Terry Pratchett, "Dodger"
Disappointed in Pratchett's Dodger. I feel like non-secondary world stuff is simply not his milieu. He seems to need the secondary world to keep him from going on and on about what research he's done. Leonard of Quirm is funny because he is clearly Leonardo da Vinci, only not. Joseph Bazalgette isn't funny because he's just Bazalgette, possibly with a slightly more humourous nose. There's no surprise of recognition, he's just a guy that existed. Even when it's not quite so on the nose as that, there are still only so many times one character can refer to "Karl, who I met once in Europe and who had such interesting ideas about the working class" before I want to beat everyone involved with the shovel of yes-I-HAVE-heard-of-Marx-thanks.
He appears to have forgotten that everyone finds his footnotes charming because they have jokes, not just because they say "yes, these things really did exist!!!!" We know that London, etc. did exist. We know that people were impoverished and smelly by modern standards. We know that women had a lot of social and legal problems. None of this is news. The book was basically Heyer-level farce plotting pasted over shouting about did you know that ladies and poor people had it difficult in past times and also people didn't bathe as much????? Only Heyer wrote lots of books about women having actual emotions, and this was manpain central.
I might have enjoyed it more if this was actually my first introduction to all of the history, but as it was, it was a disappointment.
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In other news, writing my bigbang sort of proceeds. At the moment, it's mostly self-indulgence about people falling over, and making bad jokes while they make out. We'll see if this actually transforms itself into plot/something readable.
This entry originally posted at http://opusculasedfera.dreamwidth.org/18971.html, comment wherever you please.
He appears to have forgotten that everyone finds his footnotes charming because they have jokes, not just because they say "yes, these things really did exist!!!!" We know that London, etc. did exist. We know that people were impoverished and smelly by modern standards. We know that women had a lot of social and legal problems. None of this is news. The book was basically Heyer-level farce plotting pasted over shouting about did you know that ladies and poor people had it difficult in past times and also people didn't bathe as much????? Only Heyer wrote lots of books about women having actual emotions, and this was manpain central.
I might have enjoyed it more if this was actually my first introduction to all of the history, but as it was, it was a disappointment.
--
In other news, writing my bigbang sort of proceeds. At the moment, it's mostly self-indulgence about people falling over, and making bad jokes while they make out. We'll see if this actually transforms itself into plot/something readable.
This entry originally posted at http://opusculasedfera.dreamwidth.org/18971.html, comment wherever you please.