{"id":2726,"date":"2024-02-04T17:03:48","date_gmt":"2024-02-04T22:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/?p=2726"},"modified":"2024-02-04T18:34:46","modified_gmt":"2024-02-04T23:34:46","slug":"pratchett-terry-29-night-watch-reread-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2024\/02\/pratchett-terry-29-night-watch-reread-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Pratchett, Terry: (29) Night Watch<\/cite> (reread, 2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"book<\/a>
\nWith my head still full of Les Mis\u00e9rables<\/em><\/a>, it occurred to me that I could reread Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch<\/em><\/strong>, which in retrospect was definitely a Les Mis<\/em> riff that I hadn’t known to recognize any of the prior times I read it.<\/p>\n

Actually, it turns out that this is the anti<\/strong>–Les Mis<\/em>. I’d noted before<\/a> that it does not believe in revolutions. But I hadn’t been able to register before that the idealist who wants to declare a People’s Republic, Reg Shoe, is absolutely an Enjolras stand-in (somewhat unfairly, as neither he nor Hugo was into redistribution of wealth). Poor Reg is also the comic relief and only achieves dignity in defeat. <\/p>\n

In addition, the dogged cop is Vimes, not Javert (and it is so<\/em> disorienting to read this from a cop’s perspective) and the elusive criminal is Carcer (a gleefully unrepentant murderer), not Jean Valjean. And one of the evil torturers has invented "craniometrics," which it’s hard not to see as a (justified) jab at Hugo’s belief in phrenology. <\/p>\n

Finally, there are still not enough female characters, but at least those that are present have motivations other than romantic love, and sex work is morally neutral.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With my head still full of Les Mis\u00e9rables, it occurred to me that I could reread Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch, which in retrospect was definitely a Les Mis riff that I hadn’t known to recognize any of the prior times I read it. Actually, it turns out that this is the anti–Les Mis. I’d noted … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Pratchett, Terry: (29) Night Watch<\/cite> (reread, 2024)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,64],"tags":[350],"class_list":["post-2726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-discworld","tag-pratchett-terry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2726"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2770,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726\/revisions\/2770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}