skygiants: Sokka from Avatar: the Last Airbender peers through an eyeglass (*peers*)
[personal profile] skygiants
Huh. Going Postal is a Pratchett I sort of remember not being super impressed by when I first read it; this time around I really liked it quite well, and I'm not totally sure why the switch.

I mean, I think part of it is probably just having recently read a history of telegraphy, because Going Postal is a SUPER TELEGRAPH BOOK . . and like the history of telegraphy I read, it is also a telegraphy-is-a metaphor-for-the-Internet book. Actually I am at least 60% convinced Terry Pratchett read The Victorian Internet somewhere in the middle of writing Going Postal, which is when the focus switches from CREEPY ELDRITCH POST OFFICE HORROR and GOLEM METAPHYSICS to, you know, telegraphy. And Business For The Public Good.

I am interested in CREEPY ELDRITCH POST OFFICE HORROR and I am interested in golem metaphysics and those things did sort of just fizzle off into the middle of this book somewhere, not really to return, so I guess it's possible that before I also was interested in telegraphy I became cranky when the things I liked went away, and that's why I didn't like it? Anyway, I'm fine with it now! I even have discovered a degree of caring about Moist, whom I never really cared about before, so that's nice.

(It is sort of interesting, though, how the CREEPY ELDRITCH POST OFFICE HORROR plot -- which starts out sort of reminiscent of Moving Pictures, another Eldritch Progress Rises From The Past narrative -- has to basically fizzle away, because Discworld is okay with technological progress now and there's nowhere for the eldritch to go. Sorry, creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions, Discworld has outpaced you and your Lovecraftian playdates have been cancelled.)

Relatedly on the progress track, I also don't know exactly why Ankh-Morpork in this book is suddenly proper steampunk -- it's very important that we know that bustles are back in and Sacharissa Crisplock is running around in bum-rolls and a fascinator, and Terry Pratchett has decided to get in on the feel of the thing by throwing in lengthy Victorian-pastiche chapter titles and descriptions, because why not -- but everyone seems to be enjoying themselves so who am I to complain?

Date: 2013-03-12 12:01 am (UTC)
ceitfianna: (Jude Law playing with a hat)
From: [personal profile] ceitfianna
Its an odd book and to me has rather more of a stand alone feel like The Truth and Making Money. I think because Pratchett is sort of going new era for Ankh-Morpork, let's get some young men involved with things yet still have Vimes and Vetinari.

It took me a reread to go, wait, Moist is an interesting character and I like this look at the world. Its not one of my favorites that I reread a lot but Moist moved into my head though I'm putting off putting him through canon. One reason is I think the romance feels a bit contrived and too romantic comedy or action movie to it that he needs to get a girl. I think Spike is a great character and wonderful foil for him and on her own but the two of them together just makes me go, for a little while not marriage.

Date: 2013-03-12 12:23 am (UTC)
hebethen: (Default)
From: [personal profile] hebethen
I feel you on the romance!

BTW, "Lovecraftian playdate" is an excellent phrase.

Date: 2013-03-12 12:25 am (UTC)
ceitfianna: (The Disc)
From: [personal profile] ceitfianna
Yes, I think Spike and Moist's interactions are great but they're not going to be another Vimes and Sybil. Their romance bothered me more in Making Money because it felt like it was being pushed forward. I just wanted more of them snarking on each other and her pointing out all his faults.

Date: 2013-03-17 10:56 am (UTC)
enleve: (Default)
From: [personal profile] enleve
Someone find those tentacle monster parents a sitter immediately! The future of the world is at stake! *snerk*

Date: 2013-03-12 12:45 am (UTC)
ceitfianna: (Books don't forget to fly)
From: [personal profile] ceitfianna
I feel like the three books sort of fit together, but yes, I wish there had been more William de Worde as newspapers are such great places for stories. Moist's plots are interesting but they're much more actively Pratchett going and I will examine parts of how the world runs. He does it brilliantly but they're books I enjoy more for Moist, the civil servants and the golems.

I love the looks at these weird cultures that appear and find Moist's brain a fascinating place but I wish he interacted more with the rest of Discworld. And this is why I play him, he seems full of possibilities and ways to play with the Disc.

Date: 2013-03-12 01:38 am (UTC)
sophia_sol: photo of a 19th century ivory carving of a fat bird (Default)
From: [personal profile] sophia_sol
Huh, for me this was one of those books where I loved it immediately on first read! Frankly I don't think I even noticed that it switched from being about eldritch post office horror and golem metaphysics to being about telegraphy, because I read for characters way more anything else and I was just really enjoying reading about Moist -- so in my head all three elements are mixed up with each other for the whole book, not switching from one to the other. Anyways, I just find Moist so interesting! I have less FEELS about him than some of Pratchett's other characters, but he's just so interesting! At least for me. :P

I liked Making Money rather less than Going Postal, though -- and I've never reread it. I'm wondering now if I SHOULD reread it, and whether my opinions of it would be any different!

Date: 2013-03-12 02:35 am (UTC)
kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
From: [personal profile] kate_nepveu
_Making Money_ has far too little plot for its length, to the best of my recollection, and I say that as someone who, when making a list of favorite individual books, chose _Going Postal_ from the "new" books (that is, the ones after I started reading).

Date: 2013-03-13 03:05 am (UTC)
kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
From: [personal profile] kate_nepveu
. . . it has a dog?

Date: 2013-03-12 04:55 am (UTC)
carmarthen: a baaaaaby plesiosaur (Default)
From: [personal profile] carmarthen
I don't have strong feelings about Moist either way--he's one of the rare conman characters I don't dislike intensely, but I don't love him, either--but I LOVED the telegraph bits, and some of them made me teary. IDEK, Pratchett, I can never quite predict when he's going to make me Unexpectedly Cry.

Date: 2013-03-12 02:58 pm (UTC)
raven: [hello my name is] and a silhouette image of a raven (Default)
From: [personal profile] raven
Bizarrely, what sold me on this one was Richard Coyle in the miniseries. He brought Moist to life for me - I re-read the book and enjoyed it thoroughly, much more than the first time around. I absolutely adore the clacksmen's mythos - the Hour of the Dead, the signalling of dead men's names! Loved it, but Making Money didn't stand up nearly as well, I feel. I wonder if the long-thought-of Moist-does-the-tax-office one will ever appear.

Date: 2013-03-12 05:16 pm (UTC)
oyceter: teruterubouzu default icon (Default)
From: [personal profile] oyceter
Hee, I think this is one of the earlier Discworld books I read (I started only a few years ago!) and the first Ankh-Morpork one I loved. (I like the Guard, but Pratchett's overall view of politics and democracy in A-M annoy me.)

I kind of wish there had been more golem metaphysics, but I love the telegraph stuff so much that I don't really care. Also, I love Moist making completely ridiculous claims and then somehow managing to carry through and the whole flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants aspect.

Didn't like Making Money half as much, I suspect partly because the Moist-as-underdog bit is not nearly as strong.

Date: 2013-03-17 11:09 am (UTC)
enleve: (Default)
From: [personal profile] enleve
Hmm. From a certain point of view, Moist is an underdog in Making Money. The thing he's fighting, though, is a concept inside of people's minds. And, in the end, he fails (partly due to his own earlier actions.) Maybe fails is too harsh. He succeeds partly. The concept is too entrenched, people are too attached to it. It has years of history, and fighting it is like fighting the ocean or something big and elusive and hard to defeat.

Date: 2013-03-12 06:09 pm (UTC)
gogollescent: (the eastern gate)
From: [personal profile] gogollescent
I like Going Postal a lot, although I don't find it as interesting as some of his other exuberant one-offs. Despite the shift in attention halfway through, I feel like it has one of his better endings, or rather resolutions; repossessing the voices of the dead was such a cool, squicky way of eliminating the playing field, so to speak. Actually I think Going Postal has some of his best writing--I love the scene where Adora and Moist dance after the fire, and all the indulgent stuff about the clacks themselves, dropping starlight softly across the whatever, is fun when it comes from a character like Moist, who can inject poetry into the narration without impinging on its normal cynicism. Quite the reverse, in fact. Moist I thought was fun because he's just not the kind of protagonist Pratchett usually goes for, and I do think he's a bit out of the normal conman w/ hat of gold mold, though I admit he was like the first example of that trope I seriously latched onto and therefore it might be more a question of imprinting than innovation. But he's less dramatically self-loathing than most of his type, while still having that core of distaste, and he's so, like, cutesily theoretical about his behavior and his own impulsivity, it's sweet.

I also wonder about the fashion shift thing. Isn't Guards! Guards! supposed to be late medieval? And then… well… in Thud! there's a mention of it being 1999...

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