Pratchett, Terry - Witches Abroad

[oyceter]

I continue to go through Discworld! I think that while I am fond of the Discworld books I've read so far, I'm not head-over-heels in love. That said, they're remarkably good light reading, they generally cheer me up, and while Pratchett can get a little repetitive in his intended points, I find that I have been looking for light fluffy books these days. I suspect the fluffiness is more because Pratchett is very skilled at writing light without writing thin; the books are easy to digest, but they also have a lot more layers than they seem to.

Witches Abroad takes place after the events of Wyrd Sisters, though I'm guessing you can read these completely out of order, as Pratchett reintroduces characters and concepts. Sometimes he does this too much; the beginning of this book is nearly identical to that of Wyrd Sisters (the coven gathering, then the food), which had me rolling my eyes a little.

Anyway, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat find themselves trying to carry out the last wishes of a fairy godmother, which means subverting the evil intentions of Lilith, who just wants everyone to have their own happy ending.

Some of the themes got extremely anvilly, which was irritating, particularly that about not being able to make people's happy endings for them and that the easy fix is usually the bad fix (as someone who likes to pretend to be able to come up with hack-y solutions, I object a little to this, though I get Pratchett's point. Multiple times).

On the other hand, I really liked that I actually felt threatened by the villain; most of the other Pratchett books didn't have me really believing in the threat. There are also some genuinely creepy moments in the book (the big bad wolf, for me). And, of course, I am always a sucker for fairy tale takes.

Also! Actual black people! /sarcasm

More seriously, I liked that Pratchett mixed together New Orleans and gumbo and Voodoo and Legba with Cinderella and "traditional" fairy tales; the Discworld books I've read so far are pretty West-centric, though people have commented that there are Asia and Africa and Australia equivalents in the world. I probably just haven't gotten there yet. Is there a South American equivalent?

I would normally be irritated by Nanny Ogg's mastery of "foreign" (particularly the moments of "chop chop" and the pidgin Asian languages) except that Pratchett is clearly making fun of the general propensity of tourists to march in and bungle things up, and I laughed at Granny Weatherwax's belief that if she just said something slowly and loudly enough, the language barrier would magically disappear. I'm also not sure how he does with Voodoo -- from my very uneducated POV, I was a little irritated by the voodoo doll and the zombie, but I also liked the take on the zombie and the voodoo doll. Also, I loved Mrs. Gogol's gumbo pot, and in general, my impression was that Pratchett was taking the trappings of Voodoo that make it into horror movies, poking holes in those caricatures, but also building fairly solid secondary characters underneath. I'm still not quite sure how he does this, but I am very impressed by how he can pull it off consistently.

Is Mrs. Gogol black? I thought so, though reading through the passage via Google books doesn't explicitly say so. On the other hand, the Discworld wiki lists her as black.

Anyway. POC! Yay!

And I loved Pratchett's description of Cajun food.

Comments

[slrose.livejournal.com]

I sometimes read the bit in the vampire's village aloud to people.

[oyceter]

Oh, I had forgotten about that! That was great.

[slrose.livejournal.com]

What's especially lovely is that while the reader knows exactly what is _supposed_ to happen, and what happens, the witches are totally unaware of it.

If Lily knew how badly they wrecked that story, she'd probably be annoyed. :)

[oyceter]

She would probably be hugely annoyed!

And oh, I love Greebo chomping on anything that moves.

[kate_nepveu]

I am not sure that there is a North _or_ a South America equivalent.

Ella's biracial, but I'm not sure about her father.

I'm not sure the books get less anvilly, but I can put up with that because they're so _humanist_.

[kate_nepveu]

Wow, I'm just not sure of anything, am I?

[oyceter]

Huh, interesting. I completely missed Ella being biracial until I checked the Discworld wiki, but I am very chuffed about a biracial Cinderella.

Yeah... I was going to type in the write up that I'm not as irritated by the anvils as I might be because I agree with them a lot. And I skim fast over them.

[octopedingenue]

I love the Discworld books for that a lot. Small Gods messed with affected a lot of the theology of 10-year-old me, and Monstrous Regiment made me realize how guilty I was of streak of political arrogance. (And Sam Vimes just makes my world a better place for sunshine and snark and kittens.)

You said 'chuffed!' I ♥ you.

[oyceter]

I say "chuffed" a lot these days, it seems ;). I am very chuffed about the word.

I do wish I had found these growing up; I think I would have liked them once I got used to the humor. Then again, I'm having a lot of fun blazing through them right now!

[chomiji]

I'm not really that keen on any of the early Pratchetts, but I cetainly have to go with kate-nepveu on the subject of his humanism. It's amazing how many serious points he can get across in a single book that has its audience laughing (or at least smiling) most of the way through it.

[oyceter]

What counts as early Pratchett? I've mostly been avoiding Color of Magic and Equal Rites per people's suggestions, but I'm still sort of trying to figure out how to navigate the massive amounts of books he's written.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

You have already seen the L-space Reading Order Guides (http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/), I hope? That helps keep the twisty turny relationships between the series straight.

For me, at least, the only sub-series that I liked from the very beginning were the Watch books and the Industrial Revolution books, and the standalone Ancient Civilizations tales. I didn't really care so much for the Death or Witches series until the second books, and Rincewind I love as a character, but found all of his books fairly unsatisfying on the whole until very late in the series, around "Interesting Times".

It took me a long time to get into Discworld, I'd originally tried to go in publication/series order and "Mort" and "Equal Rites" and "Colour of Magic" really didn't do all that much for me. Then I just sort of gave up going in order and started reading them randomly, skipping about back and forth, and that wound up making me much much happier in the long run. I can even go back occasionally and revisit those earlier books a bit more favorably now, seeing them through the lenses of the later stuff, but they will just never be as dear to me or as often-reread as the later books.

[oyceter]

I have been consulting it frequently! Otherwise I get totally confused.

Hrm, do I need to read the other Rincewind books to read "Interesting Times"? I want to check out the Chinese bit, but pretty much everyone has told me to skip Rincewind.

I actually first read Mort and Wyrd Sisters over five years ago, totally didn't get into them, then read The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents a couple years ago (rats!), sort of liked it but wasn't hooked, and then randomly picked up Mort again this summer, after finally stealing it back from my sister. And... have been on a bit of a binge ever since.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Hrm, I think you could probably jump in to that one without too much trouble? Rincewind and Twoflower are both so much more fleshed out here as characters, Twoflower in particular is just sort of a one-note sweet naive tourist in his first appearance, and here he's actually a real person with backstory and family and emotions and all. And as for Rincewind, well, it takes a little while for him to get on the scene and the way it's set up would I think be a sufficient introduction to the character that you wouldn't be lost? Sure, some of the jokes and little references are probably a bit funnier if you've seen Rincewind and Twoflower and Genghis Cohen and the Luggage before, but the fun of that sort of thing is sort of counterbalanced by the not-as-much-fun-ness of the earlier books.

(Rats! Wait until Reaper Man turns up and you get the first appearance of Death of Rats. SQUEAK.)

[oyceter]

I know! I have been dying to get Reaper Man (no pun intended) just for the Death of Rats!!!

[chomiji]

What smillaraaq said ... .   XD

YMMV, but I haven't felt inclined to re-read any of the following, in addition to the two you mention: The Light Fantastic, Sourcery, Eric (but I know other people who really love that one), and Wyrd Sisters. All of those are early Discworld books. He hasn't really developed his Pratchett-ness yet, somehow, in those. Too many cheap laughs, not enough texture.

I frequently re-read and enjoy Lords and Ladies, Carpe Jugulum, Hogfather, Monstrous Regiment, all the Watch books, and all the Tiffany Aching books.

The other ones fall in between.

But there's much variation among Pratchett fans ... I can take or leave Small Gods, but for many it's the epitome of a Discworld novel!

And my fondness for the Watch books is probably fallout from when I used to love police procedural mysteries (before they got so bloody and cruel).

[oyceter]

I just finished Lords and Ladies and really loved it! I'm still waiting for Reaper Man to get to the library so I can finally keep going with the Death series.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I am fonder of Wyrd Sisters than you are -- Hwel and Verence's ghost just really work for me, even if Magrat still hasn't grown a spine; and I love Small Gods now although it took me a while to warm to it. But otherwise our lists are remarkably similar! :) I adore all of the one-shots, I like the Witches books starting with Wyrd Sisters, the Death books starting with Reaper Man, and even the Rincewind/Wizards starting from Interesting Times, and reread them all pretty frequently; but those earlier books I very rarely dust off. The jokes aren't as deeply layered, the characters don't have as much depth and/or haven't settled into their final forms, and frankly I like Pterry better when he's dropping anvils instead of just trying to do a simple genre parody. This is probably why I adore Sam Vines with such a deep and uncritical love, as he's the most anvilly of them all.

[ellarien]

I seem to remember some South-American equivalent bits in Eric (which I have in the outsize illustrated version, so I'm not sure exactly where it is right now) but no North-American analog comes to mind, oddly enough. Interesting Times is the Chinese one, (and Thief of Time has pseudo-Buddhist monks) and The Last Continent is Australia-like.

[oyceter]

Ooo, Chinese! Hrm, may have to check that out.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

IT is to my tastes one of the better Rincewind books; you get to see him, and other characters and elements that were pretty minor and cartoony in that very first book, only now they have all sorts of backstory and real human depth.

And I would be very very interested in seeing your take on it, since he seems to me to be doing much the same thing here with his not-China (with occasional dashes of not-Japan and not-Mongols) as he is doing with the not-New-Orleans in WA; playing with all the broad easy exotic-inscrutable-etc.-Orientalism stereotypes, but with a beating heart and deep humanism underneath all of the not-English characters dealing with an unfamiliar culture jokiness.

[oyceter]

Huh, ok... I'm curious now. I do figure that the stereotypes will drive me batty, but I have enough faith in Pratchett that I figure he'll end up doing things with them that will be interesting, at least.

[chomiji]

The monks show up in Night Watch, too (that's one of my favorites).

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Pratchett's versions of non-European cultures are fun but they are definitely using pop-culture stereotypes of foreign cultures to satirise British culture and its relationships with foreigners. If I remember rightly there is actually a point in Witches Abroad where Nanny notices Mrs Gogol's black, and it's stated that racism between humans doesn't exist in the Discworld because the humans can get together and hate the non-humans (a rather over-optimistic idea, and one Pratchett fairly quickly abandoned and contradicted in his later work).

One Whedon parallel I've always thought of - I rather viewed Lily Weatherwax as where evil!Willow would have ended up if they'd gone with the moral decline they were portraying in early S6 instead of dumping it for the drug metaphor and grief-stricken vengeance.

[oyceter]

I think it's when she notices Mrs. Pleasant being black? But yeah, I know the moment you're talking about and the speciesism Pratchett mentions.

I really like the idea of Lily as Willow! That would have worked sooo much better and been a lot creepier as well.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I reread this recently and was suprised by all the things in it, because all I had remembered from (early 90s, maybe?) was Greebo prowling the palace looking like somebody unsavory but hot.

[oyceter]

Heeee at Greebo being hot. I am vaguely disturbed by it, but only because of rachelmanija's description of a weird yaoi manga with a dog-turned-man and having sex with your pet -_-;;.

[chomiji]

BTW, The Art of Discworld is well worth at least a look. I actually get mine down every few months and leaf through it - there are lots of interesting little notes about how Pratchett decided to characterize/develop various things in it, as well as gorgeous reproductions of the original U.K. covers and studies for them.

[oyceter]

Oh, cool! I hadn't realized -- will keep an eye out for it.