(no subject)

[skygiants]

So as I was rereading Soul Music, I kept thinking about how glad I was that I was doing this epic reread project and talking everything over with you guys. Because, man! Soul Music is great for many reasons, but -- I mean, Susan is a protagonist of this book, and Buddy & Co. are protagonists of this book (well, sort of, I mean, Buddy only kind of has a personality to begin with, but we'll forgive him that), but the real protagonist of the book is Death.

I think someone at some point in the comments was talking about whether all the 'Death takes a holiday' plotlines were going to get repetitive. And in some bits, they do. I mean, every time Death walks into a bar, the scene goes basically the same way. But at the same time, there's continuity, and there's change. Death has changed enormously since the Death we saw in Mort. Death's learned that he has to cope with grief. Death's learned to accept other people's choices. And Soul Music reminds us of that, and it's just -- it's really satisfying to follow, as a slow and tremendously earned arc. I barely remember what Death is like in Hogfather, because I barely remember Hogfather as a book, but I'm looking forward to seeing that now, so very much.

(Death's house has a field of golden wheat growing in the back. And Susan is like ???? and I'm like \o/ YEAH IT DOES.)

. . . there are other great things in Soul Music! Buddy is not one of them. Buddy is kind of boring and I'm totally okay with the fact that he's hilariously built up as Susan's Destined Love Interest all through this book and then disappears forever. Glod and Cliff are way more interesting, which is yet another example of irritating human-centricness in the series. But then: Susan! Who I totally identified with as a kid, and it's funny to look back on that, because now I read sixteen-year-old Susan and I'm just like OH KIDDO. PLEASE NOBODY LET YOU DECIDE THE FATES OF ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS, that would be a TERRIBLE PLAN.

Also, this is totally embarrassing, but I only just caught on this read that the reason the Dean is the one who's super affected by the Soul Music is because of James Dean. Um. Can we just pretend I knew that all along . . .?

Comments

[remindmeofthe]

Can we just pretend I knew that all along . . .?

Well, you caught on faster than I did, so let's pretend together, shall we? *facepalm*

[skygiants]

Hee! It's fine, we've ALL KNOWN FOR YEARS. >.>

[scifantasy]

And then there's the part, as outlined in the Annotated Pratchett File, where Death has "a coat he borrowed from [the] Dean..."

[batyatoon]

Yup.

[skygiants]

Hah, yeah, I might not have caught that on my own, but TVTropes told me about it. VERY SNEAKY, Pratchett.

[ceitfianna]

I never knew that about the Dean and Soul Music is one of my favorites for how it sort of skews everyone.

[skygiants]

Poor Ridcully gets to be the only sane man again . . . which is not a role he is particularly suited for.

[shati]

I'm kind of afraid to reread Soul Music and find out just how much of it went over my head.

My fears are probably groundless though, because at least 60% of it still will...

[skygiants]

Hah, yeah, I was reading through all the rock music injokes and being increasingly impressed with my younger self for enjoying the book at all, because I only get about 30% of them now and that's still twice as many as I used to.

[kate_nepveu]

That's probably why I remember being very meh on this one. The memetic invasion stories are just not my favorite.

[skygiants]

I remembered it being one of my favorites, and I'm pretty sure that's entirely because, as a twelve-year-old, I found it way easier to project myself onto Susan than onto any other Discworld character -- Tiffany Aching not yet having been written. (As opposed to Moving Pictures, which is a memetic invasion I enjoy because I do get he injokes.)

[kate_nepveu]

Whereas I started these in college, but I also did not, oddly, do much self-projection as a younger reader, and I have no idea why.

(Gosh, I am so behind. I started _Lords and Ladies_ and then veered off into fanfic comfort reading, and have not yet fought my way out of that.)

[skygiants]

(Hee, well, that only puts you two or three behind! And we'll see whether I actually manage to stick with the schedule for Interesting Times -- it's my finals period, and while that wouldn't stop me if it was a book I was actually looking forward to, Interesting Times I'm mostly vaguely dreading.)

[kate_nepveu]

. . . yeah. There's . . . Cohen? I like him a lot in _The Last Hero_, anyway. Otherwise . . . yeah.

[scifantasy]

The thing with the memetic invasion stories, and this is I think what skygiants hints at below, is that unless you get it, you're in the cold. Most clear in this one and Moving Pictures, I think, because they're big memetic invasions.

Becca, being a film history geek, got Moving Pictures; by comparison, I got a lot of mileage out of the classic rock stuff here. (Even moreso in the animated adaptations, where you actually see Buddy's band go through all the phases and forms of rock 'n roll in their songs.)

[scifantasy]

And by "below" I of course mean "above."

[kate_nepveu]

Hmm, I wonder if I have the animated adaptation of this around somewhere? That might help.

[scifantasy]

I got it from Netflix on disc...and then I bought the soundtrack from Amazon, because heh.

[genarti]

I haven't read Soul Music since college, but I think that was my first real memetic invasion Discworld book, and I remember catching quite a lot of the injokes, and being both entertained and startled by the sheer density of them. I hadn't realized you could do that in a book.* (Thanks probably to having grown up in a family where the oldies station was the one we could all agree on, back when "oldies" meant "50s, 60s, and sometimes 70s.") I didn't care about the love story, but I forgave everything for the puns and visual jokes and rock 'n' roll history references. Whereas Moving Pictures has always left me cold, simply because I don't care about most of the jokes I do get.

So I would agree with your hypothesis.

*You probably can't, unless you're Terry Pratchett, but oh well.

[opusculasedfera]

You worked out the Dean thing faster than me, as I didn't realise until I read this...

And clearly I have to reread this one as I'd entirely forgotten that Susan is in it. It was never my favourite (hence why I've only read it the once) but I do like her, even if she isn't as in control as she thinks she is. <3

[skygiants]

The only thing I remembered about it going in was that Susan was in it, which is . . . probably the reason I liked it so much as a kid, to be honest. Shockingly, as a preteen girl, I found I identified most with the teenaged girl!

[minkhollow]

It's kind of like me going in knowing there'd be a Buddy Holly joke and then finding out I'd actually been reading it for a hundred pages already. XD
SO OBVIOUSLY I HAVE A THING FOR THIS BOOK, as noted by the fact that I'm about to do Plot With Rocks In again. I love the things it says about what music does, and I have had songs grab me like that before.
(I find it hard to hold Imp's character development against him, since for a good two-thirds of the book that was the music talking, but I do agree that I'd rather see Glod and/or Cliff for an extended adventure, and if it happened to mention where Imp disappeared to, that's cool too.)

Also: oh god, Death and grieving. I am... kind of glad that we're never going to get to the end of the Death-Susan stuff? Because the only eventual conclusions I can see are Susan taking over the job long-term, which would not suit her, or Death having to collect her, which... frankly, he's closer to Susan than he was Mort and Ysabell.I'd rather not find out which.

[skygiants]

I don't particularly hold Imp's character development against him, exactly, I just, you know, would be more concerned about Imp's character getting eaten by the music if he'd had much of a character to begin with. OH WELL.

And . . . yeah, me too. I love the development of that relationship; I don't ever want it to get to the end.

[attractivegeekery]

HEE!
The Blues Brother's reference from that book is really the only thing I remember about it.

"We're on a mission from Glod."

[skygiants]

"Wait . . . why did I just say that?"

"Well, I mean, we are on a mission from Glod."

"But . . . why would they care . . .?"

OH TERRY PRATCHETT AND YOUR SELF-AWARE REFERENCES.