skygiants | (no subject)

I forgot to link to

kate_nepveu's post on Moving Pictures, despite the fact that she got it up in a way more timely fashion than me and also asked better questions than I did. I TOO am curious about the overarching metaphorical themes, if anyone has thoughts!

Anyway, on to Reaper Man. All I ever remember about Reaper Man is the Death-acts-human-and-has-a-sort-of-romance plot, and completely forget about the other half the plot. It turns out this is because I just sort of don't care about the other half the plot. The Death plot is poignant and interesting and raises thoughtful questions about humanity and mortality; the other half of the plot . . . has shopping malls? And some cheap shots at activism, and some pre-Angua Werewolves Lite? I don't know, if anybody likes it better please do argue its merits at me, I'm willing to be convinced! I mean, Reg Shoe, Zombie Activist does lend himself to endless comedy lols in discussion, but it turns out he's much funnier in my head than he is in this book, at least.

Also, I spent about half an hour after I finished the book trying to come up with one personality characteristic of undead Windle Poons other than 'undead,' and I couldn't.

It's worth it for the Death plot, though. I remember some people talking back when I reread Mort about whether the Death-approaches-humanity plot was going to get old or feel rehashed over the series, and as of this point it doesn't to me. The thing about Reaper Man that differentiates it from Mort is that this isn't really a book in which Death tries to be human. (Or is any good at it, but that's, you know, ever.) It's a book about Death having compassion for humanity, which is, I think, a very different thing. And a thing I like.

. . . also, Death trying to buy the appropriate accoutrements for a date is adorable, I'm sorry, IT JUST IS.

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/278887.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

campkilkare

Yeah, Windle Poons's primary (and only) character trait is that he is old and crotchety, and his character arc is just to lose it. Then he dies before he can develop anymore of a personality than that. His half of the book is full of good ideas that just fall flat, and I think part of it is Pratchett learning how to expand past the pastiche "hilarious skewed reference" technique of the earlier book. Reg Shoe becomes a lot funnier once his being a Undead rights activist becomes a character trait, rather than a plotline, and the inherent ridiculousness of that is going on in the background while other, ostensibly serious stuff is happening. But at this stage, Pratchett is still getting comfortable allowing himself to be serious at all, so the "comic relief" scenes are exactly one joke deep and that's it.

The stuff I think of as real Pratchett is when he is doing what I said, running things seriously with a quirky and hilarious world burbling along in the background, and then by the end of the book a few of the running gags have picked up enough weight and momentum to be taken seriously in their own right. Which is finally happening in the Death plot--Death's pre-date shopping is both adorable, hilarious, packed with references, and deadly serious in the context of the story, for instance--and... not so much in the other half.

From:

skygiants

Yeah, a lot of the Windle Poons section really does feel like notes jotted down for later pursuit - Reg Shoe, Discworld werewolves and other sorts of undead, and the University wizards as an affectionately dysfunctional team are all things that are going to come back better in other books. (Debi and I were talking this morning about how sad it is that Ludmilla and Angua never meet onscreen, though. Ludmilla is referenced! Angua lives at Mrs. Cake's! Tragic missed opportunity.)

I'm not sure this is the first book where 'real Pratchett' happens that way, necessarily -- both Mort and Guards, Guards I think work well (at least for me) as coherent and complete books too, where the development of the characters makes you take the whole world seriously and works with the layer of jokes and references. Whereas Moving Pictures, for example, much as I love it, is sort of the opposite -- everything's moving along towards something serious and creepy, and suddenly you have a burst of slapstick at the end -- and that's the way the Windle Poons plot comes out too, all ominous ominous one-joke ominous ominous SLAPSTICK HEROISM.

From:

campkilkare

Oh, no, I don't think it's the first one, it is just in the middle of a kind of hit-or-miss stretch before things start to hit on all cylinders.

From:

kate_nepveu

Yeah, even the curses becoming real is like a trial run for _Hogfather_.

Anyway, manual trackback with physics nitpick: http://www.steelypips.org/weblog/2012/01/pratchett_11.php

From:

skygiants

Ha, I'd forgotten that happens in Hogfather. Everything is trial run! Although I guess we can be glad he got that out in this book, which lets him actually do Angua and so on properly later.

Also: HAH, I noticed and then forgot the physics nitpick. Maybe the Auditors are just . . . doing it wrong . . .?

From:

kate_nepveu

Well, it is the Discworld so I guess we needn't expect physics to run the same way there, but I always got the impression they had a broader scope.

Also: Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents!

From:

campkilkare

Huh! I had never noticed that line. (The physics one.) The thing is, I know he has used the "like a heavy weight distorting the shape of spacetime" description of gravity as a metaphor before elsewhere.

It is probably just a momentary error, but I could prrrrobably wangle my way to seeing it as foreshadowing of how intensely finicky and wonky and wrong the Auditors are ultimately revealed as being. They don't like things that are undetermined, or undeterminable, or random, or inseperable quantum soups or fabrics. They want to know where the lines are drawn.

From:

kate_nepveu

Hee. Modern physics: one giant "suck it" to the Auditors.

From:

skygiants

I'M DOWN WITH THAT.

From:

campkilkare

Also--It's a book about Death having compassion for humanity, which is, I think, a very different thing.

Yes, very much this. The gap between the Death of Soul Music and the Death of Mort--who, uh, turns up in Soul Music thanks to timetravel--is huuuuge, and I think Reaper Man is the explanation. And it's not that he has become more human, or even more responsible (he has always been responsible), but he has gained the perspective to feel the weight of those responsibilities. Which in turn creates the plot of Soul Music, I suppose. Each Death book sort of solves the problems created by the last one.

From:

skygiants

Yeah, this book makes me look forward to Soul Music more than ever -- it's always been one of my favorites, but it's really awesome to actually watch the character progression across books. Death has indeed always been responsible, but the Death from the beginning of Mort would not take the significance from each stalk of grain.

And the real beauty of it is the way these changes in characterization happen without ever forgetting that Death does not think like a human being.

From:

campkilkare

Yeah. Nor would he bother himself with trying to rescue the Hogfather (or the entire timeline), even for the sake of settling a grudge with the Auditors. In a way, Soul Music sets a template for the later Death books, but I think it's a self-conscious template. After Mort-Reaper Man-Soul Music, Death understands what kinds of things are jobs he can do for humanity, and what kinds of things he needs to delegate to the actual humans. And those three books pretty much cover him finding where that line is.

For Hogfather/Thief of Time, he has sort of become Susan's Vetinari.

From:

pedanther

Speaking of Death not thinking like a human being, there's those scenes in later books where Death keeps trying to put people at ease by making little jokes and failing ("You could say you'll be... Bjorn again!") -- and maybe it is just that Death doesn't think enough like a human being to get it right, but every now again I get suspicious, and remember the scene in "Reaper Man" where he learned that people warm to you when you fail amusingly...