(no subject)

[skygiants]

So I am about a month late in reading Interesting Times for my big Discworld read project, but in my defense, a.) finals, and b.) ARGH, Interesting Times! One hundred percent the Discworld book I was least looking forward to rereading, and it was worse than I remembered.

So the plot of Interesting Times is this: Discworld Chinajapan is much too repressed, conformist, and instinctively obedient to have a revolution, even though one book about Ankh-Morpork made them all realize how much better the West was and therefore made them really want one! What these people need is some white dudes! Like Rincewind! And also Discworld GENGHIS KHAN to be the new Emperor and overthrow all of Chinajapan's ridiculous and pointless and outdated customs!

AW YEAH oh wait no.

There are also a lot of high-larious rape jokes around Cohen's army of octogenarians but this is really just the cherry of fail on the icing of racism on the cake of please Terry Pratchett never try to write about Asian countries again.


PS: but this book did give us one good thing, which is Rincewind pondering that there is no particular reason to think of the Luggage as male, even though the Luggage finds a lady Luggage and spawns tiny Luggages, so I am down with the Luggage being a lesbian.

PPS: okay this book also gave us Twoflower being adorable and sad but that doesn't fix ANY OF THE PROBLEMS.

Comments

[esmenet]

I remember this book as mostly Twoflower's daughter making Disapproving Faces at Rincewind's awful, awful accent and manners; Lord Hong being ridiculously fantastic at origami; and Cohen and his friends being really bad at sneaking through the sewers. I refuse to read it again, because I remember it being terrible but undoubtedly less terrible than it actually is.

[skygiants]

Twoflower's daughter is indeed highly disapproving! Rincewind is terrified of her, which is as it should be. All of these things are in it, and many of them are pretty funny. It is just that they are DROWNED IN FAIL. I highly recommend skipping it in all rereads.

[ceitfianna]

I've always enjoyed parts of this book mainly the characters but its one that I also wince at a lot. I love Twoflower's daughter who is Voice of Reason and how she keeps pointing out that Rincewind really doesn't know anything. Also Twoflower being himself was wonderful and I liked how Rincewind kept going but I don't know anything and this is all really stupid. There were good things in it but buried under a lot of not good.

I kind of wish that the Silver Horde plot had been in another book because there were interesting ideas about bureaucracy and other things but the cultural stuff was so badly done, it made me not like them.

[skygiants]

There are funny bits; there are always funny bits in Pratchett, they're always easy to read, and so on. But, man, when the message of your book is basically "Genghis Khan takes over Japan for a happy ending," there is something really really wrong.

[ceitfianna]

Yeah, the ending is one of his absolute worst ones. Its too sudden and not thoughtful at all.

[weaver]

Oh man, you know when something bothers you about a book but you haven't read it for ages and you don't really know any more what's going on, and then someone says it JUST LIKE THAT and you're like "FUCK. THAT'S IT."

... That didn't really need the "you know when something" introduction.

FUCK. THAT'S IT.

[skygiants]

I DO KNOW WHEN THOUGH. Uuuuugh fail why. ;___;

[adiva_calandia]

THIS. Aigh.