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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: 2013-02-05 11:07 pm (UTC)Man, all the comments to this entry make me want to read Night Watch again.