Night Watch
March 27, 2023 9:19 AM - Subscribe
In the midst of chasing Ankh-Morpork's most punchable psychopath across the rooftops of Unseen University, a freak lightning strike plays havoc with the magical temporal energy around, sending both Sam Vimes and his quarry thirty years into the past. This was a time when the Patrician wasn't quite so sane, the Watch not nearly so upstanding, the City was ready for a Revolution, and a young Sam Vimes had just joined the force but was desperately in need of a decent mentor. (Discworld #29, City Watch #6.) By Terry Pratchett.
Welcome (or welcome back) to the revived Terry Pratchett / Discworld Book Club! We're currently covering the City Watch subseries (Previously: Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant. If you wish to catch up, Guards! Guards! is the recommended place to start, here.)
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High atop the towers and domes of Unseen University, Commander Sam Vimes and his team pursue Carcer, the type of murderous crook who always has another knife on him somewhere and treats this whole endeavor like a funny game. When lightning strikes the magically-enhanced spot, Carcer and Sam are both rocketed thirty years into the city's past.
The thing about thirty years ago is... it's the Bad Old Days. The Watch is a deeply corrupt institution, little more than the paranoid Patrician Lord Winder's personal gang. There's also a secret police force of torturers - the "Cable Street Particulars" - lurking around to deal with plots against the Patrician, or at least enjoy the fruits of humoring him in doing so. Not that Winder's paranoia is entirely unfounded, of course. At least one young Assassin's Guild member is constructing a way to get to him, and the people are ready to sing the music of a people who will not be slaves again...
This is the Watch as a young Lance Constable Samuel Vimes first joined it, and the gods only know what would have become of him if not for the strong mentorship of Sergeant John Keel, a incorruptible copper just now (just then?) arriving from Pseudopolis. Unfortunately, the first thing Carcer does in this new timeline is to murder Keel, while Sam is getting arrested for breaking curfew while trying to go talk to the Wizards.
Lu-Tse and the History Monks have a lot to try to clean up here, while Sam has to step into the late Keel's boots and try to keep from mucking up the past too much and return to his own time where, oh yeah, Sybil is currently in labor with their first child. It's Back to the Future! It's Les Misérables! It's DS9's "Past Tense" 2-parter. It's Ankh-Morpork on the brink! It's NIGHT WATCH!
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As a note, I realized in reading this one that we are now deep into where the Industrial Revolution books are necessary for context about what's going on, and I think a detour is in order to make sense of everything. Moving Pictures is generally considered the "start" of the Industrial Revolution stuff but honestly has little to do with the rest of them and seems like too much of a detour at this point, so unless there's any real objection, our next book in this revived Discworld Book Club shall be The Truth.
Welcome (or welcome back) to the revived Terry Pratchett / Discworld Book Club! We're currently covering the City Watch subseries (Previously: Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant. If you wish to catch up, Guards! Guards! is the recommended place to start, here.)
---------
High atop the towers and domes of Unseen University, Commander Sam Vimes and his team pursue Carcer, the type of murderous crook who always has another knife on him somewhere and treats this whole endeavor like a funny game. When lightning strikes the magically-enhanced spot, Carcer and Sam are both rocketed thirty years into the city's past.
The thing about thirty years ago is... it's the Bad Old Days. The Watch is a deeply corrupt institution, little more than the paranoid Patrician Lord Winder's personal gang. There's also a secret police force of torturers - the "Cable Street Particulars" - lurking around to deal with plots against the Patrician, or at least enjoy the fruits of humoring him in doing so. Not that Winder's paranoia is entirely unfounded, of course. At least one young Assassin's Guild member is constructing a way to get to him, and the people are ready to sing the music of a people who will not be slaves again...
This is the Watch as a young Lance Constable Samuel Vimes first joined it, and the gods only know what would have become of him if not for the strong mentorship of Sergeant John Keel, a incorruptible copper just now (just then?) arriving from Pseudopolis. Unfortunately, the first thing Carcer does in this new timeline is to murder Keel, while Sam is getting arrested for breaking curfew while trying to go talk to the Wizards.
Lu-Tse and the History Monks have a lot to try to clean up here, while Sam has to step into the late Keel's boots and try to keep from mucking up the past too much and return to his own time where, oh yeah, Sybil is currently in labor with their first child. It's Back to the Future! It's Les Misérables! It's DS9's "Past Tense" 2-parter. It's Ankh-Morpork on the brink! It's NIGHT WATCH!
-------
As a note, I realized in reading this one that we are now deep into where the Industrial Revolution books are necessary for context about what's going on, and I think a detour is in order to make sense of everything. Moving Pictures is generally considered the "start" of the Industrial Revolution stuff but honestly has little to do with the rest of them and seems like too much of a detour at this point, so unless there's any real objection, our next book in this revived Discworld Book Club shall be The Truth.
Once again, a lot to get into here, and I began to feel a bit out of my depth because, even though I've read the Industrial Revolution books on their own, it's been long enough since then that I felt like I was missing a lot of the picture here. That said, I definitely understand why this one is as beloved as it is, being not just an origin story for Sam Vimes (and Fred Colon, and Nobby Nobbs, and Reg Shoe, and Havelock Vetinari...) but for Ankh-Morpork as we know and understand the city itself.
It's wild to put a funhouse mirror spin on the Valjean/Javert dynamic which makes Javert the morally upright protagonist and Valjean well and truly a criminal in need of capture, and even wilder that Vimes and Carcer manage to work as interesting characters in that sort of framework. Carcer himself struck me as basically being The Joker minus the costume, probably due to his laughing at everything and legitimately having no plan beyond what's directly in front of him. This makes him a very compelling villain when he's on the page (because good gods he's infuriating!) but kind of a cipher whenever he's not.
The real meat here, however, is Sam Vimes (as John Keel) mentoring young Sam Vimes, and how Old Sam is at first a conscience for Young Sam, before the presence of Young Sam becomes a conscience for Old Sam. I said in the Fifth Elephant thread how much the city and the Watch are absolutely changed now from when we started in Guards! Guards!, which makes this one excellently placed to show just how much things have changed. And, of course, at the end of this we get the establishment of something like a modern medical institution. The disc moves forward!
posted by Navelgazer at 9:35 AM on March 27, 2023 [6 favorites]
It's wild to put a funhouse mirror spin on the Valjean/Javert dynamic which makes Javert the morally upright protagonist and Valjean well and truly a criminal in need of capture, and even wilder that Vimes and Carcer manage to work as interesting characters in that sort of framework. Carcer himself struck me as basically being The Joker minus the costume, probably due to his laughing at everything and legitimately having no plan beyond what's directly in front of him. This makes him a very compelling villain when he's on the page (because good gods he's infuriating!) but kind of a cipher whenever he's not.
The real meat here, however, is Sam Vimes (as John Keel) mentoring young Sam Vimes, and how Old Sam is at first a conscience for Young Sam, before the presence of Young Sam becomes a conscience for Old Sam. I said in the Fifth Elephant thread how much the city and the Watch are absolutely changed now from when we started in Guards! Guards!, which makes this one excellently placed to show just how much things have changed. And, of course, at the end of this we get the establishment of something like a modern medical institution. The disc moves forward!
posted by Navelgazer at 9:35 AM on March 27, 2023 [6 favorites]
"Sam Vimes goes back to make Sam Vimes Sam Vimes"? Hell yeah.
Yeah, this one certainly has a hell of a story behind it, to be sure. Like I was saying in the extended description, we've got Les Miz, very obviously, though from a much more cynical and realist perspective in a lot of ways (young firebrand revolutionary Reg Shoe is a particularly harsh picture, mitigated only by the fact that we know Reg well enough by now to like him, and so does Vimes, and his heart is largely in the right place. But he's still hyper-naïve about what revolution will mean, and the scene where Vimes has to talk him out of storing all the food in a distribution warehouse - where it will almost surely rot while a distribution infrastructure is worked out - doesn't hold back many punches.)
But also it's Back to the Future in its framework, of Vimes being sent back thirty years to his own "making" much like Marty McFly was sent back thirty years to when his parents met. Vimes has to mentor his younger self much like Marty has to mentor George McFly, and Carcer's arrival with him screws up the timeline in a key way much like Loraine's dad hitting Marty with the car instead of George screws up the Hill Valley timeline. Hell, there's even the bit with Vimes inadvertently giving Dibbler his cut-me-own-throat catchphrase, which I read as a reference either to the "Johnny B. Goode" timeloop from BttF or else when Marty tells Goldie Wilson that he's going to be Mayor someday, setting Wilson on that path.
And then, as I mentioned above, there's "Past Tense." I don't know if Terry was a DS9 fan or ever saw this episode. Neil Gaiman was asked about this specifically and said he wasn't sure either, that he and Terry had never talked about Trek aside from the original series, but that it was certainly possible and that Terry very often took inspiration from what he was watching and would take the bones of those plots to the directions he'd wished they'd gone. "Past Tense" is of course one of the great Trek two-parters, discussed a lot recently because it takes place more or less today, and deals with mounting tensions and riots that would eventually lead to the utopia seen in the Trekverse. In those episode, Capt. Sisko (along with Bashir and Dax) are accidentally transported to 2024 San Francisco, in the days before the "Bell Riots," where Bell, the key figure in maintaining some degree of peace, is ignominiously killed before he can play his part, and Sisko has to step into his shoes while keeping things together behind, effectively, a barricaded-off portion of the city. It has, well, striking similarities.
But the point here is that as much as I was seeing other stories I knew deep in my bones reflected in this, it still felt fresh and alive. But I couldn't help but greatly miss the rest of the Watch members who I love so much by now. Sam Vimes is great. Love Sam Vimes. No shade to Sam Vimes. But at this point I'm in this for Cheery and Angua and Carrot and Detritus and and and... It was fun to see street urchin Nobby and, again, long-haired poofy-shirted revolutionary Reg Shoe, but I missed The Watch.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:40 PM on March 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
Yeah, this one certainly has a hell of a story behind it, to be sure. Like I was saying in the extended description, we've got Les Miz, very obviously, though from a much more cynical and realist perspective in a lot of ways (young firebrand revolutionary Reg Shoe is a particularly harsh picture, mitigated only by the fact that we know Reg well enough by now to like him, and so does Vimes, and his heart is largely in the right place. But he's still hyper-naïve about what revolution will mean, and the scene where Vimes has to talk him out of storing all the food in a distribution warehouse - where it will almost surely rot while a distribution infrastructure is worked out - doesn't hold back many punches.)
But also it's Back to the Future in its framework, of Vimes being sent back thirty years to his own "making" much like Marty McFly was sent back thirty years to when his parents met. Vimes has to mentor his younger self much like Marty has to mentor George McFly, and Carcer's arrival with him screws up the timeline in a key way much like Loraine's dad hitting Marty with the car instead of George screws up the Hill Valley timeline. Hell, there's even the bit with Vimes inadvertently giving Dibbler his cut-me-own-throat catchphrase, which I read as a reference either to the "Johnny B. Goode" timeloop from BttF or else when Marty tells Goldie Wilson that he's going to be Mayor someday, setting Wilson on that path.
And then, as I mentioned above, there's "Past Tense." I don't know if Terry was a DS9 fan or ever saw this episode. Neil Gaiman was asked about this specifically and said he wasn't sure either, that he and Terry had never talked about Trek aside from the original series, but that it was certainly possible and that Terry very often took inspiration from what he was watching and would take the bones of those plots to the directions he'd wished they'd gone. "Past Tense" is of course one of the great Trek two-parters, discussed a lot recently because it takes place more or less today, and deals with mounting tensions and riots that would eventually lead to the utopia seen in the Trekverse. In those episode, Capt. Sisko (along with Bashir and Dax) are accidentally transported to 2024 San Francisco, in the days before the "Bell Riots," where Bell, the key figure in maintaining some degree of peace, is ignominiously killed before he can play his part, and Sisko has to step into his shoes while keeping things together behind, effectively, a barricaded-off portion of the city. It has, well, striking similarities.
But the point here is that as much as I was seeing other stories I knew deep in my bones reflected in this, it still felt fresh and alive. But I couldn't help but greatly miss the rest of the Watch members who I love so much by now. Sam Vimes is great. Love Sam Vimes. No shade to Sam Vimes. But at this point I'm in this for Cheery and Angua and Carrot and Detritus and and and... It was fun to see street urchin Nobby and, again, long-haired poofy-shirted revolutionary Reg Shoe, but I missed The Watch.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:40 PM on March 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
For a very, VERY long time, _Small Gods_ was my absolute favorite Discworld book. Then, in what seemed like very rapid succession, _Thief of Time_ and _Night Watch_ came out. Both completely floored me, in different ways.
This one is Pterry writing, at his absolute best, one of his greatest characters.
posted by hanov3r at 1:11 PM on March 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
This one is Pterry writing, at his absolute best, one of his greatest characters.
posted by hanov3r at 1:11 PM on March 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is, bar none, my favorite Discworld book.
posted by kyrademon at 1:20 PM on March 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by kyrademon at 1:20 PM on March 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
Why is this bit not as famous as the Vimes Boot Theory? "That was always the dream, wasn’t it? ‘I wish I’d known then what I know now’? But when you got older you found out that you now wasn’t you then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp."
I was a total twerp as a youngster. Probably still am, but I'm at least twerpy in different ways.
There is one thing that keeps this book from perfection: Mossy fucking Lawn. Scientific dudely dude rescues Sybil from an incompetent female midwife! NOT SEXIST AT ALL, PTERRY! NOT AHISTORICAL AT ALL, PTERRY! Out here in Roundworld, scientific dudely dudes killed thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of women in childbirth with their uberdudely (often pseudo-)science!
I don't understand how the man who created Nanny Ogg and Esme Weatherwax did this. It's such a betrayal, and so unnecessary -- the Lawn character could perfectly well have been female and the incompetent at Sybil's bedside male. Hell, that would have upped the satire quotient and built a tie to the Lancre witch books.
After Thief of Time, Vimes could even have consulted Nanny Ogg herself somehow -- and wouldn't that have been epic? I think Nanny and Sybil would get along great. And Nanny would sure teach Vimes a thing or two about listening to women, something he very much needs given his behavior toward Sybil in The Fifth Elephant.
posted by humbug at 2:25 PM on March 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
I was a total twerp as a youngster. Probably still am, but I'm at least twerpy in different ways.
There is one thing that keeps this book from perfection: Mossy fucking Lawn. Scientific dudely dude rescues Sybil from an incompetent female midwife! NOT SEXIST AT ALL, PTERRY! NOT AHISTORICAL AT ALL, PTERRY! Out here in Roundworld, scientific dudely dudes killed thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of women in childbirth with their uberdudely (often pseudo-)science!
I don't understand how the man who created Nanny Ogg and Esme Weatherwax did this. It's such a betrayal, and so unnecessary -- the Lawn character could perfectly well have been female and the incompetent at Sybil's bedside male. Hell, that would have upped the satire quotient and built a tie to the Lancre witch books.
After Thief of Time, Vimes could even have consulted Nanny Ogg herself somehow -- and wouldn't that have been epic? I think Nanny and Sybil would get along great. And Nanny would sure teach Vimes a thing or two about listening to women, something he very much needs given his behavior toward Sybil in The Fifth Elephant.
posted by humbug at 2:25 PM on March 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
humbug: That was weird, right?! Especially since Terry has devoted so much ink in int Witches and Tiffany Aching books to respecting midwifery, it just came across as bizarre. Like, obviously the end-goal was to have the Lady Sybil Free Hospital be established, and that's a good thing, and the concept behind Dr. Lawn is that he's the only Doctor who's actually curing people rather than killing them with self-assured incompetence. Plus he's very insistent about hand-washing (historically probably the most important development in medical history) and his background is in treating the Seamstresses without judgment, which is a nice touch but it's like...
... why, then, does he need to be compared to a Midwife for his skills to be recognized? Midwives weren't (and aren't) the problem. As you say, uber-dudely pseudo-science (and lack of handwashing!) was the problem. It wouldn't have been wildly out-of-character for the Ramkins to have some family doctor in the case of emergencies, and for Sybil's labor to get complicated enough that Mrs. Content felt that a Doctor needed to be called in, and that would be a fine time for Vimes to be all "Hell no, I know a Doctor who can actually make people better and who's devoted his life to Women's Health, back in a jiff, thank you." It would have taken maybe a dozen more words. But the way it's presented is just sexist and weird and doesn't fit with how midwifery is presented in the rest of the books grrrrrr....
posted by Navelgazer at 2:44 PM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
... why, then, does he need to be compared to a Midwife for his skills to be recognized? Midwives weren't (and aren't) the problem. As you say, uber-dudely pseudo-science (and lack of handwashing!) was the problem. It wouldn't have been wildly out-of-character for the Ramkins to have some family doctor in the case of emergencies, and for Sybil's labor to get complicated enough that Mrs. Content felt that a Doctor needed to be called in, and that would be a fine time for Vimes to be all "Hell no, I know a Doctor who can actually make people better and who's devoted his life to Women's Health, back in a jiff, thank you." It would have taken maybe a dozen more words. But the way it's presented is just sexist and weird and doesn't fit with how midwifery is presented in the rest of the books grrrrrr....
posted by Navelgazer at 2:44 PM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
I read these in the reverse order from hanov3r but those 3 are absolutely my favorites and some of the few I've read multiple times and have hard copies of. Absolutely agree these are him at his best.
posted by Peccable at 9:52 PM on March 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Peccable at 9:52 PM on March 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Carcer is so, soooo vile and hate-able, in a way that I think is unique to the Discworld? We don’t get anyone quite so awful or a conflict so personal as the one between him and Vimes, IIRC (though I haven’t read them all… yet). Supports the old saw that a good book needs a good (or ““good,”” I guess) villain.
(I don’t necessarily agree.)
posted by TangoCharlie at 11:19 PM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
(I don’t necessarily agree.)
posted by TangoCharlie at 11:19 PM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't recall where I read this, but apparently this book and the Streets of Ankh-Morpork map share some common history. Pratchett was apparently pretty resistant to having a map of Ankh-Morpork made, because he felt that nailing down the layout of Ankh-Morpork would constrain his creativity, but this book demonstrates what actually happened - having a nailed-down city layout meant that Pratchett could make much more detailed and rich scenes, and draw on the weird names tucked into the Mapp for jokes and ideas without having to stop writing to work out tedious details. The opening chase with Carcer across the Unseen University rooftops wouldn't have worked without a stable layout for the Unseen University, including building heights and sightlines, and the climactic sequence, pushing the barricades out, wouldn't have been nearly as rich had there not been a street layout to work from.
I have no idea where I read this.
posted by Merus at 4:00 AM on March 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
I have no idea where I read this.
posted by Merus at 4:00 AM on March 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
the Streets of Ankh-Morpork map
Oooo! The LARP/medieval combat game I'm part of has a street named after us on that map.
posted by hanov3r at 8:09 AM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oooo! The LARP/medieval combat game I'm part of has a street named after us on that map.
posted by hanov3r at 8:09 AM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
That's very interesting, Merus; I'd assumed that the streets etc in AM were all 'as the plot needs them to be at the time' and didnt even bother checking them, but now I want to go back and follow along on the map. Thanks!!
posted by The otter lady at 10:19 AM on March 28, 2023
posted by The otter lady at 10:19 AM on March 28, 2023
Carcer is so, soooo vile and hate-able, in a way that I think is unique to the Discworld?
He's the dark side of Vetinari and Moist von Lipwig. He's every bit as manipulative as they are, has every bit of the insight into the psychology of those he's talking to... and in this book he gets to manipulate on a scope that is almost Patricianesque. (Moist never has quite that much room to maneuver, though Vetinari does give him pretty long leashes.)
But where Carcer differs is that he gleefully manipulates people into being worse than they are. Vimes escapes trashing his own standards for himself by the skin of his teeth. The city employees Carcer works with plumb new depths of awfulness. Moist manipulates to keep his latest scheme going without hurting people; Vetinari manipulates because the city's gotta work and this is the only way he knows to make it work; Carcer just enjoys turning people vile.
That has a lot to say to us today, to be sure. Lots of manipulators in it these days to coarsen people, create hate where it wasn't.
posted by humbug at 10:35 AM on March 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
He's the dark side of Vetinari and Moist von Lipwig. He's every bit as manipulative as they are, has every bit of the insight into the psychology of those he's talking to... and in this book he gets to manipulate on a scope that is almost Patricianesque. (Moist never has quite that much room to maneuver, though Vetinari does give him pretty long leashes.)
But where Carcer differs is that he gleefully manipulates people into being worse than they are. Vimes escapes trashing his own standards for himself by the skin of his teeth. The city employees Carcer works with plumb new depths of awfulness. Moist manipulates to keep his latest scheme going without hurting people; Vetinari manipulates because the city's gotta work and this is the only way he knows to make it work; Carcer just enjoys turning people vile.
That has a lot to say to us today, to be sure. Lots of manipulators in it these days to coarsen people, create hate where it wasn't.
posted by humbug at 10:35 AM on March 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
humbug: exactly. This is the other big reason Carcer feels like the Disc's version of The Joker to me - he seems to get his kicks out of driving people to their worst impulses, and seems happily willing to have Vimes kill him at the end as long as that means that Vimes had to stoop low enough to kill him.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:48 AM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 10:48 AM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
I see some parallels between Carcer and Moriarty as presented in the Sherlock TV series.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:25 PM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:25 PM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is the other big reason Carcer feels like the Disc's version of The Joker to me - he seems to get his kicks out of driving people to their worst impulses, and seems happily willing to have Vimes kill him at the end as long as that means that Vimes had to stoop low enough to kill him.
Carcer and Vetinari share a worldview. Vetinari says (I think in Guards! Guards!) that there are always and only the bad people. Carcer agrees!
Vetinari copes by building systems that still work while allowing for everyone being some level of awful. (Also via lashings of cynical sarcasm.) Carcer, on the other hand, can't stand letting anyone exist who is better than he is -- he'd rather not admit that "good" is ever a thing -- so yes, he's fine with dying as long as he drags Vimes down (in at least two senses of that phrase) with him.
There's something of the crab bucket in Carcer (which, given the NAME, this is possibly not surprising). We'll see crab buckets again in Discworld, specifically in Unseen Academicals.
posted by humbug at 6:27 PM on March 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
Carcer and Vetinari share a worldview. Vetinari says (I think in Guards! Guards!) that there are always and only the bad people. Carcer agrees!
Vetinari copes by building systems that still work while allowing for everyone being some level of awful. (Also via lashings of cynical sarcasm.) Carcer, on the other hand, can't stand letting anyone exist who is better than he is -- he'd rather not admit that "good" is ever a thing -- so yes, he's fine with dying as long as he drags Vimes down (in at least two senses of that phrase) with him.
There's something of the crab bucket in Carcer (which, given the NAME, this is possibly not surprising). We'll see crab buckets again in Discworld, specifically in Unseen Academicals.
posted by humbug at 6:27 PM on March 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
That's very interesting, Merus; I'd assumed that the streets etc in AM were all 'as the plot needs them to be at the time' and didnt even bother checking them, but now I want to go back and follow along on the map. Thanks!!
Quite a lot of the early Discworld books have streets "where the plot needs them to be at the time" - The Colour of Magic, in particular, doesn't work with the layout of Ankh-Morpork as depicted in the map, as Ankh-Morpork's gates have shuffled around and the climactic escape from the Great Fire turns out to be "run directly up one of the main streets".
posted by Merus at 8:24 PM on March 28, 2023
Quite a lot of the early Discworld books have streets "where the plot needs them to be at the time" - The Colour of Magic, in particular, doesn't work with the layout of Ankh-Morpork as depicted in the map, as Ankh-Morpork's gates have shuffled around and the climactic escape from the Great Fire turns out to be "run directly up one of the main streets".
posted by Merus at 8:24 PM on March 28, 2023
There's something of the crab bucket in Carcer
That got me wondering, which hadn't happened before, so I went looking and found this:
It's late in the day and I've had one too many cocktails to develop it any further than that, but make of it what you will.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:29 PM on March 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
That got me wondering, which hadn't happened before, so I went looking and found this:
Incarcerate comes from incarcerare, a Latin verb meaning "to imprison." That Latin root comes from carcer, meaning "prison."So maybe the character embodies a prison of...morality? ethics? higher thought? something in that neighborhood. Perhaps Carcer represents a prison of sorts for Vimes' psyche, since Sam is somewhat obsessed with him and can't seem to let him go...which then cycles back around to the dynamic between the Joker and Batman. Hmmmm....
It's late in the day and I've had one too many cocktails to develop it any further than that, but make of it what you will.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:29 PM on March 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Or perhaps it's something more straightforward, as humbug already said - that Carcer wants to drag you down, crab-like, to his level.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:32 PM on March 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:32 PM on March 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
There is one thing that keeps this book from perfection: Mossy fucking Lawn. Scientific dudely dude rescues Sybil from an incompetent female midwife! NOT SEXIST AT ALL, PTERRY! NOT AHISTORICAL AT ALL, PTERRY! Out here in Roundworld, scientific dudely dudes killed thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of women in childbirth with their uberdudely (often pseudo-)science!
I don't understand how the man who created Nanny Ogg and Esme Weatherwax did this. It's such a betrayal, and so unnecessary -- the Lawn character could perfectly well have been female and the incompetent at Sybil's bedside male. Hell, that would have upped the satire quotient and built a tie to the Lancre witch books.
Absolutely, I was going to comment to say this was my one big sour note, its just a super misjudged scene, and as noted, in other books he doesn't make this mistake at all. So weird. Any other kind of medical emergency, having a (more) modern doctor bursting in would have worked great, but here it's just odd.
But otherwise, this is one of the truly great books. Honestly all of the Watch books are just so good... looked at as a series, considering how much Pratchett returns to some of the same ideas, its truly incredibly how consistently great these books are.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 7:51 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't understand how the man who created Nanny Ogg and Esme Weatherwax did this. It's such a betrayal, and so unnecessary -- the Lawn character could perfectly well have been female and the incompetent at Sybil's bedside male. Hell, that would have upped the satire quotient and built a tie to the Lancre witch books.
Absolutely, I was going to comment to say this was my one big sour note, its just a super misjudged scene, and as noted, in other books he doesn't make this mistake at all. So weird. Any other kind of medical emergency, having a (more) modern doctor bursting in would have worked great, but here it's just odd.
But otherwise, this is one of the truly great books. Honestly all of the Watch books are just so good... looked at as a series, considering how much Pratchett returns to some of the same ideas, its truly incredibly how consistently great these books are.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 7:51 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
On the subject of midwifery - PTerry's treatment of midwives in general isn't great. Note that pretty much the only competence shown earlier is the witches and that "most of magic is just knowing something most people don't". Hygiene is apparently enough to make Lawn magic.
I don't really know where this comes from and it's one of the things I'd like to ask in the proverbial "if you could have lunch with anyone from history" type situation
On the subject of hate-able characters: I think the better Moriarty comparison would be Teatime from Hogfather. That novel has one of my all-time favourite chapters - Bilious the Oh God of Hangovers. The best metaphor I've ever had for what it feels like (to me) to have had a seizure. Quite a lot of empathy there.
On the subject of favourites: This is probably my all-time favourite disc world novel. Mort, Small Gods, and The Shepherd's Crown are all up there for various reasons. Truth be told his Goodbye (via a chatter that could have been Sam but was oh so much better because it wasn't) was the last piece of writing that resonated with me as having the full force of his wit, empathy, and craft. I am grateful that he seemed to enjoy writing to his last and ever so grateful that he gave us as much as he did. I will measure all of those novels as parts of me.
That being said - Night Watch was the last one that really hit me (start to finish) with the afore mentioned wit, empathy, and craft. Douglas Adams wrote about PG Wodehouse (a foreword for Sunset at Blandings which I haven't read but the foreword is in Salmon of Doubt which I have):
posted by mce at 6:12 PM on March 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't really know where this comes from and it's one of the things I'd like to ask in the proverbial "if you could have lunch with anyone from history" type situation
On the subject of hate-able characters: I think the better Moriarty comparison would be Teatime from Hogfather. That novel has one of my all-time favourite chapters - Bilious the Oh God of Hangovers. The best metaphor I've ever had for what it feels like (to me) to have had a seizure. Quite a lot of empathy there.
On the subject of favourites: This is probably my all-time favourite disc world novel. Mort, Small Gods, and The Shepherd's Crown are all up there for various reasons. Truth be told his Goodbye (via a chatter that could have been Sam but was oh so much better because it wasn't) was the last piece of writing that resonated with me as having the full force of his wit, empathy, and craft. I am grateful that he seemed to enjoy writing to his last and ever so grateful that he gave us as much as he did. I will measure all of those novels as parts of me.
That being said - Night Watch was the last one that really hit me (start to finish) with the afore mentioned wit, empathy, and craft. Douglas Adams wrote about PG Wodehouse (a foreword for Sunset at Blandings which I haven't read but the foreword is in Salmon of Doubt which I have):
" In a way, Wodehouse was condemned by his extreme longevity (he was born the year that Darwin died and was still working well after the Beatles had split up) to end up playing Pierre Menard to his own Cervantes. (I’m not going to unravel that for you. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should read Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “Pierre Menard Author of Don Quixote.” It’s only six pages long, and you’ll be wanting to drop me a postcard to thank me for pointing it out to you.) But you will want to read Sunset for completeness and for that sense you get, from its very unfinishedness, being suddenly and unexpectedly close to a Master actually at work—a bit like seeing paint pots and scaffolding being carried in and out of the Sistine Chapel."Terry didn't live or write that long but there's a parallel there.
posted by mce at 6:12 PM on March 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
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posted by Etrigan at 9:28 AM on March 27, 2023 [4 favorites]