How many nerd points do I lose for not having read any of the Discworld books?
They look like fun, but I've somehow just never gotten around to them. Can you read them out of order? Since there see to be about ten million of them, hopefully the answer is "yes".
1: The link discusses this a bit. I've read only a handful. I'd say start anywhere, except first published (it kind of sucks).
I haven't read any of the Discworld novels and I just read the link in the OP and thought it was great! I'd be curious to know what people who are familiar with Discworld pick up on (or quibble with), but there's plenty to chew on even without any knowledge of the novels.
It also ties directly into something that I was thinking about sending in as a link this morning, so I may wait 40-50 comments and then try to throw another idea into the discussion . . .
I have read several Discworld novels, but not the op link. Most of the ones I have read don't seem particularly erudite in depicting political philosophy. Favorite so far is "Witches Abroad"
In truth I barely remember any of them. Subtle they aren't, but if the intended audience is HS students (which I was) maybe they're pitched right.
Natilo, I would think you'd like this paragraph from the linked article:
The mayor of the town dies in the impromptu rebellion, but he dies with his chain of office in his hands, determinately using it as a garrote to strangle one of the vampires that had been making smalltalk with him, moments before.
Or this is an example of what caught my eye as a neat bit of reading/criticism.
This reversal works fantastically on an aesthetic level. Granny is more than a little vampiric herself. Much is made of the fact that she can put not just her consciousness but all the information about what makes her her, all that data, into other creatures--owls, hawks, bees, and, as it turns out, vampires. While she "borrows" her body lies in a comatose state, a state so alarming to viewers that she needs to hold a card letting them know she'll be coming back. The card reads "I Aten't Dead."
Things that aren't gothic don't generally have to carry signs stating that no, really, they're still alive.
Witches, on the whole, also lurk gothically. Not just Granny, but Agnes Nitt, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlic, all partake of the gothic. All the witches in this story cheat and part of their cheating is manipulating what people assume about witches. In times of trouble they might use a fishing lure as a crystal ball. In times of respect they might wear fake warts in order to play the part more fully of the intimidating dark spellcaster. I genuinely haven't done enough research to know if the claim that witch burnings happened at the cusp of modernity, the development of the capitalist mode of production, in order to break matriarchal power, holds water... but it has a tempting ring to it doesn't it? As progress marches on, the witches retreat into gothic shadows, or into the mask of old docile femininity, and in this way they survive to haunt the future.
3: AFAICR everything the OP says about the books is true or plausible.
Specifically, the dehumanizing quality of a modernizing state without a governing ethic is very explicitly a, or the, theme of Carpe Jugulum.
I'm like halfway through Mort. No spoilers.
Sorry, that should have been in the politics thread.
I don't know one single thing about Discworld (including, until now, its existence), but I agree with NickS that the article was nevertheless really interesting.
This is a great insight about any series of books:
You can start wherever, and navigate the story not as a line but as a whole landscape.
I think mature Pratchett is really wonderful. Amongst other things, he does evil really well. I'd recommend him to anyone, maybe starting with Small Gods or Lords and Ladies.
Guards, guards, maybe.
Ume and I have just been (re-) reading Monstrous Regiment but I wouldn't start with it.
Hogfather.
Weak ones include Moving pictures, the lost continent, jingo, and anything really with rincewind in it. Other Wizards are ok.
But she's just had another day lump, supposedly benign, removed from her and we're waiting to be discharged from hospital. I'm beginning to worry that the surgeons will cut me off next
13: I guess I've probably heard the title but skipped discussions about it and immediately filed it in the mental bin for "things that don't quite register because I don't plan to learn anything about even them if they sound very interesting because my head is stuffed too full just now."
15: Fingers crossed for good news!
17: I have a big bin for that also.
We just finished reading Jane the second Tiffany Aching book and have now started in on the seasonally-appropriate Hogfather.
14's list is good but omits my favorites, which are Feet of Clay (the best sequel to Guards, Guards) and Going Postal (which might as well have "THIS IS A CRITIQUE OF LATE CAPITALISM" in bright red letters on the cover but is great anyway, probably the last really solid Pratchett book).
I have no objections to adding either to the canon
It may be my fault that MH is only halfway through Mort, instead of zipping through something more to his liking.
As others have said, you really can start anywhere, as nearly every book has a bit of exposition explaining the Disc, and locating the story somewhat within the overall scheme of things. The books that feature the first appearance of major characters (e.g., Equal Rites for the witches discussed in the OP, Mort for Death, Guards! Guards! for the Night Watch) are particularly good starting points. The subsequent appearances are better, because Pratchett develops the characters and the settings, but they are good localized beginnings.
I have written about each book as I have read it here http://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/tag/discworld/ and I am likely to finish up the main sequence late next year.
Actually, was Nation after Going Postal? That's also a really solid book, although not a Discworld book.
I'm waiting until I finish it before I read anything else, including the instructions to start the furnace.
14.last is wise.
Definitely don't start with the first one (The Colour of Magic). Looking at the list of Discworld novels, I'd guess I've read around half. The 'Rincewind' ones are definitely the worst.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld#Novels
I have a lot of affection for Pyramids and Guards! Guards!
I would start with "Guards! Guards!", because it's the first in the Watch sub-series, which is one of the two strongest sub-series, the other one being the Witches of Lancre. But the first of those is Equal Rites, which is fun, but not quite into his stride.
The best as literature (completely subjective) are Small Gods, Night Watch and Hogfather. The funniest (also subjective) are Pyramids, Mort and Witches Abroad.
Also, OT, NNM2 Christine Keeler.
Also, too. The Tiffany Aching/Wee Free Men subseries is marketed as YA, but well worth reading at any age.
I'm also curious what NickS's link is.
One of my students recommended Pratchett, and then I didn't read him for years, because what do students know?
But I picked up (I think?) one of the Tiffany Aching books at the library, and since then I've read almost all of them, except for the Rincewind books, which I agree are substandard Pratchett. (Whenever he gets going on the wizards at the university, you can skip several pages.)
The ones with Granny Weatherwax and the ones with Sam Vines are the best, I think, although I have a certain fondness for The Truth, which is about the invention of the newspaper in Ankh-Morpork.
I'm on board with chris y's list of starting points. The Witches and Guards sub-series are the best, but I think we all have a soft spot for Death.
As much fun as some of the later books are as political/economic pastiches of the industrialization of Victorian era Britain, they are less good as stories. It also got a bit labored as he iterated through all the major inventions of the 19th century. Not to mention iterating through achieving some sort of equality for each humanoid species via the gimmick that each one conveniently has some unique ability that makes the rest of Discworld accept them.
I find the ones with the wizards, and especially Rincewind, to be sub-standard, but even those have nuggets of cleverness and hilarity.
The Wee Free Men/Tiffany Aching sub-series is great.
When Pratchett died, there were rumors that his daughter would take over the series and continue it. She quite correctly squashed them. I think he was unique.
Of the ones I've read, I liked "Equal Rites" best. That was a Granny Weatherwax one. Still, I liked Hitchhiker's Guide much better. Maybe there's some kind of Douglass Adams/Terry Pratchett personality divide. Or maybe it matters that I read one at 15 and the other at 45.
Isn't Rincewind the Flashman homage? Too bad it's bad because I could read the hell out of that.
I've never read Flashman, but I'm going to say no.
I did try to read Flashman, but failed after maybe a dozen pages. He slept with his father's mistress and got kicked out but I didn't see where to. I got much further in Flashman than I did in the Culture book. I didn't even open that before the library took it back.
I read the post and was immediately put in mind of the current set of changes in Saudi (along with Friedmans verbal fellation of the same).
35 last minute cancellation of GCC meeting where there was talk of a rapprochement does not bode well. That and some other developments.
I don't think anyone in Terry Pratchett's works is a Flashman homage. Certainly not Rincewind. He's your typical bumbling protagonist (this time a wizard).
I wouldn't say the Rincewind book was bad or anything. It just wasn't up to the high standards I expect of British books with wizards.
37 I could have sworn I read that somewhere. Ajay?
39: not I.
Rincewind isn't Flashman; they're both cowards, sure, but Flashman is a villain as well, and gains an unearned reputation as a hero. Rincewind actually does save the world on more than one occasion.
"Pyramids" has elements of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" in its description of dorm life at the Assassins' Guild School. There's a scene where one small boy earnestly draws a pentagram, lights various evil-smelling candles, produces an unpleasant-looking knife and then drags an unhappy tethered goat into the middle of the circle. An older boy intervenes, only to be told that "there's nothing wrong with a chap being man enough to say his prayers in front of other chaps". And the school bully is not Speedicut, but Fliemoe... (= Flymo, a brand of lawnmower).
39.last was more a request for your comment as I know you're a fan of both.
I do recall that there was a Discworld character inspired by Flashman but maybe this is a Mandela.
Speaking of British jokes, I feel that I'm missing a reference when I see the name "Ankh-Morpork".
41: can't think of any obvious Flashman-inspired characters tbh...
42: the reference is American: Fritz Leiber's "Fafhrd and the Mouser" fantasy novels, set in and around the city of Lankhmar.
I keep meaning to buy that and let it sit unread on my Kindle.
36:
Well, in line with the vampires imposing modernism to keep the blood sucking continuing.
I'm also curious what NickS's link is.
The interview by Sean Illing with Kate Manne who argues that we should start using the word "misogyny" differently*
There's a tendency to define misogyny as this deep hatred in the heart, harbored by men towards girls and women. I define misogyny as social systems or environments where women face hostility and hatred because they're women in a man's world -- a historical patriarchy.
...
Yeah, that's really well put. One way of looking at it is we have these patriarchal social structures, bastions of male privilege where a dominant man might feel entitled to (and often receive) feminine care and attention from women.
I think of misogyny and sexism as working hand-in-hand to uphold those social relations. Sexism is an ideology that says, "These arrangements just make sense. Women are just more caring, or nurturing, or empathetic," which is only true if you prime people by getting them to identify with their gender.
That goes right along with, for example, the comments in the linked article about Italian Futurists
The Futurists loved everything about progress and the dawning age of the machine. They also loved the idea of war and fascism and putting women in their place and so on. They united a worship of new technologies which gave rise to truly remarkable experiments in light and motion in art, while fusing it to a deep chauvinism and worship of past nationalist strength. Progress and modernity, yes, but monstrously so.
* Personally I think she's describing something important, but I don't think "misogyny" is the best word to use.
46: Kinda-sorta. Manne is roughly defining "sexism" as the ideology of patriarchy and "misogyny" as the behaviors which enforce compliance with sexism.* Those behaviors can, and did and do, exist without use of anything distinctly modern, be it bureaucracy or science or technology or institutionalized indoctrination. Of course all those techniques have also been used by patriarchies, but there's no essential connection. This is consistent with the OP's point, that the tools of modernity are intrinsically value-neutral, but I don't see that Manne is making that argument or anything like it.
*I've no dispute with the distinction, though I doubt it reflects the actual usage of the words.
I don't see that Manne is making that argument or anything like it.
Right, I don't think the two articles are making the same point, just that reading the Discworld article immediately after the Manne interview I thought there was overlap.
41. Rincewind is an abject coward who gets sucked into dangerous situations and survives them. Beyond that, no resemblance to Flashman.
43. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. ("Fafhrd" is said to be pronounced "foffered.")
Late to the thread, sorry about that, it was up my alley.
From the OP:
And if one of the main problems of Discworld is "how are we to progress toward justice," one of the main perspectives you'd want to include is the possibility of "progress" being monstrous. This is the possibility the de Magpyrs represent.
This isn't how I remember it. Maybe I'm just nitpicking one bad turn of phrase, I don't disagree with most of the article, but other Discworld novels have much better examples of progress being monstrous. The villain of The Truth is Gordon Gekko with a pirate motif. The villain of Night Watch is the French Revolution, or rather a garden-variety murderer becomes a tyrant because of an environment like that.
Instead, I'd say that the de Magpyrs represent the existing ruling class using modern tools to preserve their power. Seems very relevant these days, and, hell, at least they engaged in philanthropy while sucking the peoples' blood. That's more than can be said of some modern capitalists.
Re: Flashman, I'm not familiar with the character (I've heard of him in general terms and just read the Wikipedia page), but one Discworld character he reminds me of is Lord Rust. They share a completely undeserved reputation for heroism in similar armies. Flashman is competent but a coward and completely selfish; Rust is noble in a sense but a bigot and moron. Flashman survives disasters like the Charge of the Light Brigade and is remembered as a hero due to luck or fraud; Rust is the guy ordering the charges and remains in power because his family is just that powerful.
Also, this reminds me of one Discworld adaption I've been meaning to see. Apparently in The Truth, Charles Dance plays Lord Vetinari, and I'm having a hard time imagining better casting. Christopher Lee, maybe?
Flashman isn't competent, except at riding (away) and fencing (when he doesn't have a horse to ride away on).
50.2: Definitely nitpicky, but on casual inspection I'd guess "the existing ruling class using modern tools to preserve their power" is the norm rather than the exception, from c1500 on down.
52: Freakishly good at languages, too.
50.last: ah, I see. I would say that Lord Rust is nothing like Flashman, to be honest, but that he is extremely like several characters in the Flashman books - Lord Cardigan, for example.
The adaptation you are thinking of, by the way, is not "The Truth" but "Going Postal". And Charles Dance is (of course) great as Vetinari.
Christopher Lee, btw, played Death in another adaptation. As did Ian Richardson.
I'm so disappointed there is no Lord Pullover or Lady Twinset.
I assume 57 is in reference to 55? If so, then you'll probably like Monstrous Regiment.
I'm reading them in order, regardless of how long it takes me to re-start Mort.