My Scattered Thoughts

I’ve read so many of Pratchett’s books, that they’re bound to come up. Still, I hadn’t expected my little patchwork random book-chooser to spit out another one so quickly. I own about four of Pratchett’s books, and this is one of them.

(Sidenote: Alice was obsessed with this book for about a week, and carried it everywhere. This was when she was about three, I think. She came up with her own title for it, something about vampires taking baths, and carried it with her everywhere she went in the house. When I told her what the title of the book was, she told me I was wrong. I think she liked how shiny the “bathtub” is on the cover.)

If I recall correctly, which I probably don’t, Death tires of being death, and decides to go on the road… as a musician? …as a handyman? and leaves his work to his adopted daughter. Meanwhile, in Ankh-Morpork, rock and roll is discovered! Then lots of stuff happens, Death continues to speak in all capital letters, and I come to realize that the plot of Pratchett’s books isn’t so important, compared to his execution of them.

Pratchett writes silly, silly, deeply serious books. This guy ponders pretty much the entirety of human existence through his comedic, fantasy novels. There are those who might move on by Terry Pratchett’s novels–though not many, because he’s sold millions and millions of books (I looked it up: 85 million+) all over the world–because of their fantastical content, and those people are sadly missing out.

Go read a Pratchett novel. It won’t take long, and it almost doesn’t matter which one.

I’m not gonna lie, Steven Erikson’s MALAZAN BOOK OF THE FALLEN series is a tough, tough sell. The first book, GARDENS OF THE MOON, is kind of a hot mess, even though it pushed all the right buttons for me. I know this because I’ve placed copies of GARDENS OF THE MOON into several people’s hands, and not one of those people has ever finished reading it. Oops!

It’s a shame really, because the Malazan series is something special. A mammoth–ten volumes! with each volume pushing toward 1000 pages!–fantasy series that spans not just thousands, but millions of years. In retrospect, DEADHOUSE GATES, the second book in the series, is probably the best place to start. The story is much more focused, and events in this book are so significant that nearly every book following deals with its repercussions in some way.

One of the primary characters in this book is an historian, but whose kind and considerate thoughtfulness impressed me, these being traits not often present in epic smash ’em, bash ’em stories like this one. Not a wizard, or a warrior, or an assassin, but a scholar who spends his time in the book bestowing small kindnesses on those around him. Shocking, I know.

I started reading this series in my second year in graduate school, and it was a welcome distraction from my schoolwork. In spite of my hesitation at starting an (at the time) unfinished, multi-volume fantasy series, there was something about the title of that first book that intrigued me. GARDENS OF THE MOON seemed like a such a strange title for a fantasy novel.

To be sure, this series (or this book) doesn’t pull any punches. “Book of the Fallen” is a pretty big clue to how grim and sad these books tend to get. That being said, I spent a lot of time with these books, and I’m very glad that I did so.

It was bound to happen I suppose. I’ve come across a book that I believed I had read, only to realize that I probably haven’t. It’s funny the tricks that memory plays. I’ve read a synopsis of this book, now, and I have no recollection of it whatsoever.

I have a memory of hanging out with a couple of friends in a dorm room in college, and reading aloud a book of Lewis Carroll’s. I had assumed that it was this book. Now I’m thinking, rather, that it was his long poem PHANTASMAGORIA, but ultimately I don’t know the truth of it. I’m almost wondering if that even happened at all. I mean, it does sound like something I might have done in college, sitting around and reading Lewis Carroll poetry aloud. Prompted, I expect, by my repeated ravings about THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK, which I memorized in its entirety.

At any rate, I’m amused by the way that memories fade and rewrite themselves, and even those that seemed solid, scatter like mist when pushed against. Some people have described to me the way certain songs hook memories out of the pool of thought, and I’ve certainly experienced that, too. Books, for me, do a similar kind of thing. Often, recalling a particular book will bring to mind not just thoughts and feelings and memories about the book itself, but some or all of those things from the time and place in which I read it. For example, thinking of Dickens’ PICKWICK PAPERS, calls to mind the heat and light and slow watery meanderings of my time in Greece.

It’s alarming, then, when a book that I may not have actually read in any fashion becomes a hook for a memory that probably did. It’s such a thin and fragile construction, our memory, that we rely on for our sense of self, more illusion than anything else. And so we all rumble and bumble about, filled with our mutual self-certainties, blissfully unaware–or is that just me, mostly–of how our selves teeter on such a tall, rickety construction of thought and memory.

At any rate, I should probably (re?)read SYLVIE AND BRUNO.

I have a dangerous fascination with epic fantasy series. These days I’m pretty hesitant to start a new fantasy series, because I know I’m in for a pretty long haul–in the case of something like Robert Jordan’s WHEEL OF TIME series it’s decades long!

That being said, I never did get around to reading the second book in this series, and I don’t quite recall why. Maybe it was just weariness at the thought of reading another indeterminately long series, or maybe it was just that the series hadn’t been finished. Whatever the reason, I didn’t remember reading this book until I saw it on my list. I seem to recall a story about (and I haven’t looked up any plot summaries here) young royalty betrayed, and having to flee their homeland. (Only to return for vengeance/triumph in the later books, I assume.) There was some kind of barbarian invasion that seemed basically unstoppable. I remember a character stowing away in the hold of a ship, a trope which I seemingly never tire of.

And that’s it. That’s about all I remember. Funny thing about memory. I spent five to six hours reading this book, probably, and that all that I have left of it after about five years or so.

I don’t like speaking ill of books. I’d prefer to talk about the things that I really loved, but this book raises an interesting issue that I encounter from time to time. I do recall reading this book because I’d read high praise for it in one or two places. (I believe it even won an award or two.) I have this experience sometimes when I read a book that’s popular or gotten great reviews, and it just doesn’t click for me. There’s nothing wrong with the book, exactly, but it always leaves me with a feeling like I’m missing something. A punchline to a joke that I’m not getting. I have this feeling most often with Neil Gaiman, a beloved author, but whose work leaves me cold, somehow. It’s a strange feeling being out of step in that way. I can see the craftsmanship at work, but I can’t connect to it on some level.

Anyway, it looks like according to Wikipedia, the film rights to this series have been optioned. So, I think Mr. Durham is probably doing all right, my lack of love for his series notwithstanding. The kicker, though, is that the first volume in any of these fantasy series is all setup. There’s very little payoff plotwise, usually. It’s quite possible the second and third books in this series do amazing and incredible things. I may never know… or maybe I’ll pick up the rest of the series one day.

I remember clearly the day that the librarian in my local public library pressed OVER SEA, UNDER STONE into my ten-year-old hand. I loved its moody, sinister atmosphere, as well as its subtle non-Gandalfy magic. Its sequel, THE DARK IS RISING, threw me for a loop when it veered away from the protagonists in the first book, introducing a new one.

By the time I got to THE GREY KING, though, I was hooked, in that galloping, all-consuming reading mode I sometimes fall into. My memory of this book is that of anger, though, and though I may have liked it, I didn’t enjoy it. You see, somewhere in the middle of reading this book, I did something–I don’t recall what, although knowing me, it probably involved refusing to do something–that upset my mom so much that, in order to punish me, she took this book away for two or three weeks. Of any punishment I ever received from my parents, this one was the worst. At the time, I only read one book at a time, and read each one to completion. Not finishing a book felt like cheating somehow. Not only was a I deprived of the story I was immersed in, but I found it incredibly difficult to start a new book. I mean, now, it feels wildly overly dramatic to say that it felt like the emotional equivalent of losing a friend, but it did kind of feel that way.

Then, when I finally got my hands on THE GREY KING again, I felt like I had to start the book over from the beginning. I think I might have enjoyed the book more, but every moment reading it reminded me of what had happened, filling me with anger. How can emotion not affect one’s experience of reading a book? I’ve always meant to re-read Susan Cooper’s series, but never quite got around to it. I suspect it has something to do with the emotional associations I have with this book.

So, to parents of budding bibliophiles, please don’t ever take your kid’s book away. They’ll probably never forget it, long after they’ve forgotten just everything about the book itself.

As for the book, the cover’s no lie. The book features a giant silver wolf. This book was also my first encounter with Wales, which I don’t think I had ever heard of before.

In spite of rage-flecked memories of this book, I’m pretty sure I would recommend it, and the rest of the series, to just about anyone.

NIGHT WATCH was probably the 3rd or 4th of Terry Pratchett’s books that I read. Of his Discworld books, I much prefer his stories set in the rambling, chaotic city of Ankh-Morpork. Even though they’re set in a fantasy world, Pratchett’s books are delightful mishmash of tropes from other genres, with NIGHT WATCH being a gritty police tale.

Pratchett books–especially most recently–seem to take a single theme or subject matter, whether it’s the post office, the newspaper, even the internet, and explore that idea fully. What might it have been like to set up the first post office? That kind of thing. But by grounding it in a fantastical setting, Pratchett sidles up to its subject matter in such an oblique way, that I expect his younger readers don’t realize the kind of teaching that he’s doing.

If I recall, in NIGHT WATCH, this fellow, Vimes, is assigned to take over a police precinct, along with a strapping young lad raised by dwarves, name of Carrot. Together they solve crimes (or really, a crime), and begin to build the precinct up to a workable thing. Pretty soon (and I think some of this happens in later books) they have a troll, a vampire, a werewolf, among many others, on the police force.

When I was younger, I sequestered myself pretty heavily into the science fiction/fantasy genres–what people are calling speculative fiction these days, I guess. I had nothing against other types of books, but I just wasn’t inclined to read broadly. NIGHT WATCH provided a stealth introduction to the police procedural/crime genre. Something I didn’t realize until much later, when I actually read a book like that.

At this point, I think I’ve read more than twenty of Pratchett’s books, which is nowhere near all of them. It sometimes feels like he writes them faster than I can catch up reading them.

Pratchett is a warm, and likable author, and his authorial voice shines through his books like a beacon. Not only are his books funny and insightful, but they’re really just romping great yarns. If you haven’t read any Pratchett, you could do a lot worse than by picking up NIGHT WATCH.