In the seventh chapter of The Amazing Maurice<\/i>, THIS BOOK IS TOO MUCH. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Okay, so this is truly upsetting and terrifying, right? Right? Like, none of this was funny to me at all (not that I thought it was meant to be, for the record), and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 lord. This reveal was so intense<\/i>, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, and guess what? I STILL DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW WHAT IS FUCKING GOING ON IN THIS CITY. What? The? Hell? Is? Happening? In? This? Town?<\/p>\n
THAT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S HOW MANY QUESTIONS I HAVE.<\/p>\n
But first things first: I really do want to lean on this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153horror\u00e2\u20ac\u009d element at the start of this review because Pratchett captures the sheer fear of this situation incredible well. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that easy to pull this off when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about rats<\/i>, especially since so many people dislike them and find them revolting. And I get that, so I feel like Pratchett set an obstacle up at the start of this. But through some excellent naming and the beautiful characterization of the rats, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 this might be weird to say, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think of them as<\/i> rats or as<\/i> a nuisance.<\/p>\n
So when we finally discover what it is that was hidden beneath the rat catcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shed, it is a scene constructed to make us feel fear. To make us feel revulsion. To make us pity what is happening to these rats. The fact that the rats think that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made up the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153evil\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to describe it is so goddamn powerful, as is Hamnpork\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction to the sight of those cages, filled from floor to ceiling with rats that are so frightened and starved that they are eating one another<\/i>. It is a bewildering sequence, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s written in an almost\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 detached way? Like, not in terms of character. I think that seeing this through Maurice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eyes allows us to feel the panic when the rat catchers come back and find Keith and Malicia. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s presented to us so matter-of-factly, without context<\/i>. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know WHY the rat catchers are doing this. AND I CAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T FIGURE THIS OUT. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a line that hints at it:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yeah, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccos Fancy Arthur is putting in his Jacko on a bet to kill a hundred rats in less than a quarter of an hour.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bits about some sort of show\u00e2\u20ac\u201da possible gambling\/sport ring???\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat might give us a reason why they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re being held in cages. But this plot still doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make sense to me! Is this a means to scam the town and<\/i> to make extra money through a different venture? I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T SEE HOW THESE PIECES ALL FIT TOGETHER!<\/p>\n But let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about Hamnpork. He is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 somewhat unlikable? Which is a strange thing to say about a rat!!!!!! But he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not an easy character because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s struggling with the Change and what it means for him and the rat society. So when he sees that gigantic pile of caged rats, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so, so much that comes to the fore. He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reason that these rats are just rats and it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter that they die. No, he deeply, deeply cares about them because he knows that what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening to them is absolutely<\/i> wrong. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a moral decision! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have made before, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a huge deal that he reacts as he does. This signifies a huge change in who he is!<\/p>\n And what of Maurice? Are his views going to change after witnessing this brutality? Does he still feel like his own interests are more important than others? How is he going to deal with how twisted this situation going to become? Look, he might not like Malicia, but she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s treated HORRIBLY here, too, and he needs to do something to help her. AND KEITH. STOP TREATING KEITH LIKE SHIT AND CALLING HIM STUPID.<\/p>\n Ugh, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I am super<\/i> into this book. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so different!<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/o3u4ZFiZu4g<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the seventh chapter of The Amazing Maurice, THIS BOOK IS TOO MUCH. 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":[463,248,540],"class_list":["post-4427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-amazing-maurice-and-his-educated-rodents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427","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=4427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}