In the fifth part of Thief of Time<\/i>, there is another. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of misogyny, homophobia, toxic masculinity<\/b>.<\/p>\n
THERE IS SO MUCH INFORMATION PACKED INTO THESE TWENTY-FIVE PAGES, LET\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S DO THIS.<\/p>\n
Fidgett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/b><\/p>\n
You know, I wagered internally how much I was going to say on this because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to do that thing<\/i> that we dudes are guilty of all the time, where we try to talk about sexism in a way to distance ourselves from complicity in misogyny. I WAS CALLED ON THIS BEFORE AND MUST BE CONSCIOUS NOT TO DO IT. I was starkly reminded of what Pratchett was referring to in the joke behind the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gentlemen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Fidgett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, though, and I wanted to talk about the kid of absurd manliness you often see from men just like that. And look, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that being gay means that we are any less likely to be<\/i> misogynist; just ask women how they feel about gay men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s misogyny, AND I ASSURE YOU THEY WILL HAVE LOTS TO SAY. But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a certain phenomenon that happens where toxic masculinity causes men to willingly distance themselves from any act that might be perceived<\/i> as being less manly.<\/p>\n
I brought this up in the video because of that joke Pratchett makes about the gentlemen of Fidgett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s literally<\/i> believing that women didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exist outside of a certain period of time. I offered up some absurdities myself: I grew up with guys who thought bathing was gay. Who only took showers if they had to. Who thought loofahs were gay or womanly. And the thing I almost said but didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t? I honest-to-gods knew way too many men to count who did not ever wash their ass<\/i> because it was gay. I feel disgusted just thinking of that sort of nightmare, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. SO THIS JOKE PRATCHETT MADE IS TOO REAL, THERE ARE MEN OUT THERE WHO BELIEVE THIS KIND OF NONSENSE.<\/p>\n
I urge you to submit your own stories even though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m terrified to read them.<\/p>\n
Alone<\/b><\/p>\n
Pratchett does a fascinating thing here: he sets up Susan to be alone (and a little lonely) when she meets up with Death, and then he introduces her to a reality where there is someone else just like her. Early on, he writes:<\/p>\n
Susan sighed. She knew what was behind that, and it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a happy thought. It was a small, sad, and wobbly little thought, and it ran: each of them had no one else but the other. There. It was a thought that sobbed into its own handkerchief, but it was true.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Though Susan clings to her humanity, she knows that she lives a life that is detached from the experiences of everyone around her. She might not be comfortable with that all the time, but she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s used<\/i> to it, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think she could imagine living life without all the perks she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gained as Death\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s granddaughter. Plus, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an arrogance in Susan, and you can see it in the way she refers to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153humans\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as if she is not one herself. She wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t dream<\/i> of doing anything as foolish as those humans<\/i>, you know?<\/p>\n
So, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got this sense of loneliness of experience (and company) that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s written in between the lines at points, and then we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got Death\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lengthy attempt at explaining the strangeness of the ripples in time. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all with the aim of getting Susan interested in what the Auditors and humans are doing. (I also believe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so that the reader has a better sense of the complicated mechanics at work here.) I got the sense that he appealed to her curiosity, but was that enough? Why should she care about the Glass Clock beyond the obvious? (You know, that whole pesky World Ending thing.)<\/p>\n
Well, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one way to do that:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, that sort of thing used to happen a lot in antiquity, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Susan. Poets were always falling in love with moonlight, or hyacinths, or something, and goddesses were forever\u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/p>\n
BUT THIS WAS REAL, said Death.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153How real do you mean?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
TIME HAD A SON.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153How could\u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/p>\n
TIME HAD A SON. SOMEONE MOSTLY MORTAL. SOMEONE LIKE YOU.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
what the fuck<\/i><\/p>\n
Jeremy<\/b><\/p>\n
So my instant thought was: it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Jeremy. It has to be, right? Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a man preternaturally obsessed with clocks and time, who has been commissioned by a strange person to build an impossible clock that can make time cease to exist. Or, really, everything<\/i> cease to exist in a manner of speaking. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a possibility, sure, but it could also be true that Jeremy just really, really likes clocks.<\/p>\n
I am also curious how far Pratchett is going to take Jeremy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s illness, at least because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never named. He requires medicine for it, and Dr. Hopkins is worried about Jeremy fixating on clocks, so\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a significant part of who this character is or just a quirk. (Which\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the latter, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gonna eventually be a problem.) The fact that Jeremy avoids taking his medicine doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to be a superficial thing, but the lack of specificity bothers me. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on with him?<\/p>\n
Madam Frout<\/b><\/p>\n
I know I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just started this book, but I feel like a confrontation between Jeremy and Susan isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that<\/i> far off. (What of Lu-Tze and Lobsang, though??? THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS.) Susan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s convinced that she has to get involved, so with a clever (if cruel) use of her abilities, she gets time off from Madam Frout. I did appreciate that Pratchett had Susan acknowledge that freezing time on Frout was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cruel,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d especially since it toyed with her perception of reality. The same goes for the way Susan changed Madam Frout\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not something that should be taken lightly or done without a care. (Well, or at all<\/i>, I suppose, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think the book is going to address that. Susan has other things to worry about, like THE END OF THE WORLD and SOMEONE LIKE HER out in the world.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t justify her cruelty, though. If anything, it shows us that Susan still sees herself as an exception, as different, as separate. So what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it gonna be like when she meets someone that proves she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not<\/i> all that different from everyone else?<\/p>\n
http:\/\/youtu.be\/Iq7r-hMTH8E?a<\/p>\n
Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n
-\u00c2\u00a0Please visit my new site for all announcements<\/a>. If you’d rather not have to rely on checking a website regularly, sign up for my newsletter instead<\/a>! This will cover all news for Mark Reads, Mark Watches, and my fiction releases.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the fifth part of Thief of Time, there is another. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,531],"class_list":["post-4268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-thief-of-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}