Reading roundup: The Shepherd's Crown
57. Terry Pratchett, The Shepherd's Crown -- This is such a weird and difficult book for me to talk about, because first, there's the fact that it's the last Discworld book -- just reading the blurb on the rear inside flap, talking about PTerry in past tense, made me tear up. And then there's the book itself, which -- I really can't talk about this without spoilers, and yet I'm really glad I went into the book unspoiled (thank you, lunasariel and egelantier!), so, how do I do this?
There is one part, the first third or so of the book, that really worked for me. But I make no claims about that being out of any literary merit or not, because I was not reacting to that part as a reader. The rest of the book... egelantier called it a seed of a novel, and, maybe? It's definitely very short, and things happen rather quickly, and there are a lot of things introduced that are either not resolved or are resolved too quickly. And there isn't the density I associate with the best Discworld novels, which actually makes sense: there's a great afterword where PTerry's writing method is explained as "He would start somewhere, telling himself the story as he wrote it and write the bits he could see clearly, assembling it all into a whole -- like a giant literary jigsaw -- when he was done. Once it was shaped, he would keep writing it too, adding to it, fixing bits, constantly polishing and adding linking sequences, tossing in just one more footnote or event. His publishers often had to prize the manuscript away from him." So, yeah, except for the first bits, it definitely feels like a jigsaw puzzle of a sketch, with bits missing and the rest not as impressive as the final product would look. But frankly, whatever I think of the rest of it, I'm glad I read it for that first third.
Spoilers from here, and, really, I think it's much better to read it unspoiled.
Because, oh god. It probably would not have even mattered much what the book was about, I would've found myself crying anyway, but I didn't expect to start crying on page 25 (on public transit) and keep tearing up/outright weeping at work as I got to other things, Granny's card and Nanny's reaction and Ridcully with the letters... It was less like reading something sad in a book and more like losing an actual person. I'd thought that Vetinari might've been the one being prepared for departure, and I know that people theorized about Vimes (and got that scare with Snuff as a very ambiguous title), but even with Tiffany clearly ready to step into the role, I somehow never even considered the fact that Esme might not be eternal. I mean, it's not just Granny herself, of course, it's PTerry and Discworld, too, but it felt like both losing PTerry again and losing Esme as a whole separate person I've known and admired for years. (It probably doesn't help that one of the reasons I almost invariably love "formidable old lady" characters like Esme Weatherwax and Olenna Tyrell is that they remind me a lot of my greatgrandmother, BL, who was my first serious RL loss and is still the death I'm most affected by. And (again with thanks to Alina and Rose, who did not spoil me while given ample opportunity, not even a tiny bit), I'm glad that it was the shock it was, when Granny started scrubbing the house clean and brushing her hair and preparing the wicker basket and saying good-bye to her bees. So, yeah. "Mind how you go."
The rest, I don't know, it was a letdown from the gut-punch of the first third, mostly, but also a bit of a relief to be able to read about people as characters and think about loose ends and things that didn't quite make sense or didn't feel quite right. It didn't feel wrong, though, the way Raising Steam did, and made me wonder yet again about how some of the later Discworld books held up better for me than others and what the difference was. I liked Snuff with only minor reservations, and I liked I Shall Wear Midnight by the end (though not nearly as much as Hat Full of Sky, which might be in my top 5 Discworld novels overall), but Unseen Academicals only had a couple of passages I really loved, and a lot that didn't quite work for me, and Raising Steam -- I gave up on Raising Steam about 150 pages in, because it was just dragging for me, and it felt so WRONG to have a Moist book drag. (I'm still trying to decide if I want to go back and try to read it again, or if I'm better off leaving 2/3 of a Discworld book out there, unread, potentially waiting for me...) But I feel like Wizards are always hit-or-miss for me (The Last Continent was kind of interminable), so Unseen Academicals wasn't as much of a surprise. And Vimes and the Witches held up quite well -- not sure if it's because the characters were easier for PTerry to hold onto until the very end, more vivid so they led to more vivid bits, or if the themes those books dealt with proved more resilient -- which would make sense, especially with the Witches. The Moist/Industrial Revolution series trajectory is the most painful for me, because Going Postal is probably my favorite Discworld book, and Making Money was just kind of middle-of-the-road or maybe even tail end, and Raising Steam... Moist the guile hero makes sense for being a difficult character to hold onto, and those books are Vetinari heavy, and Vetinari has been feeling off to me in the last couple of books, which is heart-breaking to me, as he is the only character in this series I love more than Granny Weatherwax. (I don't know, the offness could well be intentional, but that doesn't make it any less heartbreaking, you know? just in a different way...) And it's interesting that we never got a farewell Death book, isn't it... *cries some more*
But in general I think also the last couple of Discworld books suffer from PTerry's awareness of having only very limited time left to tell the stories he wanted to tell. I feel like the things that would have developed subtly in the background over half a dozen books in the past, the way goblins are seen by the rest of society, the rise of the railway, keeps getting poked and highlighted and feels less deft and subtle than I'm used to expecting from Discworld. The way the goblin story goes from Mr Nutt in UA to all goblin all the time in Snuff to yet more goblins in Raising Steam and the trailing end here in the last book, the way the railways kept getting mentioned in Shepherd's Crown -- I miss the insiduous organic creep of change, where you turn around and suddenly the Watch is full of everyone Ankh-Morpork is home to, and newspapers keep showing up, and the situation with golems is quietly developing. I understand why it has to be different now, of course, but that just makes me sadder...
But I've wandered kind of far afield, and do have things to say specifically about this book. The story is essentially a sequel to Lords and Ladies which is my favorite Witches book, and one in my top 5 of all Discworld books ever. (I mean, yes, it's also a sequel to Wee Free Men in a way, but Wee Free Men is a very different book -- I liked it a lot, but I do feel like the Tiffany books grew up significantly just as Tiffany did.) So, tough act to follow, and I don't feel like it quite did... The idea of a Queen of the Elves learning human empathy by hanging around a witch is a really interesting one, actually, but I wish it had gotten a lot more development, and I'm not sure about the ending, either. I don't think I would've believed in that one act ushering in an era of kinder, gentler Elves, but Nightshade's offhanded death does seem like a disappointing end to the arc -- maybe just because I know that there won't be another book to follow, to maybe pick up on the threads of what started here, the way, say, the Dwarves and Trolls thing picked up from Cuddy's death in Men at Arms and kept on affecting Detritus as a character. But it was good to see all the witches again. I was really happy to see the Mrs Earwig, who'd been a sort of Witches antagonist for the last couple of books, was not only shown to have united with the others for the big fight but -- this was exactly what I was expecting from Pratchett and so was very happy to see it -- that the very qualities that had made her such an annoying antagonist to the other Witches ALSO made her impervious to Elven glamour and thus a powerful ally. This was my favorite bit in the book! And it was interesting to see Magrat grown into a queen and advising Letitia on being both a witch and nobility, and good to see her in her Queen Ynci armour once again.
I'm really not sure how Geoffrey fits into all this. To be honest, he felt like a character who had wandered in from an entirely separate story, with the two separate lines just smushed together because there was no more time to tell another story after this. A boy wanting to be a Witch? Sure, why not -- it provides a nice counterpart to Esk way in the beginning, and it does look like Pratchett was very interested in blurring those gender lines at the end, with Esk getting mentioned again here and there after being missing for so many books, Maggie the Feegle wanting to be a warrior rather than a kelda, all the things going on with the Dwarves, of course. But Geoffrey's story feels hollow -- he gets the beginning with the bully father and animal friend he nursed himself, he gets closure (when he returns as a royal ambassador and gets to outlaw foxhunts), he gets a triumph with the old boys helping face down the Elves, he gets a reward (looking after Granny-er-Tiffany's steading in Lancre) -- but his story felt totally hollow to me, because I didn't see any actual character growth in that arc, nothing he learned or struggled against. And partly I suppose it could be because of his calm-weaver nature -- what's there to struggle against if by his very presence he makes people do what he wants them to do (because what he wants them to do is get along). He does face the glamour of the Elves, which makes him feel similar to how his father does, but that moment didn't feel significant enough to be the payoff of the arc. So to me Geoffrey felt more like an object rather than a real character, but he got all this recognition and all these things -- Granny's broomstick, for a given value of "Granny's" (and I did rather like that Granny's broomstick and boots and house went to three different Witches, that continuity by community that's fundamental to the Discworld witches), everyone liking him, mad broomstick skillz (why...?) -- but it doesn't feel like he's done anything to deserve them, and so I'm not surprised he felt like a Mary-Sue character to lunasariel. I did't feel like he was shown to be better than Tiffany, just that he was Sue-y in that fairly fundamental way where he came out of nowhere and seemed to be distorting the established rules for no good reason and without much in the way of effort or consequence. (Also, it never stopped bugging me that the goat was named Mephistopheles, because it seemed like too explicit/bare a Roundworld reference...)
I've talked all this time and I still haven't said anything about Tiffany. I actually don't have a whole lot to say... It felt like a fitting conclusion to her series, both her having to step into the "leader they don't have" role for the Witches and the last chapter, her returning to the Chalk for good, making her own hut by herself, from the remnant's of Granny Aching's one but not on the same spot. The symbolism with the shepherd's crown also felt fitting. I liked Tiffany's brush with darkness -- when she kills the Elves hurting her namesake without thinking about it, and the way both Nanny (as senior witch) and the King of the Elves give her absolution for this. I liked that she was uncertain privately sometimes but always outwardly firm, the way her parents are quietly proud of her even while they worry about her overworking herself and would really like some grandchildren from her. Speaking of which, I quite like where things stand with her and Preston, both of them doing what they love and using their gifts and finding time for each other, even though it's never enough time, and who knows if it will ever be. (I suppose it's an interesting foil to Esme and Mustrum, too, though I hope that Tiffany and Preston get a bit more time together than it looks like Granny and Ridcully ever did.) Roland's grown-up behavior continues to be weirdly uneven and disappointing, though. I thought they'd finally gotten past all that weirdness...
Random observations:
Young Feegles wearing their kilts too low, with underpants peeking out was fairly amusing.
Granny's bees acknowledging Tiffany just made me think of Jupiter Ascending, god help me. XD
The goblin refers to Vetinari as "the dark one there" (in Ankh-Morpork), and the Elf Queen knows exactly what he means.
Quotes:
"I will pray to Om for you, Mrs Weatherwax."
"Well, do tell me what he says," said Granny sharply. "And that's Mistress Weatherwax, thank you."
"It doesn't take much to delight an elf. Hurting something is usually top of their list, but music comes a close second."
L looked at the book when it was lying in my office, and the dust jacket has yellow bees on it in a field of blue, like the antiqued gold-plated bee beads she'd ordered earlier that day, and she asked if I wanted her to make me something with bees.This was before I'd started the book, so I was kind of noncommital, but as soon as I was into it, I realized that yes, I wanted her to make me a keepsake. I thought about it and decided I wanted something random, non-symmetric and with a lot of different bits, like a shamble. Her bead order came the day I was done with the book, so we looked through them together and I googled images of a shamble for her to show her the kind of thing I wanted. I then picked out some beads, and she ended up making me this (which is waiting for her to get some gold-colored chain to attach to the ends):
The dark blue round thing is glass, and I'd wanted something with a hole in it, like a stone, but having something manmade feels fitting, too. The two dark green beads are moss agate, a faceted one and an unfaceted one, and we're not sure what the light blue stone is, but I loved the sky-like color of it, and it feels fitting for "hat full of sky" reasons. (And the bee, of course, as well as being the thing that started it all, also works as the 'living' thing in the shamble.)
Right now I'm reading the book which will tick the "childhood favorite" square and give me my first blackout on one of the reading bingo cards -- the first of the Tomek's adventures in geography books (courtesy of aletheiafelinea for reminding me of the author's name and bearshorty and her father's Russian ebook-wise ways) -- which were books I had borrowed from my White Knight 25+ years ago. It's definitely an interesting experience to revisit them now...
There is one part, the first third or so of the book, that really worked for me. But I make no claims about that being out of any literary merit or not, because I was not reacting to that part as a reader. The rest of the book... egelantier called it a seed of a novel, and, maybe? It's definitely very short, and things happen rather quickly, and there are a lot of things introduced that are either not resolved or are resolved too quickly. And there isn't the density I associate with the best Discworld novels, which actually makes sense: there's a great afterword where PTerry's writing method is explained as "He would start somewhere, telling himself the story as he wrote it and write the bits he could see clearly, assembling it all into a whole -- like a giant literary jigsaw -- when he was done. Once it was shaped, he would keep writing it too, adding to it, fixing bits, constantly polishing and adding linking sequences, tossing in just one more footnote or event. His publishers often had to prize the manuscript away from him." So, yeah, except for the first bits, it definitely feels like a jigsaw puzzle of a sketch, with bits missing and the rest not as impressive as the final product would look. But frankly, whatever I think of the rest of it, I'm glad I read it for that first third.
Spoilers from here, and, really, I think it's much better to read it unspoiled.
Because, oh god. It probably would not have even mattered much what the book was about, I would've found myself crying anyway, but I didn't expect to start crying on page 25 (on public transit) and keep tearing up/outright weeping at work as I got to other things, Granny's card and Nanny's reaction and Ridcully with the letters... It was less like reading something sad in a book and more like losing an actual person. I'd thought that Vetinari might've been the one being prepared for departure, and I know that people theorized about Vimes (and got that scare with Snuff as a very ambiguous title), but even with Tiffany clearly ready to step into the role, I somehow never even considered the fact that Esme might not be eternal. I mean, it's not just Granny herself, of course, it's PTerry and Discworld, too, but it felt like both losing PTerry again and losing Esme as a whole separate person I've known and admired for years. (It probably doesn't help that one of the reasons I almost invariably love "formidable old lady" characters like Esme Weatherwax and Olenna Tyrell is that they remind me a lot of my greatgrandmother, BL, who was my first serious RL loss and is still the death I'm most affected by. And (again with thanks to Alina and Rose, who did not spoil me while given ample opportunity, not even a tiny bit), I'm glad that it was the shock it was, when Granny started scrubbing the house clean and brushing her hair and preparing the wicker basket and saying good-bye to her bees. So, yeah. "Mind how you go."
The rest, I don't know, it was a letdown from the gut-punch of the first third, mostly, but also a bit of a relief to be able to read about people as characters and think about loose ends and things that didn't quite make sense or didn't feel quite right. It didn't feel wrong, though, the way Raising Steam did, and made me wonder yet again about how some of the later Discworld books held up better for me than others and what the difference was. I liked Snuff with only minor reservations, and I liked I Shall Wear Midnight by the end (though not nearly as much as Hat Full of Sky, which might be in my top 5 Discworld novels overall), but Unseen Academicals only had a couple of passages I really loved, and a lot that didn't quite work for me, and Raising Steam -- I gave up on Raising Steam about 150 pages in, because it was just dragging for me, and it felt so WRONG to have a Moist book drag. (I'm still trying to decide if I want to go back and try to read it again, or if I'm better off leaving 2/3 of a Discworld book out there, unread, potentially waiting for me...) But I feel like Wizards are always hit-or-miss for me (The Last Continent was kind of interminable), so Unseen Academicals wasn't as much of a surprise. And Vimes and the Witches held up quite well -- not sure if it's because the characters were easier for PTerry to hold onto until the very end, more vivid so they led to more vivid bits, or if the themes those books dealt with proved more resilient -- which would make sense, especially with the Witches. The Moist/Industrial Revolution series trajectory is the most painful for me, because Going Postal is probably my favorite Discworld book, and Making Money was just kind of middle-of-the-road or maybe even tail end, and Raising Steam... Moist the guile hero makes sense for being a difficult character to hold onto, and those books are Vetinari heavy, and Vetinari has been feeling off to me in the last couple of books, which is heart-breaking to me, as he is the only character in this series I love more than Granny Weatherwax. (I don't know, the offness could well be intentional, but that doesn't make it any less heartbreaking, you know? just in a different way...) And it's interesting that we never got a farewell Death book, isn't it... *cries some more*
But in general I think also the last couple of Discworld books suffer from PTerry's awareness of having only very limited time left to tell the stories he wanted to tell. I feel like the things that would have developed subtly in the background over half a dozen books in the past, the way goblins are seen by the rest of society, the rise of the railway, keeps getting poked and highlighted and feels less deft and subtle than I'm used to expecting from Discworld. The way the goblin story goes from Mr Nutt in UA to all goblin all the time in Snuff to yet more goblins in Raising Steam and the trailing end here in the last book, the way the railways kept getting mentioned in Shepherd's Crown -- I miss the insiduous organic creep of change, where you turn around and suddenly the Watch is full of everyone Ankh-Morpork is home to, and newspapers keep showing up, and the situation with golems is quietly developing. I understand why it has to be different now, of course, but that just makes me sadder...
But I've wandered kind of far afield, and do have things to say specifically about this book. The story is essentially a sequel to Lords and Ladies which is my favorite Witches book, and one in my top 5 of all Discworld books ever. (I mean, yes, it's also a sequel to Wee Free Men in a way, but Wee Free Men is a very different book -- I liked it a lot, but I do feel like the Tiffany books grew up significantly just as Tiffany did.) So, tough act to follow, and I don't feel like it quite did... The idea of a Queen of the Elves learning human empathy by hanging around a witch is a really interesting one, actually, but I wish it had gotten a lot more development, and I'm not sure about the ending, either. I don't think I would've believed in that one act ushering in an era of kinder, gentler Elves, but Nightshade's offhanded death does seem like a disappointing end to the arc -- maybe just because I know that there won't be another book to follow, to maybe pick up on the threads of what started here, the way, say, the Dwarves and Trolls thing picked up from Cuddy's death in Men at Arms and kept on affecting Detritus as a character. But it was good to see all the witches again. I was really happy to see the Mrs Earwig, who'd been a sort of Witches antagonist for the last couple of books, was not only shown to have united with the others for the big fight but -- this was exactly what I was expecting from Pratchett and so was very happy to see it -- that the very qualities that had made her such an annoying antagonist to the other Witches ALSO made her impervious to Elven glamour and thus a powerful ally. This was my favorite bit in the book! And it was interesting to see Magrat grown into a queen and advising Letitia on being both a witch and nobility, and good to see her in her Queen Ynci armour once again.
I'm really not sure how Geoffrey fits into all this. To be honest, he felt like a character who had wandered in from an entirely separate story, with the two separate lines just smushed together because there was no more time to tell another story after this. A boy wanting to be a Witch? Sure, why not -- it provides a nice counterpart to Esk way in the beginning, and it does look like Pratchett was very interested in blurring those gender lines at the end, with Esk getting mentioned again here and there after being missing for so many books, Maggie the Feegle wanting to be a warrior rather than a kelda, all the things going on with the Dwarves, of course. But Geoffrey's story feels hollow -- he gets the beginning with the bully father and animal friend he nursed himself, he gets closure (when he returns as a royal ambassador and gets to outlaw foxhunts), he gets a triumph with the old boys helping face down the Elves, he gets a reward (looking after Granny-er-Tiffany's steading in Lancre) -- but his story felt totally hollow to me, because I didn't see any actual character growth in that arc, nothing he learned or struggled against. And partly I suppose it could be because of his calm-weaver nature -- what's there to struggle against if by his very presence he makes people do what he wants them to do (because what he wants them to do is get along). He does face the glamour of the Elves, which makes him feel similar to how his father does, but that moment didn't feel significant enough to be the payoff of the arc. So to me Geoffrey felt more like an object rather than a real character, but he got all this recognition and all these things -- Granny's broomstick, for a given value of "Granny's" (and I did rather like that Granny's broomstick and boots and house went to three different Witches, that continuity by community that's fundamental to the Discworld witches), everyone liking him, mad broomstick skillz (why...?) -- but it doesn't feel like he's done anything to deserve them, and so I'm not surprised he felt like a Mary-Sue character to lunasariel. I did't feel like he was shown to be better than Tiffany, just that he was Sue-y in that fairly fundamental way where he came out of nowhere and seemed to be distorting the established rules for no good reason and without much in the way of effort or consequence. (Also, it never stopped bugging me that the goat was named Mephistopheles, because it seemed like too explicit/bare a Roundworld reference...)
I've talked all this time and I still haven't said anything about Tiffany. I actually don't have a whole lot to say... It felt like a fitting conclusion to her series, both her having to step into the "leader they don't have" role for the Witches and the last chapter, her returning to the Chalk for good, making her own hut by herself, from the remnant's of Granny Aching's one but not on the same spot. The symbolism with the shepherd's crown also felt fitting. I liked Tiffany's brush with darkness -- when she kills the Elves hurting her namesake without thinking about it, and the way both Nanny (as senior witch) and the King of the Elves give her absolution for this. I liked that she was uncertain privately sometimes but always outwardly firm, the way her parents are quietly proud of her even while they worry about her overworking herself and would really like some grandchildren from her. Speaking of which, I quite like where things stand with her and Preston, both of them doing what they love and using their gifts and finding time for each other, even though it's never enough time, and who knows if it will ever be. (I suppose it's an interesting foil to Esme and Mustrum, too, though I hope that Tiffany and Preston get a bit more time together than it looks like Granny and Ridcully ever did.) Roland's grown-up behavior continues to be weirdly uneven and disappointing, though. I thought they'd finally gotten past all that weirdness...
Random observations:
Young Feegles wearing their kilts too low, with underpants peeking out was fairly amusing.
Granny's bees acknowledging Tiffany just made me think of Jupiter Ascending, god help me. XD
The goblin refers to Vetinari as "the dark one there" (in Ankh-Morpork), and the Elf Queen knows exactly what he means.
Quotes:
"I will pray to Om for you, Mrs Weatherwax."
"Well, do tell me what he says," said Granny sharply. "And that's Mistress Weatherwax, thank you."
"It doesn't take much to delight an elf. Hurting something is usually top of their list, but music comes a close second."
L looked at the book when it was lying in my office, and the dust jacket has yellow bees on it in a field of blue, like the antiqued gold-plated bee beads she'd ordered earlier that day, and she asked if I wanted her to make me something with bees.This was before I'd started the book, so I was kind of noncommital, but as soon as I was into it, I realized that yes, I wanted her to make me a keepsake. I thought about it and decided I wanted something random, non-symmetric and with a lot of different bits, like a shamble. Her bead order came the day I was done with the book, so we looked through them together and I googled images of a shamble for her to show her the kind of thing I wanted. I then picked out some beads, and she ended up making me this (which is waiting for her to get some gold-colored chain to attach to the ends):
The dark blue round thing is glass, and I'd wanted something with a hole in it, like a stone, but having something manmade feels fitting, too. The two dark green beads are moss agate, a faceted one and an unfaceted one, and we're not sure what the light blue stone is, but I loved the sky-like color of it, and it feels fitting for "hat full of sky" reasons. (And the bee, of course, as well as being the thing that started it all, also works as the 'living' thing in the shamble.)
Right now I'm reading the book which will tick the "childhood favorite" square and give me my first blackout on one of the reading bingo cards -- the first of the Tomek's adventures in geography books (courtesy of aletheiafelinea for reminding me of the author's name and bearshorty and her father's Russian ebook-wise ways) -- which were books I had borrowed from my White Knight 25+ years ago. It's definitely an interesting experience to revisit them now...