{"id":4558,"date":"2018-05-30T05:00:47","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4558"},"modified":"2018-05-28T12:31:28","modified_gmt":"2018-05-28T19:31:28","slug":"mark-reads-monstrous-regiment-part-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/05\/mark-reads-monstrous-regiment-part-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘Monstrous Regiment’: Part 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fifth part of Monstrous Regiment<\/i>, THIS IS A MESS. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For extensive talk of warfare, ableism<\/b>.<\/p>\n

So, has a sense of quiet dread settled in on anyone else at this point of the story? I think the end of the fourth segment\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwherein Jackrum was relieved and Strappi wets himself in terror\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwas pretty terrifying, but this<\/i> whole sequence makes be even more worried about what the hell<\/i> is happening out on the front.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pratchett uses decay to communicate an urgent reality: the Borogravian army has been stomped<\/i>. If they are winning, they are doing so within a Pyrrhic victory. Their losses, at this point, are the only significant detail <\/b>that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen. Have we even heard<\/i> of a single positive aspect of this war in any<\/i> context? When the group of recruits finally makes it to the barracks for their supplies, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even a single object there that looks like it might work in their favor on the battlefield. They are rejects, hand-me-downs, the remains of battles that were most likely failures. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly inspire confidence, you know? And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I mean about that sense of dread: what the fuck<\/i> is happening out there that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leaving all the supplies so thrashed? The people so battered?<\/p>\n

I did want to bring up one aspect of this less so that I myself can talk about it, but hopefully to foster discussion on it. (And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible that it was brought up in the comments of reviews prior to this; I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know, since all my reviews for the month of May were written way, way in advance, so I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t respond in anything close to real time through these posts.) As much as Pratchett uses broken objects to communicate this sense of horror and disarray, he also<\/i> uses injured and disabled bodies in a similar way. How many people without limbs have we come across? There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been at least two references to soldiers keeping their coats tightly closed, hinting at some sort of near-fatal damage beneath them. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not until Scallot that one of these characters is actually even given significant space in the narrative. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just a background feature, a means of telling a story without telling a story about<\/i> them. The only reason I can even say something like that<\/i> is because I had to deal with a parallel form of criticism in early drafts of my book. (Before I even had an agent.) One thing I learned from that process is that disabled people are often used to signify how bad a world has gotten or how terrible the stakes are, and that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly feel like positive representation. But this is<\/i> war, and ignoring the existence of disabled soldiers in a war would certainly be erasure, too. So where\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the line between these two? I was curious what others thought about this, too! TALK TO ME, DISCWORLD FRIENDS.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, I only had a few things I felt super compelled to talk about here. Pratchett is still setting up some larger story, but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t yet grasp what that is. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a lot of dire signals about what might<\/i> be coming soon, but not a clue as to what the story could be about beyond Polly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quest to find her brother. HOWEVER: SHUFTI. MALADICT KNOWS THAT SHUFTI AND LOFTY ARE BOTH WOMEN IN DISGUISE. And maybe they know Polly is, too? Like Polly, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually tell, but y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not saying this negates any concerns for how this story and this specific trope unfolds, but HOLY SHIT, THIS IS REALLY COOL. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect this! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never seen this be used with multiple<\/i> characters in the same story. Is there anyone else????<\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/27C7ki1z0Lk<\/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":"