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Books: Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
My fanfic reading's been on a downswing lately, but my book reading's been in a corresponding upswing. Coincidence ... I think not. There are only so many hours in the day, after all. *g* And I do mean to post more about the books I'm reading; it's just ... I'm lazy? And getting back to the whole "only so many hours in the day" problem, I'd often rather read a new book than write about one I've already read.
But I just read Monstrous Regiment, and I'm sure that plenty of people on my f'list read Pratchett (because, seriously ... it's Pratchett!), plus it seemed like an interesting book to talk about.
I should preface this by saying that I really loved the book (though of course I don't mind if people disagree with me on that!). I dunno if it's just been long enough since I've read Pratchett that I've gotten over being mildly annoyed by his rhetorical flourishes, but both this and the other Discworld book I've read recently (Wintersmith) were hella fun, and didn't seem to suffer at all for the fact that he's written fifty bajillion of them by now.
SO - Monstrous Regiment - in general, I loved it! I've been generally fascinated by this whole idea ever since reading a book in my early teens on girls in the Civil War armies (of which there were quite a lot) -- not that I wanted to run off and join the army, as a girl or a boy, but it's very interesting to me from a dramatic perspective (and something that one of my own unfinished novels deals with, as well).
I do think the book was pushing credibility pretty far by the end. The first couple of "... but she's really a girl!" reveals were fun, and I like the idea of the mostly-girls regiment and the notion that there are far more of them than anyone realized. However ... almost half the command structure? Really? And nobody but Jackrum (and maybe Froc in a few cases) even noticed? Right. *pauses to re-attach suspended belief*
I think one of the things I love most about Pratchett is that his characters are all flawed and human and all of them are seeing the world through their own particular lens; he's really good at writing characters who are driven by their own obsessions and victims of their blind spots, so that nobody's 100% right or has a perfectly accurate view of how things work. In this book I particularly liked the way that the tensions between Jackrum and Blouse were developed, because neither one of them is demonized and they're both right and wrong in their own way; you go back and forth on which one of them you sympathize with in a given situation.
And, while this is certainly a matter of personal interpretation, I've always thought Pratchett was really good at writing female characters in a medieval-type setting; I really do think he does a nice job, especially for a male author, of recognizing the limitations on women's roles in a pre-industrial society without having these limitations define his characters (if that makes any sense). Of course, this book is all about that, and maybe it was just because I was on board with the points he was making, but I didn't feel excessively hounded by having the author's point of view thrust at me -- the author's viewpoint was fairly obvious, of course, but at least he used the characters to make the point, and he let them be flawed and scared and a bit wishy-washy rather than picking up swords and becoming badass fighting machines.
I honestly loved how that whole situation was handled at the end; some kind of feminist revolution wouldn't have made any sense in terms of human nature or the dramatic integrity of the book, but I liked the way that Polly's no longer hiding, and insisting on recognition and respect for a uniform that was basically given to her as a joke. It's a small step, in a world that used and broke people like Tonker and Lofty and Wazzer, but you can see the gears starting to turn in the characters' heads that it doesn't have to continue this way, just because it always has.
I go back and forth on how I feel about Jackrum being a woman. I did actually love the idea of him (her) continuing to live in civilian life as a man (which is actually what my unfinished girls-joining-the-army novel deals with ... only with a lot more lesbianism), and I like how completely and utterly she doesn't conform to any sort of female stereotypes, but, even aside from the above-mentioned suspension of disbelief (which was well and truly coming unsuspended at that point) I'm not sure how I feel about Jackrum being a woman in terms of the novel as a whole. I guess that it had, up to that point, felt as if the dynamic between Jackrum and the girls drew a lot of its strength from the tensions between Jackrum being part of the old-guard soldiery and yet quietly supportive of the girls' presence in the military. That she's a woman too, and is basically looking out for the girls because they remind her of herself when she was younger ... I dunno; like I said, I'm still working my mind around how I feel about that one.
And then there's Vimes and Angua, et al. As happy as I was to see two of my favorite Ankh-Morpork characters, I think Pratchett, with Vimes, is in some danger of suffering from what I refer to in my head as "the Festina Ramos problem". Festina Ramos is a character in James Alan Gardner's books. I read everything by him that I could find somewhere around the late '90s; I really loved his books, at the time anyway (haven't re-read them; no idea if I'd still find them as appealing as I did 10 years ago). But he's far, far too fond of a character named Festina Ramos, who is perfectly fine and quite likable in the book in which she's a protagonist (as a young woman); the problem is that she keeps coming back, generally cropping up at the climax of his other books to basically pull a deus ex Ramos, turning out to be wiser, smarter and more sympathetic to the main characters' plight than anyone else in the chain of command, and coming up with a solution to their problems. I like Vimes! I don't want to see this happen to Vimes! But he came across just a little bit that way in this book: not a character, but a deus ex machina device who is just that much more awesome than everybody else. I don't think he's quite there yet, but I really hope that he doesn't get there. I like him too much to want to see that happen to him! (Of course, I liked Festina too, in the beginning ...)
Anyone else read this? Thoughts? Agree? Disagree?
But I just read Monstrous Regiment, and I'm sure that plenty of people on my f'list read Pratchett (because, seriously ... it's Pratchett!), plus it seemed like an interesting book to talk about.
I should preface this by saying that I really loved the book (though of course I don't mind if people disagree with me on that!). I dunno if it's just been long enough since I've read Pratchett that I've gotten over being mildly annoyed by his rhetorical flourishes, but both this and the other Discworld book I've read recently (Wintersmith) were hella fun, and didn't seem to suffer at all for the fact that he's written fifty bajillion of them by now.
SO - Monstrous Regiment - in general, I loved it! I've been generally fascinated by this whole idea ever since reading a book in my early teens on girls in the Civil War armies (of which there were quite a lot) -- not that I wanted to run off and join the army, as a girl or a boy, but it's very interesting to me from a dramatic perspective (and something that one of my own unfinished novels deals with, as well).
I do think the book was pushing credibility pretty far by the end. The first couple of "... but she's really a girl!" reveals were fun, and I like the idea of the mostly-girls regiment and the notion that there are far more of them than anyone realized. However ... almost half the command structure? Really? And nobody but Jackrum (and maybe Froc in a few cases) even noticed? Right. *pauses to re-attach suspended belief*
I think one of the things I love most about Pratchett is that his characters are all flawed and human and all of them are seeing the world through their own particular lens; he's really good at writing characters who are driven by their own obsessions and victims of their blind spots, so that nobody's 100% right or has a perfectly accurate view of how things work. In this book I particularly liked the way that the tensions between Jackrum and Blouse were developed, because neither one of them is demonized and they're both right and wrong in their own way; you go back and forth on which one of them you sympathize with in a given situation.
And, while this is certainly a matter of personal interpretation, I've always thought Pratchett was really good at writing female characters in a medieval-type setting; I really do think he does a nice job, especially for a male author, of recognizing the limitations on women's roles in a pre-industrial society without having these limitations define his characters (if that makes any sense). Of course, this book is all about that, and maybe it was just because I was on board with the points he was making, but I didn't feel excessively hounded by having the author's point of view thrust at me -- the author's viewpoint was fairly obvious, of course, but at least he used the characters to make the point, and he let them be flawed and scared and a bit wishy-washy rather than picking up swords and becoming badass fighting machines.
I honestly loved how that whole situation was handled at the end; some kind of feminist revolution wouldn't have made any sense in terms of human nature or the dramatic integrity of the book, but I liked the way that Polly's no longer hiding, and insisting on recognition and respect for a uniform that was basically given to her as a joke. It's a small step, in a world that used and broke people like Tonker and Lofty and Wazzer, but you can see the gears starting to turn in the characters' heads that it doesn't have to continue this way, just because it always has.
I go back and forth on how I feel about Jackrum being a woman. I did actually love the idea of him (her) continuing to live in civilian life as a man (which is actually what my unfinished girls-joining-the-army novel deals with ... only with a lot more lesbianism), and I like how completely and utterly she doesn't conform to any sort of female stereotypes, but, even aside from the above-mentioned suspension of disbelief (which was well and truly coming unsuspended at that point) I'm not sure how I feel about Jackrum being a woman in terms of the novel as a whole. I guess that it had, up to that point, felt as if the dynamic between Jackrum and the girls drew a lot of its strength from the tensions between Jackrum being part of the old-guard soldiery and yet quietly supportive of the girls' presence in the military. That she's a woman too, and is basically looking out for the girls because they remind her of herself when she was younger ... I dunno; like I said, I'm still working my mind around how I feel about that one.
And then there's Vimes and Angua, et al. As happy as I was to see two of my favorite Ankh-Morpork characters, I think Pratchett, with Vimes, is in some danger of suffering from what I refer to in my head as "the Festina Ramos problem". Festina Ramos is a character in James Alan Gardner's books. I read everything by him that I could find somewhere around the late '90s; I really loved his books, at the time anyway (haven't re-read them; no idea if I'd still find them as appealing as I did 10 years ago). But he's far, far too fond of a character named Festina Ramos, who is perfectly fine and quite likable in the book in which she's a protagonist (as a young woman); the problem is that she keeps coming back, generally cropping up at the climax of his other books to basically pull a deus ex Ramos, turning out to be wiser, smarter and more sympathetic to the main characters' plight than anyone else in the chain of command, and coming up with a solution to their problems. I like Vimes! I don't want to see this happen to Vimes! But he came across just a little bit that way in this book: not a character, but a deus ex machina device who is just that much more awesome than everybody else. I don't think he's quite there yet, but I really hope that he doesn't get there. I like him too much to want to see that happen to him! (Of course, I liked Festina too, in the beginning ...)
Anyone else read this? Thoughts? Agree? Disagree?