The fifth elephant in the room

[extemporanea]

The latest Discworld novel, Snuff, is out: my copy arrived yesterday, and I spent the evening flat on the sofa devouring it. It's one in the Vimes series, and my ongoing state of more or less drooling Pratchett fangirliness means I prepared for it by re-reading the entirety of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch novels over the last two weeks, from Guards

Comments

[xavierxalfonso]

That's a lovely piece, feels like a eulogy.

[extemporanea]

Thank you - felt like a eulogy writing it, actually. I don't usually get that over-emotional about a disappointing novel, but of course this is infinitely more complicated than that.

[ext_390110]

Fuck Alzheimer's

[extemporanea]

Seconded. You think of all the undeserving idiots and bastards in the world who are in the pink of health, and you want to believe in God just so you can hate him.

[silmaril]

Just... yes, to everything including the crying.

I read through Snuff very fast, partly intentionally---I was trying not to pay attention to some things I was afraid I would find there. Only in the initial description of the goblin home-cave and in the "That speech? It's called redemption. Hold on to it." line did he yank me out and made me slow down.

Just... Fuck Alzheimer's, an earlier commenter said. I prefer "Burn Alzheimer's." Burn.

(One thing I will point out: The audiobook of Unseen Academicals felt better to me than the book. I will be looking for Snuff in that format, too.)

[extemporanea]

Every now and then a sentence gels, and punches you in the eye in the old way, but it's far too seldom. It's horrible. I'm obscurely glad I'm not the only one who is moved to tears by it.

It's interesting that you suggest the audio version, because a lot of my dissatisfaction was because the book didn't work on the page like the older ones do. Oral language has a different shape to written, and the lack of control of the written is problematical while you're reading. I don't really go for audiobooks, I enjoy too much the ins and outs of that specific relationship with the page, but I can completely see how it would help here.

[bend_gules]

I've felt this same way about Sir T's recent work - felt it in 'I shall wear midnight', which to me isn't as tight and sharp as the first Tiffany Aching book.

Knowing how much creative thinking *I* do in front of a keyboard - if that capacity was taken from me, narrating and reading back to someone else would *not* work the same way.

(I wonder if he could hand-write, rather than type - or is the same part of the brain affected, and would stop him from being able to write?)

Thud, Feet of Clay, and Night Watch remain my favourites, showing the growing, changing watch at its best and most diverse, though to get the most out of them you have to know the Ankh-Morpork canon.

Going Postal, and The Truth, form a second tier: still Anhk-Morpork, but focusing elsewhere than the Watch. They tie with books that feature Death.

Books centered on wizards trail distantly behind, for me. I can't make sense of Rincewind, period. Do you have to be a gamer to get them?

[extemporanea]

The wizards make most sense to you if you're an academic. They rip the stuffing out of academia with merciless fidelity, causing me thereby a great deal of completely unholy glee. Rincewind is actually more of an anti-hero stereotype, and he always struck me as an early, less sophisticated Pratchett creation - there's not quite enough in him in the way of actually worthwhile traits to balance out the cowardice.

Your favourites are very close to mine - I also love The Truth, and I'm developing a fondness for Tiffany Aching, who seems to me to carry the witches stuff into more complex, multivalent ground. You're right, though, Midnight was also scattered, although not quite as badly so as Academicals.

[bend_gules]

Academicals improved on second reading for me, I found.

It helped having some of the footie jokes explained, frankly - these had passed me by entirely the first time, as a non-footie person. Who knew 'who ate all the pies then?' was a footie tie-in? (Insert blank look).

And the play between Jools, Glenda and the androgynous 'dwarf', who found his place in the world as a micromail designer (reminded me of Gok Kwan!) improved with review.

But it's not the book it could have been.

[dancing_crow]

you have again put into words what was only a small distressed feeling.

I just finished reading Midnight and Snuff back to back, and they felt like so much falling action - the peak has come and gone, and he is getting all the various species integrated into policing, and Tiffany connected with a young man, and winding things up - there will be a period at the end, and he'll be done.

I'm relieved to hear his process is different, because it does give me something else to blame for results I don't like. But it does also feel like, well, a eulogy.