Monstrous Regiment
It's another Discworld novel. Monstrous Regiment is the
31st book that Terry Pratchett wrote in this series. There are only 39
at the moment. I'm nearing the end of the printed books. And I think I'm
beginning to leave behind some of my favorite characters. I know that
I'm about to dive into Tiffany Aching's arc and meet Moist von Lipwig.
There aren't any more Rincewind novels, and I don't think there are any
more that prominently feature the Witches, the Wizards, or Death (though
I expect all of them to show up somehow in the remaining books).
In more ways than one, this felt like a transitional book. The cover art is of a different style than hat of the preceding books. Like the last book, this was less laugh-out-loud funny and more wryly amusing. Parts of it were downright sad. There were also a shocking number of typos. I'm not sure whether that's an effect of Pratchett's advancing Alzheimers (I think this fits the timeline for that) or just a mistake on the part of the printers. Either way, it become distracting a few times.
Monstrous Regiment follows Polly "Oliver" "Ozzer" Perks, who joins the army at the tail end of a war in an attempt to find her older brother and bring him home. Her motives are two-fold. She's always looked after Paul, and going to bring him home from war is sort of a natural extension of that for her. But there's also the issue that, if he dies, she'll lose her livelihood. See, he's all set to inherit their father's inn and Polly would be able to continue working there in this case. But thanks to rampant sexism, Polly can't inherit it. If Paul dies, then she's out on her ass with nowhere to go.
So Polly finds herself one of the very last recruits in a losing war. Her regiment includes a vampire, an Igor, and a troll. But that's not where the title of the book comes from. Polly isn't the only girl who has decided to join the army, though everyone has a different reason. One girl is searching for her fiancee. A couple simply have no where else to go.
I was reminded of Victor Victoria. My dad bought the movie when I was in high school, and we watched it together. It's the story of Julie Andrews pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman in order to get a job singing. And almost every character other than her is gay. By the time the butler came out of the closet, my dad threw his hands up and went "Everyone's gay!". That's sort of how I felt by the end of this book. "Everyone's a woman!"
I really enjoyed Mounstrous Regiment. I love the trope of a girl dressing as a boy to pursue a life that's closed to her. And this book takes that to the extreme. If being a man is so much better than being a woman, thanks to a variety of privileges men enjoy that are expressly denied women, then why wouldn't every woman pretend to be a man? There's freedom and respect to be had, along with a certain control over your own destiny.
As I said, this is a transitional book. It still hits a lot of the same satirical beats of earlier Discworld novels, but Pratchett's style is changing noticeably. I know that at some point he had to switch from writing books to dictating them, and I'd believe that this book is when that happened. It would account for some of the typos. And for the way this book, while definitely being a Disworld book, felt different than any that came before. I'm really interested to see where this series goes from here.
In more ways than one, this felt like a transitional book. The cover art is of a different style than hat of the preceding books. Like the last book, this was less laugh-out-loud funny and more wryly amusing. Parts of it were downright sad. There were also a shocking number of typos. I'm not sure whether that's an effect of Pratchett's advancing Alzheimers (I think this fits the timeline for that) or just a mistake on the part of the printers. Either way, it become distracting a few times.
Monstrous Regiment follows Polly "Oliver" "Ozzer" Perks, who joins the army at the tail end of a war in an attempt to find her older brother and bring him home. Her motives are two-fold. She's always looked after Paul, and going to bring him home from war is sort of a natural extension of that for her. But there's also the issue that, if he dies, she'll lose her livelihood. See, he's all set to inherit their father's inn and Polly would be able to continue working there in this case. But thanks to rampant sexism, Polly can't inherit it. If Paul dies, then she's out on her ass with nowhere to go.
So Polly finds herself one of the very last recruits in a losing war. Her regiment includes a vampire, an Igor, and a troll. But that's not where the title of the book comes from. Polly isn't the only girl who has decided to join the army, though everyone has a different reason. One girl is searching for her fiancee. A couple simply have no where else to go.
I was reminded of Victor Victoria. My dad bought the movie when I was in high school, and we watched it together. It's the story of Julie Andrews pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman in order to get a job singing. And almost every character other than her is gay. By the time the butler came out of the closet, my dad threw his hands up and went "Everyone's gay!". That's sort of how I felt by the end of this book. "Everyone's a woman!"
I really enjoyed Mounstrous Regiment. I love the trope of a girl dressing as a boy to pursue a life that's closed to her. And this book takes that to the extreme. If being a man is so much better than being a woman, thanks to a variety of privileges men enjoy that are expressly denied women, then why wouldn't every woman pretend to be a man? There's freedom and respect to be had, along with a certain control over your own destiny.
As I said, this is a transitional book. It still hits a lot of the same satirical beats of earlier Discworld novels, but Pratchett's style is changing noticeably. I know that at some point he had to switch from writing books to dictating them, and I'd believe that this book is when that happened. It would account for some of the typos. And for the way this book, while definitely being a Disworld book, felt different than any that came before. I'm really interested to see where this series goes from here.
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