In the thirteenth chapter of I Shall Wear Midnight<\/i>, Tiffany and the rest of the castle have a moment of lightness before she wears midnight. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For talk of death, grief.<\/b><\/p>\n
One thing I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve loved about Mark Does Stuff and the way these reviews work out is that I get to get a slow-motion look at structure. I say that because this chapter feels so intentionally placed before the big finale, as if Pratchett wanted to remind us that while there is darkness in the world, there is so much light. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve mentioned multiple times in various ways that this book feels decidedly darker than much of the other Discworld<\/i> books, and certainly in the Tiffany sub-series. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death (and Death!) in pretty much every Discworld<\/i> book, but the back-to-back tragedies of the Petty family and the Baron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death really make this feel a lot more intense than I expected.<\/p>\n
Yet look at all the love and joy and excitement. This is the same book that has introduced us to Preston, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s given us the return of Eskarina Smith, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shown us an older witch discovering the truth of her powers. And here, in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Shaking of the Sheets,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we are reminded that life goes on, that there is a joy in drink and food and dance and song. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what I expected of this chapter when I started it, though. I figured that if the Cunning Man was going to attack Tiffany, it would happen here, at the old Baron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funeral. It was an emotionally volatile situation, and wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it be oh so easy to turn everyone against a witch at a funeral<\/i>, particularly one where many people had suspected that Tiffany had murdered the Baron?<\/p>\n
Except this quickly turns into something else. First of all, as a longtime Discworld<\/i> reader, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a huge reunion, since this is the first time that Nanny, Granny, and Magrat are all in the same scene in a long while. Later, we see Mrs. Proust and some Ankh-Morpork witches, too. But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a point to this beyond the nostalgia and the excitement. As Eskarina had warned, the witches were all aware of the presence of the Cunning Man and his fixation on Tiffany. So yes, they may have superficial reasons to be at the funeral\/wedding, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that they all knew they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to be there in case Tiffany lost<\/i>. (Despite that Granny tells Tiffany that they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153here on business.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Oh, they totally are.)<\/p>\n
And yet, Tiffany is up for the challenge. She was before<\/i> the funeral, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d argue, but I see this chapter as a test of sorts, a chance for Tiffany to observe the way Nanny Ogg imbues life into the gathered crowd as a reminder for what it is that Tiffany is fighting for. This is witchcraft, too, even if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more Nanny Ogg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thing than Tiffany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. So is teaching a young bride-to-be about sex, which is<\/i> something that Tiffany did! (Though she does tag-team in Nanny to add some additional flair, and by gods, I love it so much. Again, the imagination filling in the gaps of what she possibly told Letitia is so much better than a word-for-word transcription, you know?) But y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I was just so overjoyed reading the long scene in which Nanny single-handedly changes the entire feel of the funeral. How? With a single song, one that was the Baron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s favorite. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, that whole section is written with such love of human beings, and I know that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re supposed to see many of these characters in a new light, but Pratchett also managed to get me to reflect on my own experiences.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It made me remember the dinner I was at post-wake, which we had on the mainland before my dad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funeral in Hawaii, since many people couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make the flight out to Oahu for that. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t long after we ordered food that we started reminiscing about my father, and not long after that, the stories got funnier and funnier. We were all laughing so hard at some of the ridiculous things he did and said that our poor waitress couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite tell what our tears were for. She knew we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d come from a wake, and yet we kept finding everything so goddamn funny. It was grief mixed in with the joy, and we remembered him fondly. What more could we ask for?<\/p>\n And in Tiffany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case, as she watches the crowd transform over Nanny Ogg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s singing, Nanny reminds her what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Human being first, witch second; hard to remember, easy to do.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A damn fine line, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. You could tie this back to so many moments in the book, too! The constant reminders that Tiffany needs to eat and sleep; the way the concept of mercy and justice and revenge is applied to Amber and the rest of the Petty family; how Tiffany feels about Preston. This whole book truly<\/i> feels like Tiffany discovering her own humanity through the process of being a witch!\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gonna talk about humanity, I have<\/i> to segue to the Duchess, because HOLY SHIT. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all??? I was not ready for Mrs. Proust to not only reveal what Macintosh did\u00e2\u20ac\u201dkill his canary\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor to admit that she knew the Duchess before. OR THIS. THIS PART!!!!<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Have you ever heard of the music hall, my dear? Oh, no. You wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have, not out here. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all about comedians and singers and talking-dog acts\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand, of course, dancing girls. I think you are getting the picture here, are you not? Not such a bad job for a girl who could shake a handsome leg, especially since after the show all the posh gentlemen would be waiting outside the stage door to take them out for a lovely dinner and so on.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n HI. HELLO<\/i>. This is what the Duchess used to do??? With this, Pratchett complicates a character that is, admittedly, hard to enjoy. Practically everything we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen of her in this book has been overwhelmingly negative. And while in another author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hands, this detail might have been used to poke fun at the Duchess or to titillate the reader with a racy past, Pratchett instead just adds a new layer. He makes the Duchess seem more human, even if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largely been an antagonist. He does this with the absolutely shocking scene in which she apologizes<\/i> to Tiffany. Is it the best apology of all time? No, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it ever could have been. Instead, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a realistic<\/i> one. She apologies for her behavior not just to Tiffany, but to the whole staff, and hopes that Tiffany knows that it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stemmed from a mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s determination to do the very best for her child.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Some of what she did was misguided in its attempt to do this, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it excuses any of her cruelty. Plus, there is<\/i> the unspoken element of this: she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also trying to tell Tiffany not<\/i> to reveal to anyone who she used to be. Still, I admit that this makes me look at the Duchess a bit differently, and I think it would be fascinating to re-read this book, knowing that the Duchess was not always associated with the specific class she now belongs to. How much was she overcompensating all these years?<\/p>\n What is most important to me, though, is that immediately after this, Tiffany tells Letitia to go talk to her mother. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a tender moment because Tiffany knows that the Duchess will now be much more amenable to a conversation where Letitia can be honest with her. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now in a vulnerable place, you know?<\/p>\n Whew. So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 will the wedding happen next OR the Cunning Man OR both???<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Hm_vMMJBT5Y<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\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 thirteenth chapter of I Shall Wear Midnight, Tiffany and the rest of the castle have a moment of lightness before she wears midnight. Intrigued? 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