In the sixth part of Moving Pictures, Victor discovers a new affect that Holy Wood is having on others. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Discworld.
I DID NOT ANTICIPATE ANY OF THIS. I honestly started to think that I was supposed to have known who Gaspode was and just forgot. It happens! Since a week passes between reviews all the time, that means I get my canons mixed up occasionally. I’m glad that I finally understand this and IT’S SUCH A BRILLIANT JOKE. Holy shit.
Detritus and Dibbler
I’d say that so far, this was my favorite section of Moving Pictures to read aloud, and I think that’s largely because so much of it revolves around dialogue. The scene in Borgle’s is so great because you can hear the disgust in other patrons’ voices; you can hear their defeat as they accept the defensive circle that the slugs have taken on their plates; and you can hear the haughty entitlement in Dibbler as he orders his gourmet meal from a man who has probably never eaten anything that qualifies as gourmet. I find Detritus to be endlessly adorable, though:
“An’ I,†he said, “will ‘ave… er… a well-weathered basalt with a aggregate of fresh-hewn sandstone conglomerates.â€
He just tries so hard, and I love it. Him blushing at Ruby? GODS, Y’ALL, IT’S SO GREAT.
For the most part, though, Dibbler’s role is one of panic; he knows that Victor and Ginger are his key to wealth and fame, and he doesn’t want to let them slip through his fingers.
Gaspode
HOW DID I NOT THINK OF THIS? Of course the strange power of Them would affect animals on the Disc. That makes me wonder: Will we soon have to deal with talking furniture, a la Beauty and the Beast? What about insects? Vehicles? Food? How far will this power stretch? Will it escape Holy Wood and move to other parts of the Disc?
These are all important questions! There’s so much here that Pratchett has already thought of. It makes sense that Gaspode’s Holy Wood dreams would manifest in a Lassie-esque fantasy, since that’s the sort of role that audiences eat up at the cinema. So what Pratchett does here with Gaspode – and many of the other animals – is juxtapose our perceptions of them with their true natures. Anthropomorphized animals are common in fiction, but they rarely, if ever, show up like this. The animals are aware that they’ve suddenly got more thoughts, that they’ve got human vocabularies, and they mostly HATE it.
“You think we wanted to talk?†snapped the rabbit. “One minute I’m just another rabbit and happy about it, next minute whazaam, I’m thinking. That’s a major drawback if you’re looking for happiness as a rabbit, let me tell you. You want grass and sex, not thoughts like ‘What’s it all about, when you get right down to it?’â€
RABBIT EXISTENTIALISM, Y’ALL. Not just that, but the cat and the mouse become Looney Tunes caricatures, unaware of why they are compelled to behave as they are. Which leads to lines like this one:
“What sort of person was he?†said Victor.
“Listen, buster, up to four days ago I had a vocabulary consisting of two verbs and one noun. What do you think I thought it was?â€
BLESS. So, does this mean that we’re going to basically get a mystery novel with Victor leading himself, Ginger, and a ton of speaking animals in the quest? Because that’s more or less what happens here. Since some of these animals actually lived on the island, that means that they remember the man who used to perform thrice a day. And get fish delivered to him? I get that this was a ritual; I get that this kept Them from breaking through into our world. So sure, there’s a mystery here, but it’s not like I know nothing. How does this keep my interest, then? My desire at this point is in seeing how Victor is going to put two-and-two together. How is he going to come to a point where he knows as much as the reader does? This is not the kind of journey where the protagonist and the reader are on the same page, and Pratchett builds off that in order to keep our attention.
AND THAT ALSO MEANS THAT THE LIBRARIAN IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE IMPORTANT, TOO. I don’t even care how shameless I am about my love of The Librarian, y’all. Can he be in every book in this series? CAN HE?
Anyway, I’m pleasantly surprised how much I am enjoying this book, and not just because it comes after Eric. This is a dense story, but it’s not confusing. On top of the mystery of Holy Wood, Pratchett’s laced this book with so much commentary on labor, exploitation, professional disappointment and the like that I find it a rich experience. I mean, this section ends with a contract negotiation, one that’s both achingly real and deliberately surreal. (The dog negotiates. THE DOG.) And I feel like we’re just barely getting started with Ridcully, too, which makes me eager to find out if he’ll ever appear in another Discworld book. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t, though. Not many Archchancellors survive… well, anything.
MORE, PLEASE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF-LMptaGbM
Mark Links Stuff
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