Mark Reads ‘Thief of Time’: Part 3

In the third part of Thief of Time, Lu-Tze meets his new student and Jeremy has an odd interaction with Igor. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Discworld.

Oh, this is all so STRANGE. I’m here for it. LET’S DISCUSS.

Lu-Tze and Ludd

There are already so many characters in this novel that I hope it doesn’t feel too crowded, but I’ll be real with y’all: I’m glad that Lu-Tze is getting his own story instead of being a background character. Which… that’s sort of the point of him? He’s a background character within the Discworld universe because that’s what he’s supposed to do! Quietly exist in the background and lead the Monks of History in making sure the fabric of time/history doesn’t come unraveled.

Which makes it SUPER EXCITING that there is now a chance for  me to get to learn more about these monks through Lobsang Ludd, the eerily talented kid who Marcos Soto found in Ankh-Morpork. Pratchett has a lot of fun playing with the tropes you’d normally see attached to this kind of story. (The whole monk/student interaction.) There’s that great sequence where one of the training monks (not a History Monk, I should say) insults Lu-Tze as the sweeper before promptly wetting himself when he finds out who he’s really talking to. (Hey, he was warned! The first Rule!) Appearances aren’t what they seem, but it’s not that simply. I do love the idea that Lu-Tze’s very existence is a challenge to the classist and hierarchal ideas present in most societies. Even Ludd can’t wrap his mind around him:

And he was just a sweeper! One of the people who swept the floors and washed the clothes and cleaned the privies! No one had ever mentioned it! Novices heard about Lu-Tze from their very first day – how he’d gone into some of the most tangled knots of time and unraveled them, how he’d constantly dodged the traffic on the crossroads of history, how he could divert time with a word and used this to develop the most subtle arts of battle…

Obviously, Lu-Tze’s physical appearance plays a part in the subversion of his identity, but he’s also a glorified janitor. A janitor who is more revered and respected than anyone else in the entire monastery! I LOVE THIS, I WILL ALWAYS LOVE THIS. But I also enjoy that someone as rebellious and different as Ludd is paired with Lu-Tze. He didn’t fit in where he was in the Guild, and so I can imagine a BEAUTIFUL partnership between these two. So… that fulfills one of my predictions, right? They don’t despise one another at all!

Jeremy

I AM GONNA GO AHEAD AND SAY THAT WHEN YOU RECEIVE COMPLETE PLANS FOR A MYTHICAL DEVICE ONLY FOUND IN CHILDREN’S TALES THROUGH DREAMS AND YOU WRITE DOWN THOSE PLANS ON YOUR BEDSHEETS WHILE YOU ARE ASLEEP, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY NOT CONSTRUCT THAT DEVICE.

Oh, Jeremy. I understand the allure it holds for him. The perfect timekeeper! He’s have the ability to claim he built the perfect clock! Yet this is like watching a horror film full of foolish protagonists. Every other line, I felt like screaming NO DON’T DO THAT THIS IS A BAD IDEA EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE AROUND YOU IS WARNING YOU NOT TO DO THIS.

That includes Igor! Igor nearly faints when he sees the design for the Glass Clock that Jeremy wants to build. Y’all, it’s Properly Capitalized. That means it is evil! That’s how that works!!! AND THIS CERTAINLY DOESN’T MAKE ME FEEL GOOD.

“Are you telling me it really existed?”

Igor seemed embarrassed about this.

“Yeth,” he said, “and then again, no.”

“Things either exist or they don’t,” said Jeremy. “I am very clear about that. I have medicine.”

“It exithited,” said Igor, “and then, after it did, it never had.”

So… it stops time? What does that mean? Oh god, Jeremy, I want you not to do this, but I also need you to just so I can see the end result, which surely won’t be good. We don’t even know what the Auditors are up to yet, y’all!!!

http://youtu.be/PeA375Vk9ow?a

Mark Links Stuff

– Please visit my new site for all announcements. If you’d rather not have to rely on checking a website regularly, sign up for my newsletter instead! This will cover all news for Mark Reads, Mark Watches, and my fiction releases.