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Feb. 4th, 2013 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI did not actually time my Discworld reread so I'd be doing Night Watch right after the Great Les Mis Feelings Explosion of 2013, it was mostly just a lucky coincidence. Nonetheless: well played, self!
Not that Night Watch is really one hundred percent a Les Mis book, not the same way Maskerade is a Phantom of the Opera book or Witches Abroad is a Macbeth book. (It's almost always the Witch books that are just straight-up Books About Other Books, because the Witch books are about stories in a way that the Guard books aren't.)
Weirdly, actually -- and I would not have picked up on this if I hadn't just reread the Brick and also been poking around French history for betaing fics and things -- the rebellion in Night Watch looks a lot more like the 1830 July Revolution than the failed 1832 rebellion during which Les Mis takes place. 1830 is the one where the official policemen deserted in droves because they didn't want to go against the angry citizens; more significantly, it's also the one that concluded with the higher-ups effecting a tidy replacement from one monarch to another and using that as a sop for the discontent, instead of making any real governmental change. Hence: 1832, Les Mis, epic tragedy, etc.
I have no idea whether this was deliberate on Terry Pratchett's part or not, but it's a useful way for him to make the points he wants to make about revolutions, which both are and are not fair ones. This is not a book that would work if it were about the 1789 French Revolution -- although, weirdly, Vimes is actually associated with that one too, because Old Stoneface is totally a 1789 revolutionary, and I am not sure this book fully works if you think too hard about that.*
So Night Watch is sort of a mixed book about revolutions and about Les Mis, is what I am trying to say; like, it does and doesn't get it, but I think it is sort of a necessary counterpoint. Like, I am glad that there is a book that's on the side of Just Keep As Many People Safe For As Long As Possible, even though that can be oversimplifying it as much as wantonly shouting "VIVE LA RESISTANCE!" is oversimplifying it.
Anyway, however you feel about the way it handles revolutions, Night Watch is a SERIOUSLY FANTASTIC book about time travel.
It kept hitting me especially during Vimes' interactions with Young Sam, because I would catch myself thinking how much of an excellent mentor Vimes was being and how heartwarming it was that he was trying to look out for him, and then I would remember all over again that Young Sam was, in fact, the younger version of Vimes, and can you find a relationship pleasant and heartwarming when there's nothing altruistic in it?
And when you factor in the part about how all this is happening while Vimes' kid, who will go on to be actually called Young Sam, is born -- I don't know, man, there's a lot of really complex and interesting and sort of uncomfortable implications there, about how people interact with their pasts and with their children. There are a lot of ways in which this is a book about fatherhood for all that Vimes spends approximately ten pages actually being a father.
Also, I don't know how to write up my feelings about Vimes and Sybil. BUT I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT VIMES AND SYBIL. There you go.
* Reg Shoe makes a TERRIBLE Enjolras stand-in. But the older I get the less comfortable I get about Reg Shoe; sure, the dead rights activist funny one-off joke, but he tends to get used as a stick with which to beat anybody who cares a lot about social change and social justice, and, you know, those are good things to care about. That said, would I read the fic in which Enjolras became a zombie after his tragic barricades death and rose to lead the dead as a zombie activist leader? YES ABSOLUTELY WHY WOULD YOU EVEN ASK SOMEONE WRITE THIS FOR ME PRONTO.
Not that Night Watch is really one hundred percent a Les Mis book, not the same way Maskerade is a Phantom of the Opera book or Witches Abroad is a Macbeth book. (It's almost always the Witch books that are just straight-up Books About Other Books, because the Witch books are about stories in a way that the Guard books aren't.)
Weirdly, actually -- and I would not have picked up on this if I hadn't just reread the Brick and also been poking around French history for betaing fics and things -- the rebellion in Night Watch looks a lot more like the 1830 July Revolution than the failed 1832 rebellion during which Les Mis takes place. 1830 is the one where the official policemen deserted in droves because they didn't want to go against the angry citizens; more significantly, it's also the one that concluded with the higher-ups effecting a tidy replacement from one monarch to another and using that as a sop for the discontent, instead of making any real governmental change. Hence: 1832, Les Mis, epic tragedy, etc.
I have no idea whether this was deliberate on Terry Pratchett's part or not, but it's a useful way for him to make the points he wants to make about revolutions, which both are and are not fair ones. This is not a book that would work if it were about the 1789 French Revolution -- although, weirdly, Vimes is actually associated with that one too, because Old Stoneface is totally a 1789 revolutionary, and I am not sure this book fully works if you think too hard about that.*
So Night Watch is sort of a mixed book about revolutions and about Les Mis, is what I am trying to say; like, it does and doesn't get it, but I think it is sort of a necessary counterpoint. Like, I am glad that there is a book that's on the side of Just Keep As Many People Safe For As Long As Possible, even though that can be oversimplifying it as much as wantonly shouting "VIVE LA RESISTANCE!" is oversimplifying it.
Anyway, however you feel about the way it handles revolutions, Night Watch is a SERIOUSLY FANTASTIC book about time travel.
It kept hitting me especially during Vimes' interactions with Young Sam, because I would catch myself thinking how much of an excellent mentor Vimes was being and how heartwarming it was that he was trying to look out for him, and then I would remember all over again that Young Sam was, in fact, the younger version of Vimes, and can you find a relationship pleasant and heartwarming when there's nothing altruistic in it?
And when you factor in the part about how all this is happening while Vimes' kid, who will go on to be actually called Young Sam, is born -- I don't know, man, there's a lot of really complex and interesting and sort of uncomfortable implications there, about how people interact with their pasts and with their children. There are a lot of ways in which this is a book about fatherhood for all that Vimes spends approximately ten pages actually being a father.
Also, I don't know how to write up my feelings about Vimes and Sybil. BUT I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT VIMES AND SYBIL. There you go.
* Reg Shoe makes a TERRIBLE Enjolras stand-in. But the older I get the less comfortable I get about Reg Shoe; sure, the dead rights activist funny one-off joke, but he tends to get used as a stick with which to beat anybody who cares a lot about social change and social justice, and, you know, those are good things to care about. That said, would I read the fic in which Enjolras became a zombie after his tragic barricades death and rose to lead the dead as a zombie activist leader? YES ABSOLUTELY WHY WOULD YOU EVEN ASK SOMEONE WRITE THIS FOR ME PRONTO.
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Date: 2013-02-04 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-04 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-04 10:13 pm (UTC)Also totally agree about the weird discomfort with Vimes' mentoring of Sam, not least because he himself is so uncomfortable with it. I find the whole posing-as-Keel thing delightfully horrifying, in a way: I mean, god, no wonder Ned Coates doesn't trust him. One thing I could ask for more of would have been Vimes' own impressions of Keel, who seems to be almost lost to history as of the rewrite the monks do of that week-long section of the past; at least as far as I recall Vimes doesn't actually ever think of Keel in terms other than "he taught me things". It's not at all clear how much of his political finagling mimics Keel's actions, either, and everything people say about what Keel was like in Pseudopolis--big, thoughtful, quiet--suggests that he was actually quite a different man from Vimes in many ways, despite the superficial resemblances.
okay I didn't mean to type that much I'm sorry, just. NIGHT WATCH. First Discworld book I read. Jewel of my heart and occasional burr of my brain. I get excited. /)_o
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Date: 2013-02-04 10:35 pm (UTC)I dunno, I wonder if maybe what the weird cynicism comes down to at root is this firm belief that Terry Pratchett seems to have that the vast, vast majority of people just do not and will not care, no matter how much you want them too, which is why people like Reg Shoe who think they can make people care are silly. And sometimes that's true, but . . . not always. Social change happens when lots of people care. And it does happen! Terry Pratchett really believes in humanity of everyone and in idealism/heroism of individuals, but he cannot bring himself to believe very much in the possibility of idealism of groups. I mean, there are days when I don't believe in that either, but those are bad days, and there are more days when I do.
The posing-as-Keel thing is SO WEIRD and that's what makes the book so good! I wouldn't trust him if I were Ned Coates either. (Ned Coates is probably my favorite character in the book, aside from obviously Vimes, who is basically more magnificently competent in this book than ever before.) I am also really curious about the real Keel. Like, we get just enough hints about the things he did to be incredibly intriguing -- he was thoughtful and responsible in Pseudopolis, but unlike Vimes, who was just trying to protect people, he did join a real barricade in the original version of the rebellion. The guy was actually a revolutionary -- and on the one hand, you have to wonder what he would have taught Young Sam and the other young guards that Vimes missed, but on the other hand, it's a weirdly self-perpetuating cycle, because Vimes would have remembered everything important . . . or would he?
-- uh okay so obviously you have no need to apologize for typing so much because I have just done the same, ahhh! NIGHT WATCH.
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Date: 2013-02-05 02:31 pm (UTC). . . I would read that fic. It would BREAK MY HEART, but I would read it. Details!
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Date: 2013-02-05 01:20 am (UTC)This is my favourite Discworld book.
Not just for bb Vetinari! I think well-done time travel will always get me, tbh, and I love the Vimes POV.
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Date: 2013-02-05 02:43 pm (UTC)But yes, I love the Vimes POV, and I really love how Vimes is both genre-savvy to be aware of time travel issues and focused enough not to get paralyzed by them and do what needs to be done anyway.
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Date: 2013-02-05 02:40 am (UTC)I have always wanted fic for Sam and Ned and Keel, the first time around, with Keel being Keel. I haven't found any, alas.
I don't disagree with Pratchett quite as much as you do, I think. Revolutions fail more often than they succeed, and the worst failed revolutions happen when revolutionaries fail to take into account the intrinsic infelicities of human nature. The starry eyed Enlightenment romance with revolution certainly has to falter after the 20th century. People have a right to live without dead revolutionaries in their kitchen, and most especially without being shot in their kitchen because revolutionaries ate in the dining room. But at the same time no substantive change happens without someone forcing it. Sam was a revolutionary the first time around; old Sam knows better how much it costs.
But yes, I do agree: old Sam is also too cynical. And here I run up against Ankh-Morpork, which is running through three centuries worth of thought in the span of two decades, under a dictator, and throw up my hands.
I would never have thought to connect Night Watch with Les Mis, but that is probably my general pop culture illiteracy flaring up again. (Having said that, I would read the everloving hell out of zombie Enjolras. Stone cold, still hot!)
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Date: 2013-02-05 03:29 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think the thing is there's a bunch of things about revolutions that are true all at once and most of them contradict each other -- like, on the one hand, they often cause completely unnecessary death, and grief to those left alive, and people absolutely have a right to live, as you say, without dead revolutionaries in their kitchen (or in their cafe); revolutions result in waste. And at the same time you can't ever really consider it total waste because if nobody tries for them then change does not happen. The heroic last stand for LA RESISTANCE is totally worth it, and it's totally not worth it, and both these things are true. And it's really hard to write a story about revolutions while keeping all those contradictory ideas in mind at once, but I do think it's important to try.
Hah, I think I first made the connection the first time I read it when Carcer makes that throwaway comment about having stolen a loaf of bread. (lololol ACCURATE)
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Date: 2013-02-05 03:04 am (UTC)And yes, the part about how his son is also going to be Sam hit me right in the heart at the end: "But Young Sam was watching him, from thirty years away."
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Date: 2013-02-05 03:46 am (UTC)On the topic of possible-responses-to-Les-Miserables, have you read Lloyd Alexander's Westmark trilogy? I am almost positive it's engaging with Les Miz on some level, and if not, it's interesting for being a) anti-monarchy fantasy and b) having a complex and rather ambivalent take on revolutions. I'd be really interested in what you thought of it.
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Date: 2013-02-05 03:42 pm (UTC)In my head, I've sort of got a shelf of "interesting and complex YA books about revolutions" and I've got the Westmark books and Diana Wynne Jones' Dalemark books and Frances Hardinge's Fly By Night on there, all of which I think are sort of talking to each other in interesting ways. In practice I do not have this shelf because I don't own the Westmark books and my copy of Fly By Night is always lent out, but it exists in my heart!
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Date: 2013-02-05 04:35 am (UTC)Also, Pratchett is all for, like, equality and progress, as long as it takes the form of being twice as good as everyone else and never talking about it. Angua is awesome because she just does her job and never needs any support or backup from other women on the force. Reg is terrible because he wants to get a movement and solidarity going. Again, as long as you're exceptional, you're golden. Pratchett's philosophy seems to be the opposite of Bella Abzug's.
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Date: 2013-02-05 03:47 pm (UTC)But absolutely yes, on the exceptionalism. I think that's the underlying thing that often nags at me. It's not that Reg is terrible, exactly, but he's always silly, because obviously movements never will happen, in Pratchett's world -- or if they do they're terrible movements of mobs.
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Date: 2013-02-05 04:37 am (UTC)Soooooo hypothetically you could take some Les Mis caps of Enjolras, adjust the coloring and have Reg Shoe icons, right?
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Date: 2013-02-05 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-05 05:54 am (UTC)So then Pratchett had a phase where he was moving away from pastiche, but still clinging to it as the money-making formula and the thing the jokes are based on (Maskerade, Carpe Jugulum), and Night Watch for me is the one where he discards pastiche almost entirely and lets the fight between the antiquated, conservative, joke-y worldbuilding and the ambitions of the serious novelist animate the book. It's an homage to Les Mis, but it isn't a satirical homage; it's a nod to the fact that that time in history, and the concept of that kind of revolution, metaphorically serve perfectly as the kind of fight I'm talking about, and that Hugo was the master at depicting those things.
In short, Night Watch for me is the one where Pratchett finally said 'the hell with it, I am not a comic novelist, I am a novelist and I will write whatever I want regardless of whether it happens to be funny', which I applaud immensely and which has freed him up enormously since. Except that he keeps going back to pastiche, because it is easier and it is still a place to make the jokes come from...
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Date: 2013-02-05 03:53 pm (UTC)Which, now that you put it that way, is again a perfect thematic question for this point in Pratchett's writing of Discworld. So, yes. This!
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Date: 2013-02-05 07:22 am (UTC)AGH ENTIRELY INADEQUATE AGH. Surely you can wave your hands about and use some words? Please?
Also, I obvs need to re-read Night Watch.
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Date: 2013-02-05 03:59 pm (UTC)THERE YOU GO, SOME INCOHERENT FEELINGS FOR YOU :D
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Date: 2013-02-06 02:19 am (UTC)SOMEHOW I NEVER SUCCESSFULLY CONNECTED NIGHT WATCH TO LES MIS
DESPITE BEING INTRODUCED TO BOTH AT APPROXIMATELY THE SAME EPOCH OF MY LIFE
GOOD WORK, PAST!SOPHIA
brb rethinking everything and also clearly I need to reread Night Watch which I haven't done in YEARS.
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