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Apr. 27th, 2011 10:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI've been rereading the Tiffany Aching books as a lead-up to I Shall Wear Midnight. (I've been wanting to do a full Discworld re-read, too. One of these days I will, but this is not that day.) I remember liking them all when they came out, but none of them had much sunk in the first time round and it's sort of startling how much I'd forgotten. For example, I did not remember at all how much The Wee Free Men is blatantly talking to Labyrinth. It's not just that the plot's the same - annoying little brother is kidnapped by fairies, formerly-unappreciative older sister quests through dangerous dreamscape to get him back - but there's the un-pretty fairy creatures; there's the obligatory fake "it was all a dream" scene where Tiffany wakes up in her room with all her own things and has to figure out it's a lie; there's a masked ball dream scene! A masked ball dream scene that might just as well have "my heroine will not be lured by puffy dresses and eighties hair, and let's not even mention the tight pants" scrawled in giant letters all over it. Yes, Terry Pratchett, Tiffany is not a dreamy adolescent girl, she's a whip-smart proto-witch with no nonsense about her, we know.
Of course The Wee Free Men stands as a book, and a very good book, on its own, but now I have to wonder if anyone's thought to switch Sarah and Tiffany and see what would happen. I mean obviously Jareth would crumble in about ten seconds when faced with Tiffany Aching, but I think Sarah might also do unexpectedly well against the Queen. I'm not sure she could manage Feegles, though.
(As a sidenote, I really want to rewatch Labyrinth now. Convenientlydictator_duck it turns out has never seen it, so I know what we'll be doing sometime this week!)
What delights me about A Hat Full of Sky on the other hand is not so much the plot, because really I don't think the plot's all that comparatively important (a supernatural thing takes over Tiffany's body and brings out all the worst selfish teenaged bits of her to look at and deal with, and yes, that's worthwhile, and I'd read the Tiffany book with just that plot, but we've seen that before). What's more interesting to me is the focus on communities of women - especially the way young women interact with the mentors who will always know more than them, and older women interact with the girls who will someday grow up to replace them, and how to negotiate your way to respect within that dynamic. That's different from outright intergenerational conflict and is something you don't see a lot in fiction, I think, and even less with women, and it's complicated and fascinating.
All of which is basically to say that I could watch Tiffany Aching and Granny Weatherwax team up to attempt to out-manipulate each other while saving the day all the time and never be bored.
Of course The Wee Free Men stands as a book, and a very good book, on its own, but now I have to wonder if anyone's thought to switch Sarah and Tiffany and see what would happen. I mean obviously Jareth would crumble in about ten seconds when faced with Tiffany Aching, but I think Sarah might also do unexpectedly well against the Queen. I'm not sure she could manage Feegles, though.
(As a sidenote, I really want to rewatch Labyrinth now. Conveniently
dictator_duck it turns out has never seen it, so I know what we'll be doing sometime this week!)What delights me about A Hat Full of Sky on the other hand is not so much the plot, because really I don't think the plot's all that comparatively important (a supernatural thing takes over Tiffany's body and brings out all the worst selfish teenaged bits of her to look at and deal with, and yes, that's worthwhile, and I'd read the Tiffany book with just that plot, but we've seen that before). What's more interesting to me is the focus on communities of women - especially the way young women interact with the mentors who will always know more than them, and older women interact with the girls who will someday grow up to replace them, and how to negotiate your way to respect within that dynamic. That's different from outright intergenerational conflict and is something you don't see a lot in fiction, I think, and even less with women, and it's complicated and fascinating.
All of which is basically to say that I could watch Tiffany Aching and Granny Weatherwax team up to attempt to out-manipulate each other while saving the day all the time and never be bored.
