sends the Assassin’s Guild after Twoflower.

There is a fight that breaks out where Twoflower is being held, between the thieves, the Assassin’s Guild, and the newly formed Guild of Merchants and Traders who mean to protect tourism in the city. Rincewind considers leaving Twoflower behind, but The Luggage (and the imp painting the pictures in Twolfower’s camera) won’t allow it. On his way back to find the man, Rincewind runs into Death, who was expecting to meet him tonight (though 500 miles away). The wizard arrives at the Broken Drum with The Luggage, hurling gold grenades in a rescue attempt. A huge brawl is underway, and Broadman, the owner of the tavern who recently bought a fire insurance plan from Twoflower, sets about trying to collect his insurance money by setting the place on fire—Death gives him a hand.

Rincewind is confronted by Withel right as the tavern explodes, allowing Twoflower to get the drop on the thief with his own sword. Withel is knocked out by Rincewind, and the wizard grabs the tourist so they can flee. Twoflower still does not understand that he had been kidnapped at all, as he can’t understand their language. They buy horses in a hurry and rush out of the city as it is consumed by flame, and The Luggage manages to find its own way out. Bravd and the Weasel leave them to it, and head to the city—Weasel steals Twoflower’s pocket watch, but chucks it when the time-telling demon inside proves less than good company.

Book Club Chat

Okay, it’s time to talk favorite prologues in fantasy literature because I’m very picky about those, and this is one of my favorites.

A lot of people love them no matter what and get annoyed when you admit to not being generally “pro-prologue” (I know the one in The Wheel of Time is a big deal! I promise I know!), but I stand by my pickiness. Most prologues are pointless or oddly indulgent or cannot be appreciated until you’ve read a lot more of the story, but this one is perfect. Gorgeously written, imparts important information, introduces you to how this fictional universe works. It’s also not too long. It makes sense as a prologue because it’s not relevant to the rest of the story except as a macro setup. And the fact that these are the first words about Discworld that ever appeared in the world is fitting.

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The book begins with Bravd and Weasel, who are riffs on Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser. If you’re not familiar with Leiber’s work or these two characters in particular, he started writing them in the late 1930s and kept on writing them for the next 50 years. Leiber’s goal was to create a set of fantasy heroes who seemed more like normal human beings, instead of the larger than life figures of Conan and Tarzan, who were popular at the time. Fafhrd and Gray Mouser were based off of himself and a friend, a giant barbarian and a diminutive thief who spent their time drinking and brawling and going on great adventures. They were, essentially, heroes for hire.

Now, Pratchett is a smart guy with a lot of ingrained knowledge about fantasy, so it’s hardly surprising to see an homage of this nature in his work, even right from the beginning. But it’s a very particular homage as well, when you get right down to it—he’s letting us know what sort of characters he values. Normal people, working stiffs, none of that “chosen special cookie destiny” nonsense. Everything in this book reiterates those terms to us. Ankh-Morpork is a city, a city is full of average people just going about their lives. His characters are exceptional because exceptional things happen to them.

He even has a dig at the concept of heroes within the book’s first few dozen pages, Rincewind thinking of the strange abundance of drunk, gloomy men with giant swords that futz about with the astral plane. Discworld doesn’t put much stock in heroes. They have a place in the way of things, but that doesn’t make them better or more interesting than anyone else.

When I first read this book, I was younger, too young to fully appreciate Rincewind as a protagonist. Now that I’m older, I can see the error in that—when we’re small, we’re all about heroes. We’re taught that good stories are about uber-beings doing big deeds. As a very young child I didn’t feel that way, but that idea had crept in by the time I got my hands on this book. It didn’t make sense to me. But today? This quote messed with me on a fundamental level:

“But frankly,” [Rincewind] sighed, “no spells are much good. It takes three months to commit even a simple one to memory, and then once you’ve used it, poof! it’s gone. That’s what’s so stupid about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you’re so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half blind from reading old grimoires that you can’t remember what happens next.”

Just replace “magic” and “spells” with… anything? In life? The tragedy of being human is that our brains our incredible and complex and lovely, but also fallible and tired and made of meat. Rincewind is right, it’s not much good, any of it. The further you get in life, the easier it is to empathize with his point of view because you’ve experienced these phenomena for yourself. Rincewind was expelled from wizard school for learning one spell, and he doesn’t dare use it because he’s not even sure what the darned thing does. Conversely, there was a kid at my junior high who got suspended for writing a poem that the teachers thought included a metaphor for gay sex. A metaphor. At the time, none of the kids were even sure if the metaphor was intentional. So yeah, Rincewind’s lot rings pretty true.

And then there’s another aspect that I missed the first time around: In a world like ours, where we’re constantly wishing for magical solutions to our problems, here is Rincewind, a failed wizard who just wishes for science and reasoning. He keeps looking at Twoflower’s gadgets and hoping that there’s a mechanical principle behind them. He wants to harness lightning. He wants rationality and logic, he wants things to make sense. Unfortunately, the world that he lives in isn’t much suited to that desire.

But at least we got in a good joke about economics, right?

Asides and little thoughts:

• I love The Luggage. That is all.
• The way Pratchett handles language in this, particularly Rincewind’s ear for them, and how he details the involved descriptors in the language Twoflower is using, is a real treat throughout. (“Rincewind switched to High Borogravian, to Vanglemesht, Sumtri and even Black Oroogu, the language with no nouns and only one adjective, which is obscene.”)
• The fact that we’re introduced to Death so early on is just… ugh, it’s so good. Especially knowing what we’ll get later on.
• Do we want a favorite quotes section in this? There are so many distinct turns of phrase that I want to frame or embroider on throw pillows. Maybe a section for Pratchettisms?

Emmet Asher-Perrin wishes their dog was a helpful as The Luggage, but he’s quite content to be otherwise. You can bug them on Twitter, and read more of their work here and elsewhere.

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: The Colour of Magic, Part I appeared first on Reactor.

A lot of us are exhausted, the truth often seems to pass people right by, and we could all use something comforting, I think. So here’s a little corner of the internet where we can perhaps spend some time together and enjoy some very good books.

If you are unfamiliar with the work of Terry Pratchett, I won’t razz you for it because that would be rude. Suffice it to say, he is responsible for the Discworld series and many other enjoyable books and stories besides, the first of which was published in his school’s magazine in 1962 when he was only thirteen years old. He was an only child as well, and wrote about many more only children in his books because he believed they were more interesting. Being an only child myself, I understand this mode of thinking all too well.

He was a journalist as a young man, and an avid believer in reading as education rather than being part to it. He also loved astronomy, though he lacked the mathematical prowess to pursue the career professionally. Eventually, he saw his way toward writing novels, starting with a couple of science fiction tomes, and then working his way over to the concept for Discworld with the release of 1983’s The Colour of Magic. By 1987, he was a full-time author.

Pratchett was not overly-precious about his career as a writer; when receiving a knighthood for services to literature in 2009, he said, “I suspect the ‘services to literature’ consisted of refraining from trying to write any. Still, I cannot help feeling mightily chuffed about it.” He was a master of satire, of humor, and of fantasy and science fiction tropes. He was also a defender of fantasy literature, insisting upon its place in the literary pantheon as “the oldest form of fiction.”

We lost Sir Terry in 2015 to Alzheimer’s Disease, and the world misses him to this day. We will never know the stories we have lost without him tapping away, and that’s how he wanted it—he insisted on having his computer hard drive steamrollered after his death, assuring that no one could take his unedited work and try to stuff it into pages as some sort of “lost manuscript.” What we have is all we’ll likely ever get.

How Does This Thing Work?

You’re probably wondering why we’re not calling this The Great Pratchett Reread, or something like that.

I have read some of Pratchett’s work, but not all of it. (Because there’s, you know… a lot of it. My completist impulses utterly failed me here.) In addition, much of what I read was years and years ago—and my memory gets wobblier by the minute in this media-saturated world we live in. So this isn’t a reread! More of a guided book club. A place to come and appreciate the work of a great author who knew how to make sense of senseless things. Or at least knew how to think through what baffled and frightened us all, and pare it down to something a little easier to understand.

He wrote three other novels before starting Discworld, but I’m going to start with that series anyhow. If we want to come back to those three books at some point, we can always do that, and I think they might be more fun to read in retrospect—the science fiction ones in particular, The Dark Side of the Sun and Strata introduced concepts that Pratchett used in Discworld. The first, The Carpet People, was a comedic fantasy that Pratchett would later rewrite in the 90s (which is fair, I would probably rewrite most of the stuff I wrote in my early twenties, too).

So we’ll begin with The Colour of Magic, the very first Disc book—and the second Pratchett novel I ever read. (The first was Good Omens, if you’re curious.) We’ll split it up by its very helpful sections, starting with the eponymous part one. My plan is to just run through Discworld by publication order, but we might pause for other books, or do something else entirely. Who can say?

So let’s have a go and see where we end up! Hopefully, we’ll have a lot of fun along the way.

Come back this Thursday, June 18th, for Part I of The Colour of Magic.

Emmet Asher-Perrin had to grab an e-copy of the book because all of their books are still in storage due to The Great Bedbug Infestation of 2019, so that’s been odd. You can bug them on Twitter, and read more of their work here and elsewhere.

The post Introducing the Terry Pratchett Book Club! appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

Moist makes it to Sto Lat on Boris in record time, names the first clerk he stumbles on in their town hall an acting postmaster, and explains how to collect money for stamps on mail going back to Ankh-Morpork. The mayor tells him that they’ve taken back their clacks messages, since the system isn’t working properly at all these days, and they’ll be going as letters to Ankh-Morpork. Moist gets a cold bath and a new horse and gets back to the city by afternoon with another full bag of mail. Groat has pulled on a lot of old staff to keep things running, including Miss Maccalariat, who insists that the golem who cleans the ladies’ facilities must be a lady despite that not being possible. Moist gets news from Stanley (whom he names head of the Stamp Department) about when and where Miss Dearheart expects their date to take place and gets a letter from “The Smoking Gnu.” Mr. Gryle meets with Reacher Gilt to discuss what he’s found on Moist, which is not much. Gilt thinks that he needs to be dealt with, so Gryle plans to set the Post Office on fire that night. Moist heads out to talk to the coachmen and force them to resume their work for the Post Office. They tell him that the Grand Trunk had just offered to buy them out for too much money, and decide to help him because they hate the Grand Trunk.

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A Season of Monstrous Conceptions

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Moist learns about the Hour of the Dead, when they used to do maintenance on the clacks, being the time when men most often died while freeing shutters by hand, and hears all the stories the coachmen hear from the clacksmen. He heads to the start of his date with Miss Dearheart at the Mended Drum, who knows that Moist didn’t manage to get a reservation at the fancy restaurant she requested by honest means (he forged a note from Reacher Gilt, in fact), and warns him about crossing Gilt; her father was the one who created the Grand Trunk, and her brother meant to start a new and better one once Gilt and his crew wrested it away from her family, but her brother was clearly murdered by them and her father has slipped into depression, and she worries that Moist might also get himself killed. Stanley is sorting through stamps when he hears an ancient scream; Mr. Gryle is in the Post Office. Moist and Adora Belle go to the fancy restaurant when Reacher Gilt comes in. He goes to their table and shakes hands with Moist, who recognizes him instantly as a truly great conman. Then Moist feels that the Post Office is on fire and rushes back. He heads into the building and finds Stanley and Groat, helping them both outside.

Moist goes back in for Tiddles. He means to get his conman box, but winds up taking the golden suit and following Tiddles into the cellar. There, he runs across Mr. Gryle, who turns out to be a banshee. When Gryle attacks, Moist throws him into the Sorting Engine, grabs Tiddles and the suit, and walks out to find Mr. Pump searching for him. Anghammarad dies in an explosion during the fire. Moist knows that this was Gilt and that he was meant to die in the fire, but that he’ll never prove it. He gets a band to start up and asks Miss Deartheart if she’ll dance with him and if he can give her the nickname Spike. She agrees, and he insists that he’ll get the Post Office rebuilt with “help from the gods” and bankrupt Gilt by the end of the week… somehow. The next morning he goes to several churches with letters for gods and requests for money to rebuild the Post Office. He gets things up and running again and plans to run a mail coach to Pseudopolis per the Smoking Gnu’s tip about the clacks being down there. Then he goes outside… and is later brought to Vetinari’s office for instigating a riot at the Grand Trunk (because they wouldn’t give people their messages back), and because he apparently dropped to his knees and got a message from several gods that led him to a ton of money buried in the woods.

The churches who were asked for aid want a tithe, so Vetinari advises Moist to split one tithe between the churches, and use the rest of the money to rebuild the Post Office. Moist heads to the hospital where Groat is staying and is told by the nurse that he can’t leave… but Dr. Lawn is only too happy to get rid of him. Reacher Gilt has a meeting with his group to discuss the future of Grand Trunk with their engineer Mr. Pony, who tells them that in order to get the place working, he needs two hundred thousand dollars and nine months of shutdown. Gilt convinces the group to get more money any way they can, Pony to work with practically nothing and keep the place running for another year, and goes to make a statement to the Times about the company’s renewed commitment to fixing the clacks. Moist sees the paper the next day and how well Gilt has twisted words into meaning without meaning that he goes into a cursing rage. He tells Adora Belle that Gilt is going to get away with it, and she tells him about how she was fired from her last job at a bank in Sto Lat because she’d accepted four fraudulent cash drafts… ones that Moist realizes he made. She doesn’t want the house to win this game, and neither does he. So he has an idea to wipe the smile off Gilt’s face.

Commentary

By this point in the book, we have deep parallels building between Moist and Gilt because the narrative is very clear on the point that your average wildly wealthy businessman is the exact same thing as a conman. In fact, they are worse because they perform the same con on a much larger scale. And, more to the point, Moist is completely undone by the revelation that he has hurt even one decent person through his actions. Conversely, Reacher Gilt has no empathy or care for any other living being.

It’s a horse pill’s worth of irony to swallow of late, but this is the line that makes me wanna access some sort of berserker mode within: “He told them what he was, and they laughed and loved him for it.” Folks love to use that adage—believe people when they tell you who they are—as though no one gets it. When the horrifying fact of the matter is that plenty of them do. They just hope they won’t be a person who gets caught in the blast radius if things don’t work out as planned. Ask Rudy Giuliani, standing in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

Of course, at present there’s another person who Reacher Gilt smacks of, particularly once you get to Adora Belle’s explanation of what happened to her family. You know. That guy who bought Twitter and changed its name and is currently spending heaps of time and money making it unusable. “They’ll run it into the ground and make more money by selling it,” Miss Dearheart tells Moist because that is, in fact, another part of the game.

And it sounds so obviously and egregiously amoral that it makes more sense to believe that it’s impossible. The system couldn’t work that way. And that helps the Reacher Gilts of the world get away with it, too.

But maybe not this time. Because this is the Discworld, and these are stories meant to encourage us, rather than bludgeon us. Give us a little hope. The thing that Moist and Gilt turn down their nose at, but Adora Belle Dearheart insists is needed.

Back to the start of the section and Moist’s race to Sto Lat: The thing that’s wild about the post traveling so fast is remembering that it does genuinely work that way, and did so even better in the past when it was our primary means of communication over distances (and before many public postal systems went through decades of defunding). There was a time when mail was so quick, you could get a letter to a relative who lived a hundred miles away in no time. After horses there were trains, and they were even faster. Of course, so much communication is instantaneous these days, but part of me wants the experience of awaiting letters. Granted, I’m one of those folks who largely hates talking on the phone…

I do have some questions over the choice to make the banshee a man, insofar as it seems to me that the only reasons to do it are that a) it’s unexpected and b) banshees within mythology are commonly tied to women and family. It’s one of those places where I’m not sure it’s as interesting as Pratchett’s usual refits. After all, Vetinari is currently playing long-distance boardgames with his teetotaling be-sweatered vampiric not-girlfriend and Angua is maybe the most feared cop in the city (aside from Vimes when he’s on a tear). That’s more fun by a half.

Asides and little thoughts:

• I believe this is the first time we’ve been given a clear indication of exactly how many miles there are between Ankh-Morpork and Sto Lat.

• The whole thing about the teeny/hidden pictures in the stamps is real, of course. It’s used as a measure against counterfeiting, but also as a fun thing for collectors. Sometimes you can only see them with special lenses and so forth.

• Sorry, “Trumpet-and-skittles” is a descriptor for anatomy that really sticks in the mind. It did make me realize that I wasn’t sure where the name of the Skittles candy came from—turns out that it took its name from an old pub game that was the predecessor to bowling. Which I imagine is what Groat is thinking of, but the idea of him thinking of the candy makes the joke much funnier (to me, at least).

Pratchettisms:

He wanted to bite the horizon.

Gryle looked around him with eyes that seemed not at home with the limited vistas of a room.

Ten minutes can change a lot. It was enough to brew two cups of tea thick enough to spread on bread.

After a moment of ancient terror had subsided, Stanley crept over and opened the door.

And that’s when it all went wrong for Mr. Gryle, because Stanley had one of his Little Moments.

“Tiddles!” bellowed Moist. He wished he hadn’t. It was such a stupid name to shout in a burning building.

And after a thought like that is when you realize that however hard you try to look behind you, there’s a behind you, behind you, where you aren’t looking.

But, for now, by the light of the burning yesterdays, he waltzed with Miss Dearheart while the scratch band scratched away.

You had to admire the way perfectly innocent words were mugged, ravished, stripped of all true meaning and decency, and then sent to walk the gutter for Reacher Gilt, although “synergistically” had probably been a whore from the start.

Next week we’ll finish the book!

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: Going Postal, Part III appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

Groat has Stanley run an errand for him. A very drunk Crispin Horsefry shows up at Reacher Gilt’s because he knows Vetinari is having him followed and is worried about the Patrician finding out that they bought the Grand Trunk Company with its own money. He hands over his record book to Gilt for safekeeping, and Gilt has his Igor take Horsefry home and send a message to Mr. Gryle. Moist spots a clacks tower on the Post Office roof and wants to know why they’ve got one and who’s staffed it, so he goes in search of the roof. As he climbs higher, he begins to hallucinate the past, the way the Post Office used to run, and wonders if these sorts of visions aren’t what caused one or two of the previous Postmasters to fall to their deaths. He gets caught in a mail avalanche, finds he can hear the letters, and almost suffocates beneath them. Mr. Pump pulls him out and is unsurprised by what Moist has seen and heard. Stanley shows up to let Moist know that there are men here to see him. Moist gets a bag thrown over his head and is subjected to the Postman Trials, carrying a bag of mail while blindfolded and buffeted by various terrible obstacles.

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Under the Smokestrewn Sky

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Under the Smokestrewn Sky

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By the end, Moist knows he’s about to have his fingers shorn off by a mail slot, so he removes his hood and completes the challenge, but the secret society of Postmen demand a final challenge because Moist is entirely new to their order. Groat slips him a whistle, claiming that he hadn’t expected this. Moist is beset by angry dogs, but in a turn of fate, they happen to be… Lipwigzers. He knows all the commands that they obey and calls the society in to see that he has control of them. The society come back into the room and apologize for putting Moist through the paces, then Mr. Pump enters to let them know that Harry King needs his guard dogs back. (Groat tells Moist that the dogs are definitely not purebreds, to his surprise.) Mr. Pump presents him with the Postman’s Hat, and soon after it’s placed on his head, the letters give Moist a message, telling him to save the Post Office and deliver them. He promises to do so. When Moist wakes the next day he learns that he’s (re)employed the society and Groat to sort the mail, and promised to completely restore the Post Office. He sends them on their rounds, then goes the see the Sorting Engine, which caused the “industrial accident” and cursed the Post Office—it was designed by Bloody Stupid Johnson, of course, and bent space-time. They can’t get rid of it.

Moist talks to Groat about how to change stamps so they can make money off them and won’t be forged so easily. The postmen are coming back grievously injured, so Moist heads to the Golem Trust and asks to hire as many golems as possible to be new postmen. Stanley bring Moist tea and notes that stamps will be money now, giving Moist ideas. Miss Dearheart comes by with a golem named Anghammarad and Moist has him do the postman trials when Groat seems concerned over it, and it turns out that he has been delivering messages for tens of thousands of years—he’s given the rank of Extremely Senior Postman. Miss Dearheart agrees to bring by more and thanks Moist for hiring them. She tells him that she won’t let them work for the Grand Trunk, but she won’t say why. Moist asks her to dinner and she turns him down. He then goes to the engraver to get the stamps made and invents a perforation press on the fly to cut the stamps apart, leaving the patent for it to the engraver (though he does steal from the man and feel bad about it). When he returns, Sacharissa Cripslock is there to ask him about rows breaking out over suddenly delivered mail. Moist tells her about his plans for the Post Office and claims that having his picture taken is against his religion to avoid Otto’s camera.

Sacharissa mentions a wizard named Professor Pelc as someone who knows much about the history of the Post Office, so Moist goes to talk with him. Pelc advises him on the power of words, and how undelivered letters were causing all the problems at the Post Office because they needed to be delivered rather than existing in limbo. Moist asks if he knows what happened to the chandeliers and they consult a dead wizard who tells them that that they went to the Opera House and Assassin’s Guild respectively. Next morning he’s called to Vetinari’s office and learns that his words are headlines in the paper and that there’s a cartoon about stamps and Vetinari’s backside in there too as a result. He expects this is the end, but Vetinari is impressed and pleased—the clacks are down and he can see a queue forming in front of the Post Office. He tells Moist to get on with it, and Drumknott comes in afterward, noting that Mr. Horsefry is dead. Moist comes back to the Post Office and the engraver has his stamps; he tells the line outside that he’ll be delivering express to Sto Lat that morning and asks for a good horse: Mr. Hobson brings him a murderous stallion named Boris, but Moist knows he’s gotta make it look good, so he agrees to ride it. Sacharissa comes to interview him again as he’s about to leave, asking if he’s challenging the Grand Trunk. He insists he’s not and allows them to take a blurry picture of his send off. Before departure, he sees Miss Dearheart in the crowd and asks (shouts) if they can have dinner tonight. She agrees; the camera flashes; Boris is off.

Commentary

The reason con stories are great is because they’re all about a show, but one thing you don’t typically get is a window into their heads. Movies don’t really allow for it, neither does TV, so you miss out on the really fun part: Finding out how much of the con is just making the grandest choice possible on the fly, even when that’s a bad idea. Because conmen are one of the professions that fall under “adrenaline junkies who need constant hits to survive.” There are several other jobs that tend to qualify in fiction and outside of it, but I always think that’s where the meat of it dwells. Moist is bored when he’s not flying by the seat of his pants. (Literally, in the case of Boris.)

There’s an aspect of almost divine interference keeping Moist safe through all this. For example, the Lipwigzers responding to his commands, or the fact that he doesn’t get killed in the mail avalanche. You could say it’s the spirit of the letters, perhaps, but they didn’t protect the other postmasters who came before him. In some ways, the lack of clarity around that feels right because executing confidence games must make a person feel like they’re invincible, or being looked after in some way.

You can’t help but notice that Moist essentially turns himself into the god of the post office in a fit of space-time inspiration from undelivered words. Magic tends to exert itself in wonderfully nonsensical ways in the Discworld, but always with an eye toward what would make a better story. (As Pratchett’s own god of story—Narrativia—intended, I’m sure.) And Moist von Lipwig running around in a golden suit with wings all over it is guaranteed to stick in the public imagination.

Damn, Vetinari is good. This is all his fault, and it’s playing out probably better than he hoped. I figure he views most people like pieces on a chess board, but he has to weigh them to see whether they turn out to be pawns or knights or rooks, etc.

Also, the idea of Moist being scared over that political cartoon when the whole city thought the Patrician was a murder-embezzler a year or so ago, like… kid, he’s fine. It is particularly sweet that this is the only time we’ve ever seen Drumknott (or any of the clerks) offer solace and assurance that Vetinari’s not likely to kill them, though. He must’ve been real worried that Moist would leg it out a high window. But then, Moist is genuinely terrified of Vetinari because he’s one of the few people that the con doesn’t work on. Moist’s ability to fool people is his default state; if you function like that, it must be genuinely terrifying to be around someone who will only allow for the truth. The really true truth.

Where you can find the truth is a very important piece of this book, even outside of Moist’s purview: The mention of the wedding ring on Sacharissa’s finger is the only way you know that things have moved along between her and William, after all… or have they? It’s pointed that it is carefully never confirmed outright anywhere in the Discworld series, but that the suggestion presents itself first in this book. (I’d argue that it’s definitely true just by virtue of the careful omission. Meta-narrative doing what it does best in this case: They don’t go on record, after all. They get other people to do that.)

The romance between Moist and Adora is fun, too, because it’s not Pratchett’s usual given his comically stilted pairings of the past. In this story, the characters aren’t at all unclear about their emotions, or overly concerned about what they mean. Moist’s reaction to Adora Belle Dearheart is basically “oh no, she’s hot,” and he’s right, and her reaction to him is basically “oh no, he’s an adorable idiot” and she’s not entirely wrong, so you know they’ll probably be fine in this particular thing. There’s a wonderful lack of stress around it, is my point.

Asides and little thoughts:

• “It’s just a mailstorm again.” Grumpity grump good puns muttermuttergrumble…

• Sorry, just, Moist says “El Dorado or what?” while looking at his golden suit, and… what’s El Dorado on the Disc? It’s not round world El Dorado, ostensibly, so I demand to know.

• Adora Belle Dearheart hears that Vetinari dyes his hair and I can’t decide what’s funnier—the idea that he doesn’t and folks around him are so mad about it that they contrived the rumor because they can’t stand it, or Havelock Vetinari having a bi-monthly hair dyeing appointment (presumably by the same person who cuts his hair). And if it’s the latter, I also can’t decide what’s funnier—that Vetinari believes that looking younger might aid him in some manner, or that he dyes his hair simply because the grays are throwing off his aesthetic. I lied, the latter is funnier there and absolutely what I believe.

• Another hair color note: Because there’s a His Girl Friday influence to The Truth, I initially imaged Sacharissa to look a lot like Rosalind Russell, meaning that the description here giving her blond hair knocked me right out of the story. Imagined appearances are weird that way.

Pratchettisms:

Look, he said to his imagination, if this is how you’re going to behave, I shan’t bring you again.

The worst part is seeing someone’s head walk through yours. The view is mostly gray, with traces of red and hollow hints of sinus. You would not wish to know about the eyeballs.

Moist tried to scream, but envelopes filled his mouth.

And the golem had even found a mirror. It wasn’t very big, but it was big enough to show Moist that if he was dressed any sharper he’d cut himself as he walked.

They all wore uniforms, although since no two uniforms were exactly alike, they were not, in fact, uniform, and therefore not technically uniforms.

There was no sign of the pickles, the tongs, or the mouse, but in their place was a bucket of clockwork pastry lobsters and a boxed set of novelty glass eyes.

On the inside of the door was a hook, on which the wizard hung his beard.

He’d be believed because it would feel right… because people wanted to believe things, because it’d make a good tale, because if you made it glitter sufficiently glass could appear more like a diamond than a diamond did.

Next week we read Chapters 7A-11!

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: Going Postal, Part II appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

The first prologue details flotillas of the dead, sailing the underwater seas in sunken ships. The second discusses a disease clacksmen get, causing them to step off their towers and fall to their deaths. A linesman is checking one tower’s shutters, and his line is suddenly cut, causing a fatal drop. In Ankh-Morpork, conman Moist von Lipwig (who’s given the name of Alfred Spangler to his executioners) is about the be hanged. He believes he will somehow get out of his hanging, and is very displeased when this does not turn out to be the case. He then wakes is Lord Vetinari’s office—the Patrician, of course, knows who he actually is and has a proposition for him: He can either take on the position of the Ankh-Morpork Postmaster General, or he can leave and never hear from Vetinari again. Moist finds that leaving would lead to a steep and deadly drop below, so he signs the agreement… and promptly skips town. He’s caught up by his parole officer, a golem named Mr. Pump, and taken back to Ankh-Morpork. Vetinari explains that Mr. Pump can follow him anywhere and never sleeps, so it’s best not to attempt escape again. Mr. Pump will pretend to be Moist’s bodyguard to explain why he’s always present.

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The Navigating Fox

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Moist is taken to the Post Office and meets his team: Junior Postman Tolliver Groat, Apprentice Postman Stanley Howley, and Tiddles the ancient cat. Groat is also ancient (and keen on creating his own natural remedies for everything rather than using doctors and medicine), but has never been promoted because no one was around long enough to do so. He is also the only person who know about the history of the post office and how things used to work. Stanley is an odd fellow who knows everything about pins (he edits a magazine about them). Moist finds that the pigeon guano heaps in the lobby are actually covering up heaps of mail. In fact, the entire building is full of mail (everywhere except the basement, where it’s damp). Groat explains how things spiraled this way, but Moist gets the sense that he’s not offering the whole story. He goes to sleep in his apartment in the Post Office… which is also full of undelivered mail. Groat and Stanley keep up the post office Regulations (namely filling inkwells and reading out the rules), and talk of how there are voices in the walls that were responsible for the death of the last Postmaster General.

Moist wakes up and decides that he needs a haircut and a toothbrush and some clothes, so he heads out. He also goes to a specialty pin store with plans on how he’ll handle Groat and Stanley. Then he delivers a letter (forty years late) that he found in his room the night previous. Groat goes to the roof to collect the rent on the pigeon loft, which he started letting out when the city stopped paying them. The trio who rent it are “pigeon fanciers” of some sort that Groat can’t figure out. Moist heads to the Golem Trust to figure out how to handle Mr. Pump and meets Adora Belle Dearheart, who gives him a great deal of information on golems (and distracts Moist because he finds her incredibly attractive). She asks why he’s at the post office and he tells her that he’s the new Postmaster General, which she finds concerning considering what happened to the last one. Vetinari has a meeting with the men involved in the Grand Trunk company: They have made the clacks into a monopoly, and its service is degrading while prices rise. A clacks operator has just died, as well: Mr. Dearheart. Reacher Gilt tells Vetinari this is none of his business; he, in turn, informs them that he’s reopening the Post Office. Vetinari asks Drumknott to put one of their more obvious clerks on Mr. Horsefry, one of the more nervous in the group, to scare him.

Moist goes off at Groat and Stanley for not telling him what happened to the previous Postmasters, and learns that the last one died in a room that is permanently locked—he won’t have the key for it on his big ring of building keys. He gives Stanley the fancy pin and takes Mr. Pump and Groat out to a storefront that clearly stole the letters for their signage from the Post Office front. Moist has a word with the owner, and they get their letters back, plus money to hire a crew to get them back up on their building. They’re then spotted by the man who Moist delivered the letter to—he went to find the woman he’d proposed to and never heard from forty years back. Both of their spouses are dead and they mean to get married; he wants Moist as a guest of honor at their wedding. Moist gives Groat a probationary promotion and tries to find out what else is going on at the Post Office, but gets no useful response. Mr. Pump tells Moist that his way of life does actually hurt people, and that the golem thinks it’s unfortunate that he won’t put his skills to better use. In the clacks towers (which are largely staffed by kids), a girl named Princess gets a message that’s just John Dearheart’s name with the code to send it on, unendingly. She learns this is a way of keeping the dead man’s name alive.

Commentary

If you love a conman, it’s hard not to love Moist straight from jump. It’s also hard not to love Vetinari for so expertly pinning Moist down between the rock and hard place of this job and watching how quickly Moist takes to the gig, even when he’s foundering under the weight of everything he doesn’t know.

What he does know is my favorite rule of the confidence game, being that you can fool folks more easily by acting like you belong somewhere. Behave as though no one should stop you and they likely won’t; make people comfortable and you’re in even better shape. However, it does help that many of the people we’re watching Moist manipulate are some shade of unhinged—you’re less likely to be bothered over him leveraging Stanley’s pin obsession or Groat’s hunger for promotion because they’re both such odd ducks, who are so over-the-top that what Moist is doing to them feels like small beans by comparison to what they’re doing to themselves. Where it might bug the reader, say for folks like Mr. Pump, is immediately dispersed because the golem has his number and isn’t fooled.

Of course, there’s also the Reacher Gilt of it all to consider.

It’s… look, Pratchett died a year before the 2016 presidential election in the States, and that’s still heartbreaking for dozens of reasons. One of the more selfish ones for my part is that we were never able to ask his thoughts about Donald Trump actually managing what Gilt is attempting against Vetinari in this book. Because it’s… freaking real-world wizardry. He could string the pieces together, he sensed the arc that was coming.

Of course, we know it won’t work in his version. Because in so many ways, the Discworld is a more tender version of the world we’ve got. Sure, it’s full up of the same horrible acts, ignorances, inconveniences, and traumas. But while Havelock Vetinari is a tyrant, he’s not an amoral megalomaniac bent on power for nothing but the sake of power. The City Watch is capable of going too far, but most days, Sam Vimes reins it in. Granny Weatherwax won’t let anyone mess you about (unless it’s her doing it, and saving the lives of you and your family in the process). And when you shuffle off the coil, Death might be there to greet you, and he’ll talk to you about cats or make a terrible dad joke.

Because the vantage point we have on this world is a little safer, a little kinder, Reacher Gilt isn’t going to win. Business for the sake of nothing but greed will not triumph. And a conman who is doing small damages—but damages nevertheless—toward the general population will learn that there are better ways of spending his time. But only because we’re here. In the real world, we got something far worse.

This book is going to be tough in places this time around, is what I’m saying.

Asides and little thoughts:

• Oh damn, I didn’t read these in order the first time, I didn’t realize Pratchett turned right around from the child’s balloon metaphor in A Hat Full of Sky and then used it about Moist when he’s about to be hanged, sir, you bastard.

• “Mr. Pump was buying his freedom by seriously limiting the freedom of Moist. A man could get quite upset about that. Surely that wasn’t how freedom was supposed to work?” Ha. Haha. Ahhahaahhaha, it’s fine, it’s all FINE, it’s not exactly how it works at ALL.

• Of course, there’s a footnote in this one seemingly designed to address how Pratchett often uses obesity to denote moral decay, but the examples used in the footnote—being other snap judgments you might make about someone who appears to be a burglar or a judge—don’t really stack in this argument. Namely because the appearances of these people as he’s described them are actually designed to denote what they’re doing. Being fat is not a costume or a uniform. Come on.

• While I hate it, it is clever (and awful, ugh) watching Gilt use the exact same argument for their business model as Vetinari uses on Moist. (Being that you always have a choice, even when the choice is basically nothing at all.) Perils of being a small-t tyrant, I suppose.

• Groat is the type who believes that “natural” things are automatically better for the body, and the narrative is quick to point out that this is not, in fact, how things work. While I’m not remotely advocating for folks to medicate thoughtlessly, it’s so on-point that one of Groat’s poultices is straight-up arsenic, and he thinks nothing of it. Natural stuff can be plenty harmful—you can OD on vitamins, for pete’s sake, it’s not even that hard to do depending on the type.

Pratchettisms:

The man going to be hanged had been named Moist von Lipwig by doting if unwise parents, but he was not going to embarrass the name, insofar as that was still possible, by being hung under it.

Steal five dollars and you were a petty thief. Steal thousands of dollars and you were either a government or a hero.

Moist saw that it had a beard of the short, bristled type, which suggested that its owner had been interrupted halfway through eating a hedgehog.

His right side stood considerably more to attention than his left side, and, as a result of this, he was standing like a banana.

What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

A thinking tyrant, it seemed to Vetinari, had a much harder job than a ruler raised to power by some idiot vote-yourself-rich system like democracy. At least he could tell the people he was their fault.

Moist’s mouth had dropped open. It shut. It opened again. It shut again. You can never find repartee when you need it.

Next week we’ll read Chapters 5-7!

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: Going Postal, Part I appeared first on Reactor.

Summary

Tiffany goes to do Miss Level’s rounds with Mistress Weatherwax and finds the villagers much more inclined to listen to the stories Granny tells them than the truth Miss Level tells them. Granny lets her go and see Mr. Weavall by herself, and when he asks her to check on his burying money, she finds that the Feegle have left gold behind to replace the copper and silver she stole. She tells Mr. Weavall the whole story, and he decides that since he’s rich now, he’ll propose to the Widow Tussy instead of preparing to die. Tiffany decides that she’s going to draw the hiver away into the mountains and Granny insists on coming with her and insists on leaving the Feegles behind, which infuriates them. Tiffany and Granny head into the mountains and stop, settling in amongst boulders. Granny tells Tiffany that shambles are toys—she never uses them because they “got in the way.” Granny borrows an owl and when she comes back in the morning, Tiffany realizes that they’re thinking of the hiver wrong; it won’t come close because it’s got a bit of Tiffany in it, and Tiffany is a little bit scared of Mistress Weatherwax. Petulia arrives; she heard what they were doing and came to check on them. The Witch Trials are today and Granny plans to go.

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Petulia leaves and Mistress Weatherwax insists they get moving to the trials even though Tiffany hasn’t figured out what to do about the hiver. Mistress Weatherwax finally tells Tiffany that she’s normally called Granny by the people who’ve earned it, and that Tiffany is welcome to call her that, but the honorific shocks Tiffany, being the same as her own grandmother’s. Still, she decides that it feels right. They arrive at the trials and Tiffany begins to fear the hiver in this space, even with all the witches. Granny has disappeared and the hiver is coming. She knows that her thought about three wishes is the key, so she starts asking folks what the third wish is, and gets clues: Someone says happiness, Miss Tick says more wishes, and then she finds Granny, who tells her that it’s undoing the harm of the other two wishes. Tiffany realizes that the hiver can’t be evil; it gives people what they want. Granny tells her it’s time to face down the hiver. Rob Anybody lands in the shamble Tiffany is trying to make, and she realizes that it will work now because she needs it too, adding the silver horse to it. The hiver arrives and Tiffany welcomes it, promising it is safe with her. It tells her it is aware of everything all the time, and that it has one wish to put the others right: To die.

Tiffany doesn’t know how to kill it, and Rob won’t leave her side. She realizes that Death must always be close, and thinks of a door. It appears. She takes the hiver (and Rob) through the door to a desert, but the hiver insists it doesn’t know how to die because it doesn’t truly exist—it is only made up of the pieces of everyone it took over. Tiffany tells it a story: that all beings are just that, made up of all the people and histories that create them. She names the hiver Arthur, and tells it to cross the desert to its death. It leaves and Tiffany begins to get sleepy, which Rob forbids. The door she created is gone. Death arrives and explains that you can’t get in the same way you get out, and that she mustn’t fall asleep here. Tiffany thinks she’ll die here, but Granny Weatherwax opens the door, pointing out that the rules Death gave her were never her rules and of course she can get back out. Tiffany comes to and everyone is looking over her. Annagramma tries to pass it all off as her going mad, but no one is listening to her anymore: Granny gave Tiffany her hat. The Trials begin and all the girls want Tiffany to say what she did and bring Granny down a peg. Both Tiffany and Granny refuse to participate, and bow to each other at the conclusion.

Jeannie knows that Rob is coming home and has the clan prepare for his return. A week later Tiffany goes to visit Granny Weatherwax and finds the hive of bees formed into the shape of a witch. They dance together, and Tiffany feels the happiest she’s ever been in her life. Granny invites her into the cottage and Tiffany returns her hat, because she reckons she needs to find her own. Granny tells her that the best hat is a hat you make for yourself. Tiffany points out that doing the whole misadventure at the Trials made it into a show, which Granny confesses was the point—because a little show is good for a witch’s reputation now and again. Granny asks if Tiffany’s grandmother had a hat or coat, and Tiffany tells her not really; Granny says that she made the sky her hat and the wind her coat. She agrees to teach Tiffany one lesson, which is that things don’t matter, but people do. Then she tells Tiffany to drop her horse necklace in the well, but Tiffany refuses. This pleases Granny because “if you don’t know when to be a human being, you don’t know when to be a witch.” Tiffany gives her the cloak she got at Zakzak’s, insisting that it suits her, and Granny says she could come by again sometime. Tiffany begins doing her grandmother’s work and the Chalk has decided that it’s proud to have her as their witch. She gets rid of the gaudy hat from Zakzak’s and makes her hat from sky, as Granny Aching did.

Commentary

It’s hard to put into words the way it feels to watch Tiffany and Esme find one another and come to realize that they’re exactly what the other needs.

Tiffany who needs another grandmother after losing the one who defined her, who misses the person who loved and understood her exactly as she was, who is looking for someone who knows the value of good silence. Esme who was never regretful over eschewing marriage and children, but desperately in need of a successor. Who maybe, in her old age, would like to be a grandmother to someone, provided it’s the right someone.

The heartbreak of Tiffany being good enough and blunt enough to admit that the hiver is staying away from them because it’s holding a piece of her and she’s a little afraid of Mistress Weatherwax. And how there’s nothing overly explicit in the narrative to suggest it, but when you’re familiar with how she puts things, you can tell that Esme appreciates that… but is also a little bit hurt by it. The way the two of them keep tentatively reaching toward each other, continuing to show respect and affection in the only ways they know how, until they come to the realization that they genuinely do meet somewhere in the middle.

Because Esme and Granny Aching are so much alike, really, that it makes sense that they’d both love Tiffany so much. Granny Aching at the Chalk’s yearly sheepdog trials, and how the people would look for the true prize of her approval, while Esme Weatherwax instills that same desire in other witches, that need for even a glimmer of acknowledgment. Both of them fervent defenders of justice, especially for those who cannot help themselves. Both women in favor of simplicity, who know precisely what they enjoy (tobacco, biscuits) and need.

In the end, Tiffany gives Granny something that lets her be just a little bit flash, as she deserves to be (and never willingly allows). Granny gives her a morning of pure joy and magic, dancing with a hive of bees in the shape of a person—and a brief moment where she can see Granny Aching once more. Going through Granny Weatherwax’s attempts to be even a little soft with someone (because she clearly believes that Tiffany deserves that from her) is a priceless thing, too.

There are tacit acknowledgments of the unfairness that life brings in its wake throughout this conclusion, a different manner of “practicing gratitude” if you will. When Tiffany goes home, the Chalk is happy to have their own witch, as she is Granny Aching’s grandchild. It’s modern times, don’t ya know. But it’s impossible to forget that these are the same people who burned down the house of a harmless old woman and let her die for being a “witch” just a few years ago. Then, when Tiffany notes that it wasn’t fair for her to get off scot-free after stealing from Mr. Weavall, Granny Weatherwax’s reply is essentially—life is hard; appreciate when your friends make it easier. It’s worth noting that Tiffany has such spectacular friends by virtue of being an exceptional person in her own right, but that doesn’t really change the nature of this advice. These things aren’t fair, but appreciate them all the same because your suffering needlessly doesn’t fix the problem.

And then there’s Mr. Weavall. Whose story is ultimately a testament to the fact that poverty kills, even in the mildest sense, as the ultimate unfairness: Here is a man waiting to die, so terrified at the thought of being a burden that he spends his only cogent moments each day checking on his savings to make sure he can be buried without fuss. The instant that his financial circumstances change, his desire to live returns—along with the cognitive faculties he’d been allowing to wither. He knew his family was gone, but why dwell in that reality when you have nothing to look forward to but a bare box in a ground. Money changes all of that, giving him the means to look after another and gain her companionship, as well as the ability to buy aids that might make aging a little easier. And again we must note—this is unfair because everyone doesn’t get the same in their old age. But thank goodness Mr. Weavall gets to have it.

And lucky again that the death of Miss Level’s other body ultimately leads to bettered circumstances for her. That could have been a horrifically tragic story were it not for the sharp application of Granny’s headology and pure fortune. Many of the happy endings in this story are full of sorrow when looked at sideways—the hiver being the pinnacle of it all. And all so that Tiffany can learn that her job will sometimes be to help other beings find their way to Death’s desert.

But then, all goods children’s stories should contain ample mentions of death and its inevitability. It’s an important thing to learn quickly in these all-too-brief lives of ours.

Asides and little thoughts:

• It just occurred to me now that Granny and Vetinari and Vimes can all do the disappearing into the shadows thing. Which is making me want a roundtable discussion between the three of them where they describe their rationale behind this ability and (inevitably) argue about it.

• The aside about balloons existing to teach small children not to let go of the string is… bwuh, thinking about that all the time. Never not thinking about that.

• It tickles me extra that Petulia is the one who gets to find her voice and tell Annagramma off, because she’s really the one who needs it more. Petulia is wonderful.

• That nod to Jenny Joseph’s “Warning” prompted me to read the poem again, which is never a bad idea.

Pratchettisms:

Not that many people they dealt with washed their hands at all, Tiffany thought with the primness of a dairy worker.

If Tiffany hadn’t been a witch, she would have whined about everyone being so unfair!

The trees beside the track were less bushy and more pointy—or, if Tiffany had known more about trees, she would have said that the oaks were giving way to evergreens.

There was a snore beside her. It was one of those good solid ones, like ripping canvas.

She strode over the moors as if distance was a personal insult.

Was it true? Maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe it just had to be true enough for Arthur.

At least bones had never frightened Tiffany. They were only chalk that had walked around.

Gossip spreads faster among witches than a bad cold. Witches gossip like starlings.

For a moment, Granny Aching stood there grinning, and then Granny Weatherwax was back. Did she do that, she wondered, or did I do it myself? And do I dare find out?

Next week we begin Going Postal! We’ll read the prologues through Chapter 4.

The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: A Hat Full of Sky, Part III appeared first on Reactor.