The Buried Giant

What follows here is a blogpost I wrote but never finished and so never published. It's a pity because I'm interested to see where I was going with this, especially since I recently re-read Never Let Me Go and I have thoughts.

Kazuo Ishiguro is a one-trick pony. The trick happens to be the equivalent of a naturally born unicorn-pegasus hybrid (apparently known as an alicorn (or even hornipeg, thank you Wikipedia but that cannot possibly be correct, can it?) but which I will call a princess twilight sparkle and await a copyright infringement suit from Hasbro). Now that I have set the tone of my return to the blogosphere, I ask you: Who doesn’t like ponies?

A little while ago, I read an article about intelligent animals that appear to count or answer questions, but are really responding to subtle cues in the examiner's behaviour. Like Clever Hans, a pony that could do simple addition with single-digit numbers, but was really responding to an unconscious tic his owner tacked when stating the correct answer.

Clever Hans and his owner

This article reminded me of the week that I briefly, but with the best of intentions, adopted two puppies. My flatmate’s girlfriend had found a litter of strays playing in the street, but could only catch two of them. Since it was December, and my flatmate and co were visiting family for two weeks, the pups were mine to house-train. So, a few times a day, the pups and I would walk outside and I would pretend not to watch them do their business, but because I was watching them, once they had done their business, I would praise them to make sure it stuck that peeing outside was almost as good as being a princess twilight sparkle.

But then, once inside again, the female would immediately pee on the carpet. E-v-e-r-y t-i-m-e. I started to suspect she was messing with me. I watched her like a hawk to see whether I could find some clue in her behaviour as to her behaviour. Each time she peed inside I would discipline her by lowering my voice and repeating her name, and each time she peed outside I would praise her by raising my voice and repeating her name. But, still, she peed inside. E-v-e-r-y t-i-m-e.

Then I realised that she was just squatting outside and not actually doing her business, but because I was praising her thinking she was doing her business, she thought she was supposed to just squat outside and, since she still needed to pee, would do her business inside even though it led to her being called by name in an ominous tone of voice. She also hollowed out the couch from underneath, so that she could nap inside the couch, and hid the stuffing.

Ishiguro's novel The Buried Giant is about an elderly couple named Axl and Beatrice who are on a journey to visit their son. Their journey takes place in sixth-century Britain, a period I confess I know very little about. The highlights according to Wikipedia are: plague, famine and drought.  The highlights according to the novel are that the Romans are gone, and the Saxons and Britons have been at war, but the Saxons have won, and there is a kind of tense truce between them. Ogres are real, but not a problem "provided one did not provoke them". After all "in those days there was so much else to worry about. How to get food out of the hard ground; how not to run out of firewood..."

The one-trick pony that is Ishiguro's writing style physically takes form in the novel as a "mist" that is erasing the corners of people's memories and a dragon named Querig (which is dragon for princess twilight sparkle thank you very much). The main characters share a Alzheimer's-like amnesia of their own lives that affects even their memories of their son and where he lives, so that their entire journey is tinged with anxiety. Along their tense journey, the elderly couple meet villagers, children, soldiers and miscellaneous ferrymen, all affected by the mist.

This pony has been called many names by many readers, including "level banality" and "rhetoric in search of a form", an insult so snide it hisses. But let's call it Clever Hans princess twilight sparkle here. All of Ishiguro's stories slowly, so slowly that it's almost painful, unveil their secrets in layers as they speak, as they act, as they reason, as they dream. In Ishiguro's other novels, this amnesia that slowly builds a model of itself protects and hides secrets, both historical and intimate. In Never Let Me Go, the dilemma is the ethics of cloning. In Artist of a Floating World, it is Japanese actions during World War II. (I am not even going to pretend I understood The Unconsoled, however,)

On another level, the novel is a good analogy for its author’s style - here the metaphor becomes a bit strained...

And? And ...? I guess I'll never know now. To avoid cross-contamination, I'll blog my thoughts about Never Let Me Go in a different post.  

Salem's Lot and Half of a Yellow Sun

Vampires. No radioactive cows. Maybe a ghost and a portal of evil. But mostly vampires. I enjoy a classic vampire story. Let me clarify: I enjoyed Dracula and its queasy Romantic-Gothic sexuality. In a sense, Salem's Lot is a classic vampire movie in that it climbs the same brickwork, but it has dirt on the soles of its shoes and it arrives at the wrong window: that of the servants, who make dull vampires.

The title is promising: Salem's Lot. The witch trials, the drownings, the burnings - and the contemporary knowledge that this is where supposed witches were burnt to death because some fools got syphilis and needed  a scapegoat. We also know that supposed witches are a vengeful bunch who come back to pull out the hair of innocent people. So we begin with that stomach-clenching anticipation. Not only are there no ghosts, there are no witches. No animal familiars, not even an animated broomstick or dancing mice.

I am bored already by this topic. You? Which is My Point (We got here faster than usual. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.) Stephen King is a master of his craft. His plot structure, use of characters, foreshadowing and resolution are precise. Which is, again, My Point. His prose carries you along until you find you are already finished (well, kinda). But the foreshadowing hits you in the face like a hand in a boxer's glove, which is delivered by the characters, who (imaginatively speaking) look like Rocky. In other words (if you are struggling to concentrate, too), the story is predictable. Almost (I can hear you shouting objections already) predictable.

From the 1931 film Dracula

The topic is also promising. Vampires are modelled on Vlad the Impaler, who was a piece of work, easily one of the most evil men of all time. Even a cleaned-up version is sickening: the man literally had people impaled, feet to head, for entertainment. Because he was (let's review this ) evil. More evil than a town of vampires or a squadron of Nazis. A thoroughbred psychopath. Even I would rather believe in supernatural evil, not human evil, so I can begin to understand this level of bad. I crave some moral boundary to shove him behind; I need to know that he and his ilk could be vanquished and sent to suffer for their actions for eternity. Which is perhaps where the vampire legend comes from.

Now you are wishing I had not even written than blurb on Vlad's hobby, right? You are also wishing I would continue. Either way you are still reading. Because holding hands with your horror is your death instinct. You know the drill: that we watch movies like Scream and Saw to confront our own mortality. Because we all subconsciously assume we are immortal (don't argue, you - in a simple, childish argument, even denying it proves it) partly because who could live every day with immediate knowledge that we are dying? When we watch movies like Saw, we spend the first hour or so dancing with the knowledge that we could die any moment, and the second hour calmed because someone perseveres and survives, and that someone is metaphorically us.

(Personally, I don't watch movies like Saw because I can't bear the idea that people would maim each other, nevermind enjoy, nevermind imagine these scenarios. The thought of it literally makes me ill. But zombies... I get that.)

Now here is where the promise of the title is really mangled. (I am trying to restrain myself from making glittery jokes, because they're so easy, but feel free to make your own and not tell me about it.)  Salem's Lot was written in the '80s, roundabout Lost Boys and then Blade. Its vampires are the lost-soul and replaced-by-pure-thirsty-evil sort. They need to be staked, not understood. For all other similarities with Dracula, this lot of vampires lacks the lust of its father figure, which makes this version vapid. Isn't that the point of the vampire legend? Repressed female sexuality? (Read Dracula and get back to me.)

I followed this up with Chimanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun, as I promised. It is set during the Nigerian civil war of the 1960s - far more frightening than Dracula but on par with Vlad. For me, it echoes the traumas of the more recent Rwandan crisis, which has always disturbed me. As it should, but perhaps more than it should. My conscience cannot understand - not even if you convinced me that half of the population fell ill with the vampiric illness. Please try. I would much rather believe in supernatural evil, than that there is more than a one per cent chance my neighbours could be convinced that I deserve to die, because someone calls me a cokroach or by virtue of some incidental thing like my dialect or accent or clothing, .

Toni Morrison (I am really cramming everything in to this post) wrote that trauma cannot be transcribed; it is a great bawling absence - see, I am already running short of words. This is how she writes (or doesn't write) about trauma in her novels: by writing 'around' it. EM Forster did the same thing in Passage to India, when the main character suffers a nervous breakdown. Adichie (who is influenced by Morrison's work - she's like the Dickens of modern literature) gives trauma her own spin. She describes elements of the trauma matter-of-factly.

(I am about to get kind of juvenile Vlad here, so read on at your own peril.)

One character is evacuated via a train cart like a cow to slaughter. Next to (leaning on) her is a woman with her daughter's head in a pot - we can only assume it was soldiers with knives not bombs. Adichie describes how ashen the girl's skin in, as if it were dabbed in powder. Adiche refers back to this moment often but never with any overt judgement.

The same character finds her way home to her husband and child, but suddenly cannot walk. Her legs just fail as if a nerve has been severed. She has to be carried everywhere, instead. Again, Adiche presents this to us matter-of-factly, as she might a dinner conversation or visit to the market. Trauma isn't contained in time - it spreads out laterally into innocuous events like shopping for food. It can't be confined to memory, temporal space, even emotion. It is processed in some parts of the brain but not others.

There is also a slight thrill to reading a story with macabre mystery. Our death instinct gleefully steps up again. You are alive and dying, it says. As if death has a quota, you have seen death and been spared. You are human; you are special; you will live for ever.

© Semiotic apocalypse, via http://semioticapocalypse.tumblr.com/: Biafran soldier during Nigerian civil war circa 1967

The Dresden Files: #7 Dead Beat

The internet is not to be trusted. Not just because it is a Cold-War invention designed to decentralise information, a bit like a guerrilla cell, but because anyone can ‘publish’ anything, like a top five list of their favourite sandwich toppings (cheese (which is assumed as a fundamental ingredient in all food), egg, avo, cucumber and mayo, and chocolate spread) and Google might proclaim them expert in the culinary arts. (This blog does not appear on any search engine lists FYI. Perhaps Google doesn’t like my choice of sandwiches. Perhaps because you should visit my blog more often. #justsaying)

Anyway, when I wanted a light read, and had already read five Terry Pratchett’s in a (chronological) row, I typed in ‘top 10 supernatural apocalyptic horror’ to a search engine that has enough publicity already. Some of the lists were weighted by coming-of-age stories that encourage all sorts of abuse, and fantasies of death – you know what I am talking about. Most of the others I had read. I had to be selective and so I jotted down only the titles of books that appeared in the same lists as the The Road; while lists that included Stranger in a Strange Land and excluded Margaret Atwood were dismissed with a click.

One title I had never heard of reappeared, making it a hit by Google standards. Dead Beat by Jim Butcher, part of the Dresden Files. This title is number 7 in the series (I will get to my opinion of series in general, if not now, then in a post built entirely for it). A site devoted to science fiction (obviously this site will have the answers I am looking for, and none of them are sandwiches) called this particular book ‘a kitchen sink book; Butcher manages to cram in werewolves, wizards, vampires, fairies, demons and zombies, without making it feel crowded’. She forgot the T-Rex.

I can hear you, shifting the cursor indecisively toward the cross at the top of the screen. That would have been my reaction. Until the improbable happened: the security post to my suspension of disbelief malfunctioned. Yep, I read a story about the fleshy ghost of a T-Rex ridden by a wizard without a pointy hat and with a staff, and I believed it (as in I believed this could happen in that fantasy Earth, not now, here, in front of me. Just to clarify). That dinosaur was maybe the coolest character in any story I have recently read, except for Commander Vimes of the Nightswatch.

Again, hear me out. Google Analytics also records how long you spend reading my blog, and have I mentioned I am broke-ass writer, whose career may begin or end with your reading? I finished reading Dead Beat in a couple of hours, including some moonlit hours, and then decided to read the series in order. (I am on Book 3.) Because it was an erudite essay on human nature? Because it made me examine my sacred cows (hock included. I love that word. Hock)? Because it used the supernatural to comment on the ordinary? Kinda, kinda and kinda.

This is not a great book, but it is a very good book. So are books 1 and 2. And not because in number 4 a T-Rex that cuts a swathe of carnage through San Francisco, but because Book 2 includes four different types of werewolf (‘werewolf’ being an ambiguous term, as Mr Butcher shows us), also cutting a swathe of carnage. The most terrifying and rabid of the four is the loup-garou, a man whose family was cursed to turn on full moon. Sounds ordinary but no. This creature is, again, terrifying. It is huge and filled with a blood lust that shreds the man’s conscience when he wakes up.

You may have notice there are no Native Americans pacing in denim shorts. Jim Butcher obviously does a wealth of research, drawing deeply on various myths before painting them with his imagination. When he describes a T-Rex romping down a boulevard, he has contemplated the dimensions of beast and environment, and how one would go about riding it (see, a T-Rex leans forward when moving and leans back but not entirely vertical when standing, so he places the wizard near the neck of the creature, which is also far from the teeth).

The book earns its ‘very’ because it is two tsp detective novel to one tsp supernatural thriller, just without the make-up plastered, body-hugging dress wearing, purring femme fatale. In fact his range of female characters is more balanced than is usual in fantasy literature, which is not to say that he and his wizard don’t like a beautiful woman, because they do. They definitely do. The books are formulaic but in the way that Stephen King’s writing is good. It works. Because they are not predictable. Which seems obvious when the cast includes four type of werewolf, an energy vampire and a dinosaur. But it isn’t. Trust me, I’m an editor.

Harry Dresden is our private investigator and wizard, like in the pointy hat sense but without the pointy hat. (He does however possess a staff covered in runes, a talking skull and a cat.) He investigates the paranormal; he has a legitimate ad in the yellow pages that says ‘wizard’ although most people think he is a charlatan – including to some extent himself. He is employed by a branch of the police department, which thinks he is a charlatan too as well as a scape goat.

Can you focus, please? In Book 7 (I can hear you bleating about reading the books in order, but then please explain Star Wars), three sets of warlocks (or something) want to call on the brutish but sinister Elfking to chomp his way through the human race, making them kings and queens (or something). Of course, this can only happen at a specific time and place, because otherwise it would be difficult to get everyone together and string a plot across between them. Have I mentioned the zombies yet?

If you have reached this point and are thinking, ‘I don’t like science fiction’, I do not know why you are still reading. Either peg your disbelief over a clothesline or go away. You are breaking my train of thought.

Dresden is a more likeable Sherlock Holmes, with the wit of the Holmes (Robert Downey Jnr (who, FYI, I disliked in that role very much)) of the modern retellings. The wizard surprises even himself when he says something that isn’t sarcastic – some comments making me laugh loudly enough to frighten myself, the cats and my bunny. Like any good likeable hero, he tends to trip face-down into dangerous situations, stopping mid-step to (sometimes accidentally) smite someone.

But essentially our guy is ordinary. Apart from his magical powers – that make electrical items of any sort explode – a staff and a cat. But otherwise ordinary – except for the regular appearance of demons, fairies, vampires and zombies. Dresden is the good guy that we can all relate to. The guy trying to make a difference. Trying to live his life, without being impaled, scalped or set on fire over a misunderstanding.  

According to the head honchos of wizards and a chorus of supernatural beings, Dresden’s fatal flaw is his attachment to humanity. An attachment to people being and (this part’s important) staying alive. An attachment so strong he is always shielding people from supernatural crazies. He is always trying to keep carnage down a minimum, but that means the rules have to bend to his will. Terrible, just terrible, right? No. His real flaw is giving other people benefit of the doubt that he often doesn’t give himself. He is strong, in most ways except physically, but not impervious to pain (Book 2 was a close one).  

Another site devoted to the fans of science fiction says, ‘If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and Butcher has had half a dozen books to figure out his formula is working for him. Yet he's deft enough to avoid repeating himself. He allows each volume to add a little something to the mythology that's been built up.’ You needn’t have read my waffle because this sums all My Point in a paragraph. Still, read it anyway.

In conclusion, this is a list of and recipes to make myfavourite sandwiches. *Psych* for those who skipped to the end – I even heaped on a trite introductory phrase for you. Do you still need a reason to read The Dresden Files? Here’s one for dorks like me: the books are also available as comics and audio books read by – wait for it – James Marsters aka Spike of Buffy and Spike. Indeed, fellow dorks. Indeed. 

A Canticle for Leibowitz: Part 2 of 2

What is the attention span of a gnat? I am figuring that we find out its life span and divide that into something objective, like the attention span of a fly, or by the amount of time they can spend on a single task. Then we could wander through a few academic halls and land up considering the consciousness of tiny flying animals or fall through the moldy hall that is when a baby becomes a person. As you may have surmised (and as intended) you may have noticed I have a short attention span, which I would compare with that of a gnat's - no, I will compare it and tell you it is two minutes and 3.2 seconds, because I can and I did.

I have also realised that I have said 'would have' a few times today. There are three 'have's in that sentence alone. What the heck is the point of that word? (And before you get snarky, you, I am well aware there is a linguistic answer, but my point still holds because this is my blog and if I say a gnat can only focus on a single task (as defined by me) for two minutes, that is valid.)

So, I finished A Canticle for Leibowitz by sheer force of will. My opinion hasn't changed. Although the structure is interesting, the symbols are heavy-handed. I could not empathise with a single character until the last 2% of the book, but by then I could also not subjugate my lack of suspension of disbelief. (I am really trying here. Whenever I want to point out how illogical something is and that it is a result of laziness not plot, I hear the 'eh' of Dwight from The Office every time he wants to point out something illogical - usually to do with bears. It builds up at the back of the throat and pops from the nasal cavity like a buzzer in a game show.)

This isn't a spoiler, unless you are inclined to belief: the book is set over centuries upon centuries, where humans build up their technology over and over to a point when they can create nuclear bombs. How? How could this happen?

Geologists tell us (although this may be a fringe group of rogue scientists who do not believe in pollution) that the poles are overdue for a shift, whereupon north becomes south, confusing swallows, polar bears and brown bears, as well as pirates and hopefully radar linked to bombs. It may or may not kill us (dust storms, rampaging polar bears and swallows, bombs). Also, (and FYI) a certain degree of climate change is normal, judging by the ice age and the fact that Europe was a desert. (Interesting point: the size of dinosaurs was only possible because the density of the air was lower than it is now.)

Given this was written in the 60s, this would take us way into the 5000s, when (hopefully for the planet) we are extinct, because, entropy. More than a few of the surviving populations would have some kind of mutation (not the X-men kind, but if I could choose, something that gives me the ability to sprint and climb like a mountain goat, because, zombies) from the recurring nuclear bombs, which they would need anyway for the fittest, which no offence, cannot be almost exclusive to monks!

Here's another meaty one for the academics: technological determinism. This book assumes a single pinnacle of human discovery and creation. Bombs, intercoms, phones, planes etc. But a) I can imagine oh so many alternatives, like, what if we discovered the more eco-friendly (and therefore smarter) solutions to electricity, fuel and, errr, general human habitation, first? And b) does this 'pinnacle' really make society 'better'?

This a controversial topic and my gnat brain has moved on. Name of the Rose depicted a monk and a monastery in Italy that captivated my imagination. In this book I met three monks I did not like or only learnt to like in the very last pages of their chapter. It is one thing to kill off characters like a gnat flaps its wings and another thing to just move me to another monastery and then tell me they died of old age while I wasn't looking. It, in fact, makes me care less about your very stupid because they are very human characters. I have compared my brain to a gnat more than once today, therefore your argument is invalid.

Initially my foray in the world of insects was intended to justify A List. First, I did not want to talk about that book of invalidities as it shall be known from now on. Second, I am already bored, so I figured that bullet points would be more my speed. Since this argument is so very compelling, I shall add A List now, in the same blogpost, because I do not feel like writing out more than one tweet.

In the spirit of the above review (don't groan, you) I am going to pick five of the least dis-believable books I have read. I will however use short phrases instead of full, therefore very boring sentences.

1. A Canticle to Liebowitz
2. A Stranger in a Strange Land: life on Mars, general 60s-like (and spirited) shenanigans, a human taking on the physical abilities of another species as if sprinting like a cheetah were a combination of will and absence of will
3. Heart of Darkness and Atomised: more a lack of liking and an abundance of hatred than of disbelief
4. Zoo City: animal familiars that appear when you commit a crime, the final scene
5. Her Fearful Symmetry: ghosts, the characters' complete absence of character, other characters, plot - all of it, narrator (and all this from the writer who made me believe in time travel!)

While we're at it, let's add Gulliver's Travels

I always feel the need to point out that magic is meant to be compatible with physical laws, like gravity and the conservation of mass. Even zombies have an (albeit loose) explanation! So if something that didn't exist before is magicked into existence and it is made of atoms, where were those atoms before? Because so many other tricks rely on the existence of atoms - and I do not mean an interpretation of quantum laws, because *insert game-show sound effect*. Oh, I'm overthinking? Well - ok, the gnat has flown off.

In other words, if an animal familiar appears, was it lurking around waiting for you to do something awful? Is it missing from a zoo somewhere? Is it a manifestation of some communal judgement? Someone, somewhere, must have a clue - must have noticed a trend of disappearing animals - even if it isn't yet verified. And what trend is there regarding the type of crime considered worthy of a (really awesome - and if you're handing them out I'll take one) animal? Legal, societal, religious? Just one real clue, please. (I also want the awesome inseparable animal. Imagine walking down the street with a tiger, a polar bear, a tortoise, a wolf - do they come in extinct too and if so, hello, black rhino.)

Impressive - my attention is holding more like a fly battering itself against a window. (As I typed that, my bunny sat on my stomach, so maybe I am sorted. Still, a polar bear? I adore polar bears.)

What a meandering post. I think the most meandering I have ever written. Perhaps this is a good thing, because it gives me more wiggle room in future. To sum up: every book mentioned in this post, except for the Umberto Eco, is ridiculous. According to the woman with her gnat in her skull. The unconscious doesn't restrict itself to dreams. Do you see it? I asked for a polar bear when I had already been given a gnat. Does the extent of the crime affect the size of the animal? Could an insect be a familiar? That seems a bit of an anticlimax. Like this conclusion. (I walked right into that one.)

Discworld

Generally (except for the writings of a good friend, which is why I say 'generally'), I do not enjoy satire. I am easily riled, upset, impassioned. "Silly women drivers" is enough for me to train the beady little eyes on you like the laser beads of a sniper rifle. So you can imagine what happens when someone is turning my pet issue into a seeming joke. Even if they are unpacking an argument using humour as a kind of common ground.

I care not. By the time I see an empty suitcase, I am already peeved, anywhere in a range from sniper rifle to air attack.

See, I am facetious; which is like being satirical except the satire is a prank (a stapler set in jelly being a favourite), intended to give the writer room to explore the cupboard drawers of the position while everyone else is looking in the other direction. Which is not the same thing. A satirer knows what her position is.

Generally... Remember that disclaimer? Yep, I have packed away the rifle and begun being facetious.

Terry Pratchett gets away with it because his novels double as fantasy, which I have always been a fan of. Meaning that like any child I dreamed of a dragon who was more friend than pet - he hangs around because we enjoy each other's company. He is not a fan of other people though, and my instruction to generally not burn people into shadows is the only thing he doesn't like about me. I prefer not to think about how he feeds himself.

The world is divided into People Who Have Read Pratchett and Those Who Haven't. We each feel sorry for the other, but my side has a dragon, so...

Pratchett, for those of you on the side of Haven't (pitying look), has created a world called Discworld. Even the name is satirical. The world is literally a disc, but as per some legend or other, the disc sits on four elephants who stand on the shell of a giant turtle who is swimming through space (according to Book 2, there are may be a few turtlettes swimming alongside the erm adult (gender is indeterminate here)).

The joke is layered: Most obviously, this is a dig at people who used to think the world was flat. Less obviously, it is a dig at the mentality of the people who thought the world was flat. Because human nature isn't many things but (contrary to popular opinion) it is stuck in juvenilia. Those people still exist (not literally, maybe as atoms) but now they voraciously argue against global warming (FYI, a natural occurrence, peeps, else we would be (not) breathing nitrogen right now) and believe in democracy (that is a long story).

And that's just the name!

My favourite characters are the Patrician and Captain Vimes of the Watch. The Patrician is the for-all-intents-and-purposes the Prime Minister of Ankh Morpork (a city, not a state, because maintaining just the city is enough of a job). He never seems exhausted though. Or surprised. He is mildly amused sometimes, but usually that means someone is about to regret being amusing. Vimes is sometimes amusing, and often exhausted, but seems to be protected by rubber tyres, like a go-cart track.

Why am I reminiscing? For your edification. No. It's my blog, so unless I am educating you (another pitying look) on civil rights and recycling, I am not really interested in your edification, you.

No, I am reading my way from Book 1 all the way through to wherever in the 30s we will be when I get there. No, this is not a case of a trilogy with 30 books or 10 trilogies. Discworld had solidified from the giggles of the readers long before this trilogy fad set in. Pratchett writes one book a year (sometimes two) and releases them round about Christmas. Clever bugger.

Why am I rereading these books? Full of questions today (whatever day it is that you are reading this), aren't you?

I hadn't read a Discworld novel in yonks (which is a year or two). Then I picked up Making Money, as sorbet (which will (perhaps) mean something to you if you have read this blog before or understand words). What surprised me was the simple way he picks up an idea and turns it inside out, so it's still the same shape but it looks different. (Mostly all the threads are poking out and there's fluff along some of the hems. I am picturing a fleese-lined onesie.)

In this case, the gold standard. The protagonist points out, in a matter-of-fact way, that gold doesn't really play any large part in our daily lives or in the grander life of society, unless you are a jeweller. It is meaningless when compared with, say, iron. Genius. (He then goes on to apply that concept to bank notes, but let's not quibble.)

I enjoyed the satire (which is not as high-brow as that in the quality daily publication of your choice, perhaps, but definitely funnier), so naturally I thought, let's read all of them. Again. In order. Of course. This was about two months ago. I am on number 4, Mort, which is generally agreed to be a favourite (I'd put the odds at 1:8, so place your bets now folks, before it slips down). The reason being my third favourite character: DEATH. (That's how he speaks, WITH EMPHASIS.)

DEATH in Discworld is a pragmatic man - he isn't fussed about whether you are a good or a bad person, because he has seen the (very dull) infinity through which the turtle swims and lost that sense of morality like a coat. On the other hand, he named his horse 'Binky' (lower caps intentional). So he's not entirely lost to the dark side.

In this particular installment, DEATH has an apprentice (who seems, like the deceased, unsurprised to be visited by a skeleton in a black coat who SPEAKS WITH EMPHASIS). Like most of Pratchett's protagonists, poor Mort is insecure and trying to come off as a James Dean, but his tongue keeps giving him away. Also his shaking hands.

As with all Pratchett novels, the author sets up a moral or social quandary, and then shows you there is another, more natural way to approach it. (It usually helps if you are a bit dense but a good person, or have a suitcase made of sapient pearwood (perhaps the most terrifying... thing in Discworld).) Rather than let the apple of his eye be killed, Mort does away with the assassin trying to kill her and upsetting Fate. No, actually, Fate carries on as if nothing has changed, which is a whole other problem.

What now? Does he kill his apple and let her disappear into the afterlife? (This is one of those relationships where he was struck dumb by her presence and has now spent five minutes talking to her. Obviously they are meant to be together...) Does he carry on while Fate carries on and she is stuck in limbo? Well, I'm not going to spoil it for you!

And this is what I enjoy about Pratchett's satire: Him. He is an eternal optimist, in a world where it is healthier to be a cynic. He believes in good and bad, evolution, and people. He is genuinely indignant about people who exercise power over others, about decision making and about ignorance. Not in order of indignance - ignorance probably comes first.

So expect regular updates as I plow through 30-odd books and guffaw a lung (I find myself lightly snorting at the jokes before actually laughing). If you haven't read them yet, hopefully I can bully you into trying one, and if you have, hopefully I can bully you into reading another one. We could prove Pratchett right by guffawing the world until it rocks on the backs of four elephants standing on top of a turtle swimming through space with turtlettes swimming alongside.