Reviews and Comments

This is REALLY LONG (. well no it just takes me a longer period to finish listening, and I couldn't focus on it, and I did a LOT of reflection on myself as to why I couldn't focus on it, aka why I didn't like it very much despite I thought I would.

I thought I would because satire and observation of dyfunctional society is my thing. But no, that is not entirely true; I like pterry's kind of satire and observation because it is true AND there is kindness in the characters' actions to such things. I don't like satire where you stand by and observe and judge and ... not be involved in some way. It just feels a bit cold to me.

In this case, author showed great compassion to Amelia, and to some extent, William Dobbin, which is fair and understandable and the plotline I like the most. For Rebecca and Rawden Crawley, there might be some compassion towards Rawden, I don't get enough for Rebecca. Personally, I know Rebecca didn't do good; but I actually don't blame her much. It was to a large degree the society's fault, that she got into the pattern she repeated. It is also sad that when the nobles reject her, they were like the daughter of a dancer and a painter can't be good. But she started it to not be limited as a daughter of a dancer and a painter. She had to charm; she felt the push to beg, steal, borrow or barter, that's something Amelia didn't have to push for.

I do like William leaving after all these years tho! and the coming back! awwww

It is all the society's fault, that's it. (?) No one is a hero, might just be because every one suffers and causes each other pain so everyone only manages to stay afloat (?)

Also, because there are a lot of people in this and they go all around without .. a narrative, I got lost rather easily. It is like how I am with a documentary or history book; although this is how real life is, I couldn't grasp facts very well without a narrative. This is just consistent with me being unable to read history or general nonfiction... I am rather bad at following things without a purpose I can hold on to.

I wonder what Pterry would write on 'the one size fits all' topic, if he lived longer. I have a feeling that the darkness thing might have been settled, he might need to move on to something else for the Vimes series.

Uh but uh! Like everyone else is saying Vimes you are a good man you shouldn't be putting too much thoughts on torturing yourself on doing things proper, but Vetinari is the only one who greets Vimes with how many laws have you broken this time, you rogue.... I don't know what to say, I could say that Vetinari is the only person who sees what Vimes thinks of himself/sees Vimes as the beast he could be, I could also say Vetinari is using this to make Vimes watch over Vimes himself, and make Vimes watch over Vetinari, because otherwise, there is no control over the dictatoring power Vimes and Vetinari have, in this structure, and Vetinari really wants to change this dictatorship into something more ... stable, in the long run, but he needs to start with using the dictatorship to do what he wants but he needs to keep what he wants right and he needs Vimes for that? uhhhhhh

Another one played on the 'follow the stories' assumption (why am I calling it assumptions now) (because it's like the books are based on pterry making an assumption of 'what if the world follows this rule?' then playing it out :)) so I guess it's most similar to Witches Abroad.

The elemental trying to be human thing is rather Thief of Time, in a way it ended in a similar tone, with quite some sympathy and heartbreaks at the end of the short life, which also makes the life fuller :) I felt a .. like physical stab to me heart at the must you betray me with a kiss, and the ring, and the ring-giving at the summer dance. help. uh.

Other lovely spots are a bit trivial. I do like the underworld tour, with imaginery sword and don't blink and you are your memory stuff, very DW. Then I proceeded to read the wikipedia pages of catabasis and monomyth, because it's a Thing, obvsly; I've seen Pullman, Gaiman and Pterry do it, some of them more than once. Uh I do not know classics, I should study more.

ah granny weatherwax, you manipulative arrogant bastard, love ye.

I'm now slightly worried, because almost all tyranny in the whole Disc series is sorted out by overthrowing the old tyrant and substituting it with a nice, kind new one. I am slightly worried this is not going to last, that without changing the system, it will soon slip back to the old kind of tyranny. But on the other hand, the new one, or some of them, are trying to change the system. Not very fast and not very obviously, but I think ... they are trying to change the system while not allowing power to get out of their own hand. Well not exactly not ... it's ... intricate ... to be more specific ... I wouldn't say Vetinari lets Vimes to take power away from him, but ... he does give Vimes a lot of freedom to do things in Vimes' ways ... but on the other hand ... he knows what Vimes would do is what he also wants ... he uses Vimes. Sure Vimes sometimes plays Vetinari too, but ... mostly Vetinari still controls how most of things go in the city. But that kind of control ... is only managed by Vetinari among all past Patricians of A-M. With the start of the Guilds and board made by the Guild chairs ... maybe Vetinari can slowly transform A-M from a tyranny to something a little more democratic. (even though I think it is canon that Vetinari detests democracy. He doesn't believe it would work. well maybe one day, Vetinari will be replaced, and A-M people under his rule would have grown up enough to take democracy. I mean ... in Guards Guards they were trying to get back to the monarchy. A-M has quite a long way to go before any democracy lasts.

But it is really ... half admirable half alarming, that frequently quoted Otter story by Vetinari. It's the remaining worry of God complex I got from Hannibal (. But it is what he does, it is what the book is doing. It even continues Hogfather. The nature, and the human beasts, have no sense of morality, fairness, goodness or evil. We make it by making the rules.

To be fair I feel the becoming of Nutt is a little bit ... unstructured. The whole book is a little bit unstructured, maybe I didn't get the connections between the parts between the crowd-unity-belonging and the becoming. I can taste sth like a connection there but I'm not yet very clear. The point is I don't see what makes Nutt change so much. It's a little jump-y. But I am so glad to see Nutt become.

And it is both powerful and sad, how Nutt in the end settled the opposition against him. He shouldn't have had to resort to violence/demonstration/threat of violence. But violence is all they understand! (.