Terry Pratchett's Discworld 08- Guards! Guards!

Guards! Guards!

Corgi

Terry Pratchett

1989
Other Terry Pratchett Reviews- The Colour of Magic - The Light Fantastic - Equal Rites - Mort - Sourcery - Wyrd Sisters - Pyramids - Guards! Guards! - Eric - Moving Pictures - Reaper Man - Witches Abroad - Small Gods - Lords and Ladies - Men At Arms - Soul Music - Interesting Times - Maskerade - Feet of Clay - Hogfather - Raising Steam - A Blink of the Screen - Sky1 Adaptations- Dodger - The Long Earth (w Stephen Baxter)

"They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No one ever asks them if they want to.

This book is dedicated to those fine men."

With his eighth book in the series, Terry Pratchett came up with the most popular, long-lasting and influential set of characters ever to walk the Disc, and started a ten-book long run of unbridled brilliance in the satirical fantasy genre, cementing his status as the most popular author in the United Kingdom of the 90's (until JK Rowling came along and blew everyone in the whole world out of the water). All the book proceeding in this brilliant run (Small Gods, Reaper Man, Interesting Times etc.) have their own particular styles, philosophies, and subjects of parody, but, for me, it's in this book specifically that Pratchett's authorship in general took a huge leap upwards; particularly in regards to creating three-dimensional, iconic characters.

As the introduction quoted above states, Guards! Guards! is centered around those typically uncared-for characters in film and books who exist solely to up the body-count. On the Discworld, in the big city of Ankh-Morpork, the Night Watch are but three men tasked to protect the city from crime at night, or, more accurately ignore it. In Ankh-Morpork, most every scrupulous group you can name has its own official self-policed guild, including the thieves, beggars, assassins and 'seamstresses', meaning that there's absolutely no real use for the men of the night watch. As a result, Sam Vimes, captain of the night's watch, spends all his time getting incredibly drunk, drowning his thoughts of justice and righteousness with drink after drink. 

But one day, a strapping 6-foot plus broad-shouldered very nice son of two dwarves (adopted) named Carrot turns up in the big city, sent by his parents from the dwarf mines in the mountains to seek a job upholding justice in the police force. Naive to the ways things happen in the real world, Carrot sets out by arresting the head of the thieves guild. Vimes, while on one hand seeing this is incredibly stupid, on the other hand has a long-forgotten fire lit inside him once again; which is both handy and metaphorically appropriate for what happens next as the main plot kicks in; a group of ambitious criminals manage to summon a full-sized fire-breathing dragon into the world; a dragon with a lust for power of its own. Against all odds, it's up to Vimes and the night watch to try and sort things out.

With the possible exception of Granny Weatherwax in Wyrd Sisters, Sam Vimes is the most complete and complex character in Pratchett's playbook, and for he and the city watch, Guards! Guards! is the start of a much larger character journey. I find that, with the watch characters, Pratchett's connections with classic British comedy creations of page and screen seem strongest and most valuable; it seems to me that, prior to this book, the fantasy aspect of each book (satirical as it may be) takes an absolute equal footing to the character development, while here it is the characters who remain the strong point in which the fantasy revolves around; like characters such as Douglas Adams' Arthur Dent in Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the universe just won't let Vimes lie peacefully in his alcoholic slumber.

I could probably rant on all day about this book, but I'll refrain. Ultimately Guards! Guards! was easily the best book in the Discworld series at this point, and remains one of the highlights still. It's an easy juncture into the universe, begining a series within a series of the adventures of an ever-growing cast in an ever-growing world. Sam Vimes, some sort of bastardized cross between Sam Spade, Colombo, and Pratchett's own world-view is an iconic creation in both fantasy, crime and comedy literature.

Paul Auster- Mr. Vertigo

Mr. Vertigo

Faber & Faber

Paul Auster

1994

Other Paul Auster Reviews- The Invention of Solitude - The Country of Last Things - Moon Palace - The Art of Hunger - Mr. Vertigo - Timbuktu - The Book of Illusions - Oracle Night - Invisible

 "Let your muscles go limp, breathe until you feel your soul pouring out of you, and then shut your eyes. That’s how it’s done. The emptiness inside your body grows lighter than the air around you. Little by little, you begin to weigh less than nothing. You shut your eyes; you spread your arms; you let yourself evaporate. And then, little by little, you lift yourself off the ground."

Trying to pick the right arrangement of words to succinctly describe the writings of Paul Auster, post-modern virtuoso of twentieth-century Americana is a difficult thing to do (I tried with The Invention of Solitude and Invisible), I think because his ideas, his characters and his prose are so fluid and unique that trying to find a solidified, conscientiously agreed-upon meaning in most of his novels is kind of like trying to catch catch a cloud with a fishing net. I think that's why, aside from his surreal neo-noir three-part story collection The New York Trilogy, Auster's name doesn't quite resonate with the mainstream understanding of contemporary fiction. On the surface, he's can perhaps appear to be too alien, too complicated, and he never promises to give a happy ending.

Published in 1994. Mr. Vertigo gives itself a sense of identity beginning with the cover and stretching around to the blurb and the quotes on the back, and confirmed in the first few paragraphs, giving the impression that this could be the most accessible Auster book that I've so far read. The novel tells the life-story of a young orphaned boy named Walt, who is one day whisked away from his nothing life by a mysterious man known only by the name of Master Yehudi, a mesmerizing Jew with promises of greatness for Walt. For if Walt follows every command from his new master (many of them seemingly pointless, some of them horrifically masochistic), then before his thirteenth birthday he will be able to fly.

Paul Auster- Natural brooder.

Set in the nineteenth century in front of a backdrop of depression, racism and the American dream, Mr. Vertigo has a heart of pure Americana; Walt is an embodiment of the classic, lovable rogue on an adventure he just doesn't understand, like Huck Finn crossed with Holden Caulfield. Narrating the story of his youth as his elder-self, Walt spends many pages talking about his youthful adventures with Master Yehudi, before pushing forward into his future at varying speeds, reminiscent of Dickens on fast-forward. Acolyte of Auster I am, I found the novel compelling, but I'm not sure if other, non-fanboy readers would be so comfortable emotionally investing in these characters when it feels like Auster is liable to do a 180 degree turn at any minute and flip things on its head because he's that kind of writer.

The essence of Walt's journey towards hopeful super-stardom as the boy who could fly has many clear parables to the idea of the American Dream; like Jay Gatsby he comes from nothing aiming for everything, and it seems to me pretty clear that you could put your own spin on the notion of achieving your dreams and all that crap, but Walt's tale is too complex for me to really analyze it in that manner without spoiling everything and writing for a hundred pages myself, and I'm already over the three-paragraph limit I try to keep to on these things. I'll end by simply saying that Mr. Vertigo certainly isn't my favourite Auster book, and it's probably not his best, but it is a masterfully woven tale evocative of the time in which it is set but still retaining the unpredictability and vague sense of surrealism that Auster's has made his own.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld 07- Pyramids

Pyramids

Corgi

 Pterry Pratchett

1989

Other Terry Pratchett Reviews- The Colour of Magic - The Light Fantastic - Equal Rites - Mort - Sourcery - Wyrd Sisters - Pyramids - Guards! Guards! - Eric - Moving Pictures - Reaper Man - Witches Abroad - Small Gods - Lords and Ladies - Men At Arms - Soul Music - Interesting Times - Maskerade - Feet of Clay - Hogfather - Raising Steam - A Blink of the Screen - Sky1 Adaptations- Dodger - The Long Earth (w Stephen Baxter)

'The king looked surprised.
"I understood that Death came as a three-headed giant scarab beetle," he said.
Death shrugged. WELL. NOW YOU KNOW.'

Moving on to the seventh novel in the series, Pyramids holds a particular place in the history of Discworld by being the first book not to feature any important recurring characters (aside from DEATH, who's in all but one, by my count), and as such still remains almost totally disconnected, though Pratchett's particular humour and twisted logic remains firmly in place. As the cover and the title suggest, Pyramids is a fun and imaginative parody of all things ancient Egyptian, told through the story of Pteppic, heir to the throne of Djelibeybi (say it out-loud), who begins the story in training with the Assassins Guild of Ankh-Morpork. When Pteppic's father dies, the young assassin gets a big surprise as the grass literally begins to grow beneath his feet. As the new King of Djelibeybe and essentially now a god on earth, Pteppic returns to his home country where things quickly begin to go drastically wrong. Magic, mysticism and the space-time continuum all collide, leading to zombie-pharoes, camels that know algebra, and plenty of running away from things.

Like Equal Rites and Mort before it, Pyramids is a twisted coming-of-age story in the most unusual of circumstances. Pratchett riffs on all the well-known Egyptian cliches with plenty of witty gags, but the plot as a whole isn't up to the author's typical standards; it's not bad, per se, but I found it hard to care about the characters, who actually all seem a bit flat of character, despite the landscape around them being pretty well-formed. Pteppic just isn't that interesting, especially compared to Pratchett's better creations such as Rincewind, the witches, and the cast of the next book in the series Guards, Guards! (which, spoiler alert, is brilliant). He's a little like Mort, but without the sense of innocent stupidity. 

Still, it's by no means a bad book, just one I wouldn't recommend in relation to the rest of the series. It's probably a little better than Sourcery so far in the series, and as well as being pretty funny, further develops one of the key themes of the Discworld series; through the power of magic, belief creates reality. The people of Djelibeybi believe without question that their ruler is a god incarnate, therefore that's what Pteppic becomes. Similarly, the time-warping powers of pyramids are key to the plot, but I'll avoid offering any more spoilers regarding this twenty-three year old book because I'm nice like that.

So, overall Pyramids is by no means a highlight of the series, but it's not without its positives, especially as somewhat of an early prototype of the ideas presented in the still-to-come Small Gods, which, when I get to it, I will fawn over until you become physically repulsed.

Charles Bukowski- Post Office

Post Office

Virgin Publishing

Charles Bukowski
1971 

Other Bukowski Reviews; Post Office - Factotum - Women - Ham on Rye - Tales of Ordinary Madness - Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“I wasn't much of a petty thief. I wanted the whole world or nothing.”

Charles Bukowsi's iconic alt-American classic semi-autobiographical novel is, in the nicest way possible, a book that threw its similarities and influences at me from every page. Post Office might be a stand-out piece of infamous 70's Americana, but it fits perfectly within the three-dimensional super puzzle of 20th century US literary history. Post Office is most often and probably most accurately genre identified as a late peace of Beatnik writing; following in the trails of luminaries like Allen Ginsberg, or Jack Kerouac and On the Road in certain stylistic ways; detailing the exploits of his main character Henry Chinaski through a hazy first-person narrative crossing over ten years in the blink of two-hundred pages, giving only as many details as he feels like giving.

Going back to F. Scott Fitzgerald and flowing out of the second world war, then the paranoid, perceived self-loathing of the 1950's (Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit), and finally the explosion of drug culture of the 60's, Henry Chinaski lives from day to day on the bottom rung of society. His job as a postal worker is dull, depressing, and unfair, and so Chinaski lives in the throng of booze, betting, and women; just totally embracing the baser things in life to make it bearable; it's not exactly William Burroughs and Naked Lunch in style, and you can't really call it straight-up drug literature but there are plenty of similarities to Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, published in the same year as Post Office, as both Henry Chinaski and Raoul Duke exist as larger-than-life character extensions that get through life by ignoring as much of it as possible.

The story and the mood of Post Office (disgruntled lower-class bum says 'fuck you' to the world around him, gets through his terrible job through women and booze) fits perfectly for the time and counter-culture world around it, but it's the sheer style of Bukowski's writing that appeals to so many people. It kind of reminded me in many ways of one of my favourite authors, post-modernist genius Kurt Vonnegut (something like Breakfast of Champions), in that the prose is absolutely full of character, oozing out of every line, and the dialogue even more so. Some of it is incredibly blunt, blurring the line between heroic rebellion and drunken stupidity but with an unrelenting conviction of belief.

Ultimately I really enjoyed Post Office, as my first exposure to Bukowski it's thrown me down the path of another bibliography. I must say upon first read I didn't enjoy his work as much as Thompson or Vonnegut but there's clearly more to Bukowski than meets the eye, and I get the feeling he's not the kind of author of whom you can get a full grip on the personality of straight away, but who might require taking another look at to properly get the idea. But already it's pretty clear that this is the work of one cool mother. 

Terry Pratchett's Discworld 06- Wyrd Sisters

Wyrd Sisters

Corgi

Terry Pratchett
1988

Other Terry Pratchett Reviews- The Colour of Magic - The Light Fantastic - Equal Rites - Mort - Sourcery - Wyrd Sisters - Pyramids - Guards! Guards! - Eric - Moving Pictures - Reaper Man - Witches Abroad - Small Gods - Lords and Ladies - Men At Arms - Soul Music - Interesting Times - Maskerade - Feet of Clay - Hogfather - Raising Steam - A Blink of the Screen - Sky1 Adaptations- Dodger - The Long Earth (w Stephen Baxter)

 

'Witches just aren't like that,' said Magrat. 'We live in harmony with the great cycles of Nature, and do no harm to anyone, and it's wicked of them to say we don't. We ought to fill their bones with hot lead.'

In one foul swoop, Pratchett's sixth Discworld book introduces another group of soon-to-be immensely popular characters who will go on to feature in a handful of the series' most popular books; the three witches. Pratchett reaches back to the third book, Equal Rites (feminism and witchcraft) and returns to the tiny yet incredibly magic-filled country of Lancre, and the character of Granny Weatherwax, matriarchal witch, giving her two companions in Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlic. Wyrd Sisters in its most simple description is Pratchett does Shakespeare, with all the satirical twist that implies; in this story the three witches are the heroines of the piece. The result is another piece of literary magic.

After five books of almost entirely high-stakes, end of the world action, Wyrd Sisters tones the scope of the story down a few notches (a welcome relief after the excess of Sourcery). As previously mentioned, Lancre is a small, out of the way country-bumpkin grow-your-own-cabbages type of place known mainly for its witches and its cheese. One day things go haywire as the King of Lancre, King Verence is murdered by the evil Duke Felmet and his manipulating Lady MacBeth-esque wife, who suitably proceed to take over the crown and make life miserable for their subjects. As these things go, the three-strong coven of witches led by Granny Weatherwax must use their plentiful amounts of cunning to put things right.Clearly the story isn't particularly complicated or far-fetched but that's really not the point; Wyrd Sisters exists as one of the first full examples of Pratchett exploring the idea of narrative causality, where events occur in a fashion that the story demands because the story demands it. It's something that will later be explored more fully in the next witches story, Witches Abroad, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The aspect that makes Wyrd Sisters so great is the fantastic characterization. Granny Weatherwax is such a massively more developed character here than before; a wonderful exploration into the psycology (or 'headology' as it is here) of magic and the mind. Granny is always one step ahead of everything else, as wise as wise can be, but just as sarcastic and biting, she's kind of an anti-hero kept on the straight and narrow by her two supporting witches who are a little more sympathetic.

In parts a love-letter to Shakespeare, yet also a full-on massively intelligent magical drama in its own right, Wyrd Sisters is a brilliant piece of literature showing off the abilities of an author firmly grasping the potential of a brilliant universe that's all his own to play with. It's not even the best witches novel, but it is a fantastic start to their series of adventures.

Haruki Murakami- after the quake

after the quake

Vintage

Haruki Murakami
2000
Translated by Jay Rubin

Other Murakami Reviews- A Wild Sheep Chase - Dance Dance Dance - Underground - Sputnik Sweetheart - after the quake - After Dark - Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - 1Q84- Books I & II - Book III - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage - Strange Library

"Strange and mysterious things, though, aren't they - earthquakes? We take it for granted that the earth beneath our feet is solid and stationary. We even talk about people being 'down to earth' or having their feet firmly planted on the ground. But suddenly one day we see that it isn't true. The earth, the boulders, that are supposed to be solid, all of a sudden turn as mushy as liquid."

As well as being my favourite living author in any known universe, Haruki Murakami is a masterful short story writer. Each of his smaller pieces manages to tell a compelling and almost-always mysterious tale that somehow manages to both exist brilliantly as a purposeful self-contained story and as a window into a potentially much larger imaginary universe, a potential novel in itself that the reader can dwell on to imagine their own bigger, individual tale. Most of Murakami's short stories were originally published in a few different sources and then collected into novel-sized collections (namely The Elephant Vanishes and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, which I'll probably end up reviewing here one day), and as enjoyable as they are their compiled nature means the stories generally aren't connected within their own topics and themes. after the quake contains a bunch of short stories that were written and published exclusively in this book. Essentially, it's a Murakami concept album.

Awesome Super Frog cover.

Having been gestating in Murakami's mind for about five years, after the quake (lowercase intentional, by the way) addresses through the medium of short fiction the Japanese public consciousness regarding the Kobe earthquake of 1995, in which 6,400 people died. The six short stories that comprise the book all relate to it in some way, with varying degrees of specificness. It seems to me that Murakami designated the order of the stories in a particular way to give a certain effect, where the first four stories in the book hold little direct thematic relation to an earthquake, but instead exist as small emotional character pieces; stories about relationships, love, family and dreams that struck me as particularly existential, each in their own way representing an earthquake as an emotional tribulation. These stories particularly struck me as almost smaller pieces of an imaginary whole; in that I wouldn't be surprised if Murakami decided to write another four hundred pages for each one to turn it into a novel.

 The fifth story is my favourite by far, and it's almost completely insane. 'Super-Frog Saves Tokyo' tells the story of a normal guy named Katagiri, who one day finds a powerfully-built six foot tall frog in his apartment, who asks him for help in saving Tokyo from the threat of a giant earthquake, delivered by a giant worm deep beneath the city. Frog needs Katagiri to go with him underground, and help him fight worm in a battle to the death. It's ridiculous, but also funny, endearing, powerful and heart-warming, and it's probably my favourite short-story I've ever read. It's imagination at its finest, and I'd recommend after the quake on the basis of that strange fable by itself.

Running in at around 130-pages, I think after the quake would be a great introduction to the author for anyone attracted by his work. 90% of the book keeps the surrealism at a minimum, gradually introducing it in the fourth story before throwing the reader into the sheer brilliance of Super-Frog. Fans of Murakami yet to read this will probably already assume that it's essential, and they're right.

Ray Bradbury- Fahrenheit 451

My tactic for catching up with my constantly growing to-be-read book pile is to read through the shortest books on the pile. Ingenious

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury
1954 

"There was a silly damn bird called a Phoenix back before Christ: every few hundred years he built a pyre and burned himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we've got one damn thing the Phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we've done for a thousand years, and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, some day we'll stop making the goddam funeral pyres and jumping into the middle of them."

After reading and enjoying the Ray Bradbury short-story collection The Illustrated Man not too long ago, I found an old, very cool looking retro 1963 Corgi edition of Bradbury's most widely known work, Fahrenheit 451. Running in at a meager 126-pages, Fahrenheit 451 could be accurately described as a novella; it was developed into its final form from two earlier incarnations, the first of which was a short story. For those who haven't heard of this extremely famous sci-fi classic, it's essentially a very carefully and specifically designed parable regarding a fascist, dystopian future that's very similar in tone to Nineteen Eighty-Four (published only six years earlier), yet holds its own as a powerful, meaningful and touching window that contains moments of action, horror and philosophical musing; all the hallmarks of a sci-fi classic.

Set at an undefined point in a United States of the future,  Guy Montag has a very important job in the community; he is a fireman, and like any good fireman his job is to set fire to books, which are all now completely illegal. In this world, people don't read, enjoy nature, or listen to and converse with each other, they simply watch hideous amounts of television and obey the state. Guy's life and sense of self begin to unravel like Orwell's Winston Smith, as his eyes begin to open to the oppressive fascism around him. Montag can't resist exploring the nature of the books he's supposed to be burning, learning more about the situations that led to the nature of this world, and, somewhat inevitably, finally becomes an enemy of the state.

Bradbury presents a very liberal agenda here, but it's such a clear and sensible one that anyone who objects to it would have to be an idiot. Guy Montag is a likable, believable character who becomes a hero of a type, and (unlike Nineteen Eighty-Four) leaves the book on a positive, optimistic note (well, not for everyone, but I won't spoil), and Bradbury brings passion and craft to his philosophies. The key to the books success for this read was Bradbury's ability to create, in a small amount of space, an intriguing world environment containing occasionally-horrifying science fiction that isn't overburdened with excessive detail. The short nature of the book creates more intrigue and mystery, and as Guy Montag becomes a normal (by out standards) person with aspirations of freedom, this mysterious society as a whole becomes a faceless enemy.

Fahrenheit 451 is one of the most memorable sci-fi books I've ever read, and I recommend it not only to fans of the genre but to anyone interested in this sort of dystopian parable influenced by Orwell and Aldous Huxley. It's short and sweet (well, proverbially), contains interesting characters, and enough horror and drama to push the meaning and philosophy forward at a quick pace.