Sep 09 2016

Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

madeyouup

 

Seven-year-old Alexandra Ridgemont loves chocolate Yoo-Hoo drinks and the lobster tank at the supermarket in the small Indiana town where she lives with her archaeologist parents. The lobsters are the same bright red as her hair. But the lobsters are sad. They always beg her to let them out of the tank. Alex ignores them. At least until the day she meets Blue Eyes – a boy her age with sandy blond hair and stunning blue eyes who tells her she smells like lemons and becomes her first and only friend. Alex shares her Yoo-Hoo with Blue Eyes and enlists his help to set the lobsters free.

Except live lobsters aren’t red. And her mother says she never let any lobsters out of a tank. And Blue Eyes vanishes, never to be seen again.

Fast forward ten years.

Seventeen-year-old Alex is used to the delusions and hallucinations caused by her early-onset paranoid schizophrenia. Those suspicious looking squirrels holding a conference on the lawn are probably Communist spies. But, since Alex isn’t sure whether they’re real or a product of her imagination, she’ll take a picture of them. If they’re hallucinations, they’ll eventually fade from the photo. If they don’t, then she’ll know they were real. It’s vital for Alex to teach herself to distinguish between her hallucinations and reality. She desperately wants to go to college. She can’t afford to have another episode like the one that got her kicked out of her last school. She also can’t afford for anyone at her new school to find out about her illness.

Alex is doing fairly well at appearing normal. She has a part-time job and one of her new coworkers, Tucker, attends her new school. At least she’ll have someone to talk to when she arrives. So far, so good. Until Miles walks into the restaurant where Alex works. Miles, who has sandy blond hair and eyes the same riveting shade as Blue Eyes. They couldn’t be the same person. Could they? She just imagined Blue Eyes. Didn’t she?

I discovered Francesca Zappia’s debut novel, Made You Up, on a recent trip to my local library. I hold a degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing so I’ve had to read, write, and critique a lot of stories. One semester, after workshopping a mediocre story told in first-person POV about a protagonist with a mental illness, my professor remarked that one of the most difficult things to do as a writer is to tell a story in “first-person crazy” (her words) without overwhelming the reader.

So, upon reading the cover blurb for Made You Up, I was immediately intrigued. Here was an author who had written a novel in “first person crazy” well enough to land a contract with a traditional publisher. I had to read it. I have to admit, I was impressed. Ms. Zappia manages avoid the pitfalls of info dumping or bogging down her reader with the details of Alex’s inner world. Alex’s hallucinations are woven into the fabric of the story until they seem almost commonplace.

Unfortunately, this is also the biggest drawback of the story. Alex has grown so accustomed to her hallucinations and paranoid delusions that they seem to be nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Even when Alex is in the throes of a full-fledged psychotic break, her inner monologue seems calm and rational. Other characters are only slightly fazed by Alex’s screaming and raving. Alex’s new friends take their first experience with her illness in stride with the sort of attitude one might expect of a group of college students caring for a drunk friend who just needs to sleep it off. They don’t seem afraid, repulsed, or to feel much of anything beyond mild curiosity.

While I can understand Alex’s family being less perturbed by the symptoms of her illness, since they’ve had years to acclimate, I had a hard time suspending my disbelief where her friends were concerned. While I will be the first to admit I have no idea what it’s like to live with schizophrenia or with a loved one who suffers from it, the lack of emotional turmoil for Alex and her friends just didn’t ring true for me. As much as I enjoyed this book, Alex’s parents seemed to be the only ones who had any genuine feelings about her illness.

Despite its few flaws, Made You Up is successful at portraying a smart, funny young woman who is, like every other teenager, just trying to figure out her place in the world. Ms. Zappia manages to tell her story without reducing Alex to a walking cliche, which is a bonus. I recommend getting your hands on a copy of Made You Up. It’s worth reading and I look forward to Francesca Zappia’s future novels.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/09/09/made-you-up-by-francesca-zappia/

Sep 02 2016

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Essentially Mean Girls meets Groundhog Day, I really loved the premise and the storytelling and, most of all, the characterizations, particularly of Sam and her three best friends. They’re the most popular girls in school and catty bitches (tho once again I wonder at how prevalent this experience is for high schoolers worldwide: the majority of popular kids I know/knew of in real life were all actually really nice.) On the Friday before Valentine’s Day, they get into a car accident that sends Sam into a weird purgatory of reliving this day over and over again till she gets it “right.” Given all the things I loved about it, you’d think I’d rate it highly, but there were two major sticking points for me.

The first and lesser of those is Kent. God, he sounds irritating. I get that he’s supposed to be the “nice guy” who loves Sam for who she “really” is, but Sam is essentially just an insecure teenager desperate to retain her popularity, which is a fairly broad subset of adolescent girlhood, so this makes Kent none special. His quirks are meant to be endearing, but they’re really just annoying (he wears a bowler hat, ffs.) I get that he’s supposed to be flawed, too, but as a character, he treads so closely to the “nice guy” stereotype who’s only nice to you because he wants to get laid (which makes him not much more sympathetic than Rob, honestly) that I found him a very lacklustre hero.

The second major point is a huge plot device having to do with why Sam is stuck reliving that day. When she finally figures out her purpose, I was incredibly underwhelmed. If there’d been a passage where Sam reflects on why she needs to save Juliet specifically in order to move on, I would likely have cared more: as it was, I was just bewildered. I suppose this makes me sound like a Mean Girl myself (was I popular in high school? Honestly, I never even cared,) but Juliet is ridiculously boring compared to Sam, and doesn’t seem worth the effort. I get that this is Sam’s journey, and she has to do it in order to progress, but she never asks why, just considers herself a necessary sacrifice. Which is arguable. I spent way too much of the book really liking Sam and really being bothered that she had to die while boring, dumb Juliet lived. I’m not trying to make light of the real consequences of bullying, but at no point did I feel that Juliet was anything more than a paper thin construct instead of an actual person with feelings and motivations that I cared about. Like Kent, she was more of a stereotype of a person than someone to hang that pivotal role on. More’s the pity, because so many other characters are vivid and sympathetic, and the book overall is beautifully written.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/09/02/before-i-fall-by-lauren-oliver/

Aug 30 2016

The Just City by Jo Walton

I love so much how my experiences with Jo Walton’s books just get better and better. I spent the climactic scene of The Just City with one hand clutched to my breast, knowing something terrible was coming and feeling a kind of horror and relief when it finally did — horror because it truly was terrible, and relief because the suspense was finally over. And then I instantly put the next book, The Philosopher Kings, on my reading list: the hallmark of any good series. I’m not sure whether I should be pleased or annoyed with Tor.com’s book club (and by extension Ingress Book Club) for making me discover so much that is new and amazing for me to read, and need to keep reading.

Going back to The Just City specifically, I spent the first 30% of the book or so cautiously intrigued by the premise, as I’m not actually familiar with the contents of Plato’s Republic. My philosophical education is sorely lacking, I know, partly because I get so impatient with impractical conceits, which is what a lot of philosophy boils down to. Given this attitude, it should come as no surprise to anyone that I found myself growing increasingly appalled by what was happening in that first 30%. I was starting to wonder whether I should be trusting Jo Walton even after the splendid Tooth And Claw (and, for the record, this has nothing to do with what happens to Maia: I found that part realistic and sobering and a very necessary description of how most people deal with that.) And then Sokrates showed up.

My man, Sokrates. Walking into the main forum and asking, “What nonsense is this?” And then strolling along picking up on all the things I’d found unsettling (and more: like Lysias, I would never have thought to wonder about the workers’ sentience,) and being better and braver than I would ever be, speaking truth to power. So much happens in this book, a lot of bad shit, a veritable road built of good intentions leading to that inevitable final scene. It is breathtaking to read Jo Walton’s careful construction and ruthless deconstruction of Plato’s Republic. And more: her ideas on theology and synthesis are just two more of the interesting topics she tackles as she examines what it means to be a good person, what it means to build a good, a just society. This is a brilliant book about pursuing excellence, and the difference between theory and practice, and how important it is to recognize human feeling and the need for volition. I am the richer for having read it, which isn’t something I can say for most books. Highly recommended.

Read Doug’s review here.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/30/the-just-city-by-jo-walton-2/

Aug 19 2016

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

So much of this book is an exercise in narrative tension: you know something terrible is coming, and you know the general shape of it, but you’re waiting for the details to… I don’t know, ram it home? At one point — in what was, to me, one of the more compelling passages in the book — Lionel Shriver derides our culture of voyeurism in what was perhaps meant to be a disturbing cri de coeur from the young killer at the heart of this book. And yet I believe that because such terrible things keep happening, and not despite them, it’s incumbent upon the rest of us to care about the details, to deconstruct the easy myths built by society (and its mouthpiece the media, if you must) to make it so we don’t have to think about such things, to label these things as unknowable and senseless and, therefore, beyond our ability to understand. We need to try, because the people locked forever in the headlines of these awful murders are human, too.

Which isn’t to say that I believe that there are easy remedies. A lot of people, faced with tragedy like this, don’t want to look inward, don’t want to examine. It’s too hard, and it hurts too much. And that’s okay. That’s what we have good, thoughtful fiction for, to tease out the universal, painful truths and present them to us safely, so that we aren’t blinded too much by the personal in being able to acknowledge, and perhaps grasp, perhaps engage, that universal pain.

Anyway, Ms Shriver has written a terrific book that does an important job of trying to tease out the reasons behind the schoolhouse massacres endemic to recent American history. It’s not a perfect novel. Once Celia was introduced, there’s so much tension that I became almost numb to it, and the story felt like it dragged somewhat. And, frankly, I suspected the truth about Franklin about a third of the way into the book because that was the only possible explanation for Eva’s whiplash of emotions when it came to him. Let me tell you, I was getting really tired of her putting up with his years and years of bullshit: my ass would have bailed and let him deal with Kevin on his own years before, as she wryly brought up at one point. Did I think that Kevin’s weapon of choice was rather far-fetched? Yes and no, and who am I to complain about far-fetched when the very thought of young adolescents committing the reprehensible crimes that lard the book liberally in their dreary factualism is so far out of the realm of possibility for me?

And yet, as the mother of three little boys who will likely grow up to be relatively affluent half-white suburban schoolchildren, the prime pool from which these murderers statistically emerge, I worry. I know I shouldn’t use this novel as a handbook for signs to look out for, but how can I help from looking at my children askance sometimes, when some of their behavior seems less positive than I’m comfortable with? Heaven forfend I should adopt Franklin’s hearty refusal to face the truth, gaslighting his wife as his coping mechanism (and oh how I HATED him for that.)

Not that Eva is the perfect mother, but who, at any point in human history, is? Please don’t point to your own mother: just ask her yourself and she’ll laugh and laugh at you. I found Eva’s odd superiority as unearned as Kevin did, and it rankled how she just let Franklin treat her like that for so long (in a rather stunning commentary on how women of a certain class and age bend their own persons to please an undeserving spouse.) And the book doesn’t have easy answers, though there are plenty of what-not-to-dos. But it’s all that fallibility, all that human weakness, all that understanding that we as individuals are at the mercy of societal forces and mores that can be overwhelming to navigate, much less fight, that make this such an amazing, empathic book. It has quite worn me out, emotionally and intellectually, leaving me weak but satisfied, the best kind of book indeed.

And I’m secretly glad that my children aren’t like Kevin, even as I fear that that is not enough to keep them safe.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/19/we-need-to-talk-about-kevin-by-lionel-shriver/

Aug 12 2016

Moscow in Movement by Samuel A. Greene

Moscow in Movement examines how citizens and state power interact in post-Soviet Russia. Samuel A. Greene, director of the Russia Institute at King’s College London, looks at the lived experiences of Russians and considers several case studies carefully to show how individual Russians, elements of Russian society, and representatives of the Russian state form their relationships. In the end, Greene is asking similar questions to those posed by Authoritarian Russia: How does Russia work, why is it that way, and what does that mean in a larger sense? Where Gel’man took basically a top-down approach, Greene takes mostly a bottom-up approach, looking at elements of Russian civil society as well as individual interactions with the state.

Moscow in Movement

Greene’s book, published by Stanford University Press, is an academic treatise, with its attendant strengths and weaknesses from the non-academic reader’s point of view. This is not to say that it is dry or overly long; far from it, the main text is less than 250 pages, and the narratives that support the analysis are vivid and true to life. The strengths of the book as an element in academic discourse include a strong theoretical basis for the groups Greene chooses to analyze, a clear argument about the meaning of the events he relates, and careful documentation of his work, so that interested readers can check or learn more. The weaknesses, from my point of view, include an overly long chapter on theories of civil society, a long time lag between the events described and the book’s publication, and a nagging suspicion that the chapters were written for other uses and then stitched together to make a book. (This last is a structural issue by no means limited to Greene’s work. Fritz Stern’s justly famous and groundbreaking Gold and Iron, for example, has a long chapter on Balkan railroad financing that was plainly written to stand alone.) As a counterpoint to claims that Russians are innately passive in the face of state corruption, the book is invaluable, and as an description of social change at the personal level, it is incisive.

Greene’s core argument is that power in Russia is a “club good,” available to members of the club for their own use and guarded from non-members.

In Putin’s Russia, political competition exists, but it is closed, not so much in the sense of barriers to entry (though these obtain) as in the sense that the state organizes politics in such a way as to prevent competitors from creating a power base that draws support from outside the limited sphere of “administrative resources.” …
A fundamental result of this arrangement is that the contemporary Russian state does not engage society at large. Indeed, it actively works to exclude the public from the processes of government, not so much to control the public as to prevent uncontrollable elements—such as a mass-based movement—from entering the political arena. (p. 7)

How do people react to such a setup? “Faced with a disengaged elite, civic disengagement is a rational response. But we should understand that disengagement to be circumstantial and contingent, rather than cultural and absolute.” (p. 10) The way that Russians react to their circumstances, Greene argues, are neither mysterious nor immutable. An understanding of Russian culture and history is certainly helpful, especially as a means of seeing how institutional choices have shaped the civic space in which citizens life, but that same history also shows how ordinary Russians have acted to press their claims on the state. Greene examines cases where interaction with the state was inevitable—for people beaten by police, for example—or where citizens worked together to stop state action or retain benefits.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/12/moscow-in-movement-by-samuel-a-greene/

Aug 10 2016

Tooth And Claw by Jo Walton

Deeply satisfying. Those were literally the two words that came to me as I turned off my Kindle, sighing with happiness at the end of the book before snuggling down to sleep. Which is, of course, the feeling I always have at the end of any well-resolved marriage plot, even if things do end a little more tidily than credulity might countenance (granted, a hallmark of the genre.) Doubly so in this case, because that deep satisfaction is also what I feel at the end of any exquisitely realized examination of an alien culture. I’m used to encountering that in good science-fiction, so imagine my delight to discover it in this charming fantasy pastiche of dragons, with a cheeky allusion to magic thrown in, too. I can’t rave enough about how brilliant this concept is, of an alternate Earth where dragons are the dominant species living in a time and culture very akin to Victorian Britain. The legal system and unwritten mores, the religion and politics, the fashions in clothing and entertainments — Jo Walton covers everything you’d expect in a society novel of manners and then some. I suppose that, given how readily I accepted the idea of sentient Victorian dragons, some of the other plot twists shouldn’t strike me as too fantastic (and if we’re talking about real authenticity, then buried treasure and prodigal heirs were absolutely an accepted part of fiction of the period.) I just think Ms Walton could have applied her rigorous attention to detail to improving on some of those plot contrivances. Picky picky, I know, especially since I’m dying to read more of this setting. It doesn’t necessarily have to follow the continuing fortunes of the Agornin family, charming and charmed as they are, but I do want to see how dragon society continues to develop with religion and emancipation and their relationship with the Yarge. Please, please write a sequel, Ms Walton. This is a genre mash-up I didn’t even know I needed till Tooth And Claw made the literary landscape an even more interesting place.

Read Doug’s review, and the conversation that led to me picking up this book despite my lukewarm feelings till now re: Ms Walton here.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/10/tooth-and-claw-by-jo-walton-2/

Aug 08 2016

The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Cafe by Alexander McCall Smith

Two plots carry the action forward in The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café, the fifteenth in Alexander McCall Smith’s series about Botswana’s first detective agency run by women. In slight contrast to its immediate predecessor, The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, the two plots are not both cases taken on by the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, its owner Precious Ramotswe, and her newly promoted partner in the agency, Grace Makutsi. One is, of course; McCall Smith has played around with the conventions of the genre, but not enough to do away with detecting entirely. A prosperous Indian family engages the agency to find out the story behind a woman who came to their household a couple of weeks previously. She appears to have no memory of events prior to turning up at their gate with nothing more than the clothes on her back, and if her background cannot be filled in, the Botswana authorities may deport her.

Handsome Man's De Luxe Cafe

The other plotline draws on Mma Makutsi’s rise in the world. Coming from a poor background in one of the poorest parts of Botswana, Mma Makutsi did well in her education, and had a lucky break when Mma Ramotswe hired her at the detective agency. Since then, she has married a man of means and become a mother. Now she wishes to do something with her entrepreneurial energies. She decides to start a café.

Not all businesses prosper. Increasing amounts of electronics in cars, and changing tastes in cars more generally, mean less work for Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, the garage owned by Mma Ramotswe’s husband, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. Faced with a threat by the bank to freeze his account if he continues to be overdrawn, he decides he must let go one of his helpers, Charlie, the long-time apprentice for whom the word “incorrigible” seems to have been coined. Charlie takes it hard, and Mma Ramotswe decides to stretch her resources — effectively taking out a loan against some cattle she owns — to offer him a chance as an apprentice detective in her agency.

That choice opens up other conflicts. Mma Makutsi, who is now a partner in the agency, has a famously argumentative relationship with Charlie, and now Mma Ramotswe has hired him without consulting her. Charlie has proven himself irresponsible on numerous previous occasions. Her husband is dubious. Even Mma Potokwane, matron of a nearby orphanage and steady counsel for Mma Ramotswe is uncertain, particularly on the point of taking out a loan against cattle, the traditional measure of wealth in old Botswana.

The intersection of these three stories provides the thematic material for The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café. One is a meditation on obligation. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni feels an obligation to Charlie, but not to the extent of sacrificing his whole business to keep one apprentice on. Mma Ramotswe decides to take on Charlie, but what of her obligation to Mma Makutsi, her partner in the agency business? Will Charlie live up to his new responsibilities? The case of the woman with no memory bring in other instances of obligation. The Indian community in Gaborone feels an obligation to look after its members; that is the motivation that Mr Sengupta gives for taking in an unknown woman. Events surrounding the opening of the café also give Mma Makutsi reason to consider her obligations, and even to take on new ones.

The other major topic of consideration is truth. It’s a slippery one in the detective business. Clients often aren’t telling the truth, or at least all of it. Detectives inevitably come across wrongdoers, who obviously have a different relationship with the truth. But Mma Ramotswe also has a bit of a slippery relationship with truth; she is perfectly willing to let people believe things that are not entirely true if it helps her to pursue her investigations. For example, she asks people at a house if they have seen a cat, letting them think that she is asking about her cat, when it’s merely a conversational opening for her. She does not lie, exactly, but only in a narrowly defined sense. She also calls on one of Botswana’s deepest social obligations, giving water to thirsty people, as a means to enter a house and begin a conversation that could help her uncover the mystery of the woman without a memory. Questions about Charlie’s willingness to tell the truth about some events show another side of the matter, and the resolution of one of the major plotlines turns on decisions about how much truth to tell.

In the end, questions of character and life are more what the book is about than any detective case. Spending time with these good people of Gabarone is never less than a delight, and a spur to think about how life is lived, both there and elsewhere. The fifteenth book may not be the ideal place to start reading a series, but there’s nothing in this book that depends on previous events. It’s self-contained, though greater knowledge of the characters does lead to deeper appreciation of what’s happening to them.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/08/the-handsome-mans-de-luxe-cafe-by-alexander-mccall-smith/

Aug 06 2016

Maskerade by Terry Pratchett

Maskerade

Now this is how a Discworld story should be. After the uninteresting Interesting Times, Terry Pratchett came right back with the much stronger Maskerade. The Lancre witches take center stage, and stage is just right because most of the novel takes place in and around Ankh-Morpork’s opera house. Well, two of the witches do, which is precisely the problem because their third turned into a Queen at the end of Lords and Ladies. The canonical beginning gets off to a rough start.

An eldritch voice shrieked: “When shall we … two … meet again?”
Thunder rolled.
A rather more ordinary voice said: “What’d you go and shout that for? You made me drop my toast in the fire.”
Nanny Ogg sat down again.
“Sorry, Esme. I was just doing it for … you know … old time’s sake … Doesn’t roll off the tongue, though.”
“I’d just got it nice and brown, too.”
“Sorry.”
“Anyway, you didn’t have to shout.”
“Sorry.”
“I mean, I ain’t deaf. You could’ve just asked me in a normal voice. And I’d have said, ‘Next Wednesday.'”
“Sorry, Esme.” (p. 9)

For all that Granny Esme Weatherwax prides herself on her abilities with headology (knowing what’s going on inside of one and acting accordingly), Nanny Ogg is also a shrewd practitioner of the art. She’s worried about Granny Weatherwax. Granny’s power has grown steadily, and witches whose abilities run unchecked tend to come to bad ends.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/06/maskerade-by-terry-pratchett/

Aug 06 2016

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton is … strange. It’s a sentimental Victorian novel: the main plot turns on a lawsuit brought to settle the estate of a country squire. Subplots mostly involve finding suitable marriage partners for the younger generation, or that generation making efforts to hide their pre-marital arrangements from the older generation. There are parsons, an established Church, old family retainers, farming families in distress, a restless working class in the faraway capital, fashionable hats, unfashionable architecture, and slightly disreputable railroads. So far, so mannerly.

Tooth and Claw

But in Tooth and Claw, all of the characters are dragons. Cannibalistic dragons. As the dying patriarch Bon Agornin says, “It is the way of the dragon to eat each other.” Dragon flesh helps them to grow, helped old Bon reach seventy feet in length, helps the survivors of childhood to grow wings and some fortunate members of the nobility to breathe fire. The lawsuit, in fact, is about the division of an irreplaceable part of Bon’s wealth: his very body. Bon’s son Avan claims that his sister’s husband Daverak ate more than the rightful share of Bon’s body.

Daverak is a local notable, of a rank comparable to the late Bon. He is the villain of the piece, partly as a ruthless and self-centered character, partly as an unthinking embodiment of the system that puts a noble-born and wealthy male at the top of the literal heap. He cannot conceive of things being other than as they are; that makes him understandable, if not less villainous. He is also the prime actor in a scene that left me saying, “Now we see the violence inherent in the system.” For there is considerable violence in the system, sanctioned by the state, and sanctified by the Church. Walton does not hide it, nor does she stray from her course of telling a sentimental story. The social novel has not yet arrived in this particular world. One character dies in the dragon equivalent of childbirth, another reminder of the threat of premature death in a Victorian world, and of that threat’s unequal distribution.

Bonn’s five children are divided by the lawsuit: daughter Berend is married to Daverak, the defendant; son Penn is a parson and attended his father’s deathbed – he has key evidence, but it is under seal of clergy; unmarried daughter Hamer is now a ward of Daverak, and under pressure; the other unmarried daughter Selendra is now attached to Penn’s household and a reluctant plaintiff; Avan does not understand why his siblings are not willing to fight for their rights.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/06/tooth-and-claw-by-jo-walton/

Aug 02 2016

Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett

What’s good about Interesting Times, given that I don’t like its protagonist, Rincewind the hapless wizard?

Interesting Times

Cohen the Barbarian is back, ancient and sprightly and deadly as ever. Several other aged barbarian heroes join him for one last great caper. With this Silver Horde (of seven) is the Teacher, who has given up on the barbarities of school and thrown in his lot with real barbarianing, although he does try to show the Horde a thing or two about civilization, or about the virtues of not attacking armies of a hundred thousand when your marauding host is all of seven people. There’s a lovely pun about samizdat on page 183. The Emperor’s name is also a good riff on British tabloids. There are some good bits of Pratchett farce along the way; the book was fun to read and kept me going on a couple of days when I was not feeling well at all. But it’s a bit thin otherwise, especially compared to immediately previous Discworld books (and, I suspect, compared to the next one, Maskerade, which I have already started), and that’s without going into the problematic aspects of the faux-China/Japan where the novel is set. I think if I weren’t being a Discworld completist (at least for the novels, I have no idea if I will read the ancillary books), I would have skipped this one.

And what is it about Rincewind anyway? At the end of The Light Fantastic, I thought that Pratchett had freed him up for development by getting the Great Spell out of him and by separating him from Twoflower, the amiable tourist for whom everything goes right at considerable cost to everyone else nearby. It turns out that development was not what Pratchett had in mind. In three more books (Sourcery, Eric, and now Interesting Times) Rincewind is a nominal wizard unable to do magic. He runs away from everything. Events move around him, and it looks to other characters like he is having great effects, while he tells himself that he was just trying to get away from things. This kind of plotting, especially the fifth book featuring it, suspends my suspension of disbelief; the authorial hand is just too obvious. I’m rather at a loss to think of why Pratchett has him in another starring role.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/02/interesting-times-by-terry-pratchett/