Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 02:08:52 -0700 From: Rain Donaldson Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Hi all, As always, "BDG" in the subject line denotes spoilers. I'm really pleased to be able to start off this discussion because this book touches on so many topics that I find fascinating. Below are a few topics and questions to start this month's discussion of Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. Please feel free to ask other questions or suggest other topics for discussion. These are just what occured to me. THE DISCWORLD Have you read any of the other books in Terry's rather sizeable series? THE STORY Did it work...as humor? ...as adventure? ...as fantasy? ...as satire? ...as a commentary on gender roles? POLLY PERKINS Was she believable? Was her masquerade believable? What did you think of her motivation? (her brother) ...of how she changed over the course of the story? Was her personal story arc believable? NUGGAN, WOZZER, AND THE DUCHESS What do these three have to say about the role of women in religion? Is it accurate, if exaggerated? MALADICT, CARBORUNDUM, & ANGUA What do their portrayals suggest about the intersections between gender and race? Is the portrayal of the race issue blunted by the fact that all three are members of fantasy races? IGOR How does Igor's story reflect on the relationship between women and the medical establishment? SHUFTI What did you think about Shufti's decision with regards to Johnny? TONKER AND LOFTY How well did you think Pratchett handled their relationship? How well do you think Pratchett handled their history (along with Wozzer) with the Working School? Were you bothered by the fact that the only two characters with a same-sex relationship have a history of abuse? LIEUTENANT BLOUSE What did Blouse's portarayal have to say about theatrical (and by extension cinematic) portrayals of gender? SERGEANT JACKRUM What did you think of the scene where Jackrum confronts the upper brass? Do we know what gender Jackrum is? OVERALL Did any character's gender surprise you? Did your perception of any character change when their gender designation changed? If so how? Were there any instances where you had difficulty adjusting to the change in a character's gender label? What did you think of the title? Was it a clue for you as to the plot of the book? Any favorite quotes? What does the story have to say about the Military, Gender roles, and the nature of War? Did the book remind you of any real world situations? Can satire be feminist or does it need to be free of ideological preconceptions? Was this a feminist book? And finally, one question from the book that I found interesting. "Do you think it is possible for an entire nation to be insane?" "Look, you know what I mean. You take a bunch of people who don't seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem? Thanks, Lorrraine ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 08:50:35 -0600 From: Angela Barclay Subject: [*FSFFU*] anybody there?/m. regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Hi all: I haven't received any posts on either _Herland_ or _Monstrous Regiment_. Have I missed anything? I gave the latter 99 pages and am unable to finish it, perhaps because I read a couple of chunks in sittings too far apart. I like the concept of a regiment of monsters (woman as monster??!) and the commentary on the stupidity of war but it just isn't working for me. There seems to be something missing- a certain depth or richness. I felt the same thing when I read _Ethan of Athos_. Is this because both are part of a series and one needs to be familiar with the whole to appreciate the world the author has created? My experience of the above are in sharp contrast to my recent enjoyment of _The Time Traveler's Wife_ which I couldn't put down. One thing I'm not liking is the lack of division into chapters or sections. Why would the author choose to do that? Is there a term for this lack of division? Another publishing type of question I have is: why does the author use ' instead of " to denote dialogue? Any other comments? angela ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 08:19:58 -0700 From: Yvonne Rathbone Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] anybody there?/m. regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU On 6/18/05 7:50 AM, the Muses inspired Angela Barclay to write: > I like the concept of a regiment of monsters (woman as monster??!) and the > commentary on the stupidity of war but it just isn't working for me. There > seems to be something missing- a certain depth or richness. Terry Pratchett is, first and foremost, a satirist of humanity. He has two flaws as a novelist. One is character development (the two major exceptions to this are Sam Vimes and Granny Weatherwax). When he shows a character doing something characteristic, I often find the example a bit ambiguous or weak. I dont exactly know what I am supposed to understand about the character from the scene. But Pratchett often just tells the reader about the character. Contrary to standard creative writing instruction, this is where Pratchett gets it right more often than not because he uses this time to bring in his satire. And thats the reason to read him. The other flaw is that he doesnt write action very clearly. I cant tell you how many times I have had to reread a scene to figure out what just happened. And its always at the exciting point. Sometimes I just have to keep reading and figure out what happened by what happens next. > I felt the same > thing when I read _Ethan of Athos_. Is this because both are part of a > series and one needs to be familiar with the whole to appreciate the world > the author has created? I have read the whole series and I find Bujolds writing a bit of a tease. She somehow misses in her presentation of what should be exciting and satisfying scenes. At least for me. Again, I dont read her for the depth of story, but for the commentary. > Another publishing type of question I have is: why does the > author use ' instead of " to denote dialogue? Thats a British thing. But I have found Pratchetts novels to be about the worst copy edited of any mainstream published novels I have read. I have actually found instances of :of: being used instead of :have:, e.g. I would of gone. (And having brought up the spector of the copy editor, I will add that 1. my keyboards apostrophe isnt working and 2. I am a particularly bad copy editor which is why I notice when someone else didnt enlist one.) YR ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 11:32:04 -0400 From: Frances Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] anybody there?/m. regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU > Thats a British thing. But I have found Pratchetts novels to be about the > worst copy edited of any mainstream published novels I have read. I have > actually found instances of :of: being used instead of :have:, e.g. I > would > of gone. Quite deliberate, I think -- it's the way "would've" often sounds in certain dialects, and I've seen it so represented elsewhere for emphasis. Frances ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 09:41:36 -0700 From: Lee Anne Phillips Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] anybody there?/m. regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU At 08:19 AM 6/18/2005 -0700, Yvonne Rathbone wrote: >> Another publishing type of question I have is: why does the >> author use ' instead of " to denote dialogue? > >That's a British thing. The British defend the practice as a logical thing, since single quotes surround direct quotes and double quotes denote words that are actually double-quoted. They're also sometimes careful not to put punctuation inside the quote marks if it was not there in the original, which is another "logical" attempt to make things plain. Americans counter that the purpose of the marks is to set off the words from their surroundings, and the double quotes are far more noticeable. On both sides of the Atlantic, long quotations are likely to be set off in a block of indented text, since it's easy to lose track of which words are being quoted using either convention if there are too many of them. Another use of quotation marks, quite common in both British and American writing, is to indicate a certain arch or wry commentary on a word or phrase, or to otherwise set it off in some manner from the rest of the sentence. So an American might write these sentences: The priate marked the location of the loot with an "X." Military "intelligence" isn't often sensible. Shakespeare coined the phrase, "winter of our discontent." Where a Briton might write: The pirate marked the location of the loot with an 'X'. Military 'intelligence' isn't often sensible. Shakespeare coined the phrase, 'winter of our discontent'. thus making it clear that, in the latter example, the quoted words did not, in fact, end with a period, and that the first didn't specify that the mark consisted of "X period". But these are matters of style rather than fiat it's easy to find contrary examples on both sides of the Atlantic, not to mention the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. Many scholarly and other stylebooks specify one style or another, and insist upon "correct" usage for a particular publication or scholastic discipline, but we speakers of English have no equivalent to the French Academy, and are quite free to do whatever we please as long as we aim to please only ourselves. Here, for example, is a quote from today's BBC News site on the Web using a mix of these conventions: 'Insurgent haven' "Approximately 50 insurgents have been killed since the operation began yesterday [Friday] morning," US marine Capt Jeffrey Pool said. The BBC has a stylebook so, if one wants to write for the BBC, one has to keep that stricture in mind if one wants to pick up an envelope with a cheque in it rather than a pink slip. James Joyce (an Irishman) didn't like quotes at all, and used en-dashes to set off the start of a quotation and then left the reader to muddle along as best they could, thus greatly easing the burden on himself and shifting it elsewhere whilst making the reader think that the author was quite a clever fellow: - Yes, that's the best, he assured Stephen, to whom for the matter of that Brazen Head or him or anywhere else was all more or less . . . It's best to be flexible, like any reader of Joyce, since this is SF, after all. Do we expect *everything* to be the same? Lee Anne ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 13:45:44 -0300 From: Patricia Monk Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] anybody there?/m. regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Angela Barclay wrote: >Hi all: > >One thing I'm not liking is the lack of division into chapters or sections. >Why would the author choose to do that? Is there a term for this lack of >division? Another publishing type of question I have is: why does the >author use ' instead of " to denote dialogue? I didn't buy the book, so I'm not sure if this applies, but if it is (or was originally) published in England, then the single quotation marks are leftover from the English publication, where single quotation marks are the normal style for dialogue and quotations (with double quotation marks for quotations inside dialogue or quotations). I can't even begin to guess at the answer to your first question---I've never met this before in modern fiction. I doubt if it has a name. Let's hope it doesn't catch on well enough to need one. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 09:52:26 -0700 From: Yvonne Rathbone Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] anybody there?/m. regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU On 6/18/05 9:41 AM, the Muses inspired Lee Anne Phillips to write: > At 08:19 AM 6/18/2005 -0700, Yvonne Rathbone wrote: > >>> Another publishing type of question I have is: why does the >>> author use ' instead of " to denote dialogue? >> >> That's a British thing. > It's best to be flexible, like any reader of Joyce, > since this is SF, after all. Do we expect *everything* > to be the same? I wasnt implying anything else. I merely said that in Britain, thats the way its done. Really, Im descriptivist trained. I dont much care most of the time how punctuation is done as long as I can grasp fairly quickly what it is trying to convey. Dashes, commas, semicolons, its all good. YR ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 10:57:29 -0700 From: Lee Anne Phillips Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] anybody there?/m. regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU At 11:32 AM 6/18/2005 -0400, Frances wrote: >>Thats a British thing. But I have found Pratchetts novels to be about the >>worst copy edited of any mainstream published novels I have read. I have >>actually found instances of :of: being used instead of :have:, e.g. I would >>of gone. Quite deliberate, I think -- it's the way "would've" often sounds in certain dialects, and I've seen it so represented elsewhere for emphasis. Languages evolve based on the spoken tongue, not the written page, and this usage is quickly becoming the norm. The contracted 'have" in "would've" is just as illogical as 'of', not more so, since the use of "have," to posses, as a marker for the 'perfect' tenses is only an arbitrary invention to supplement the more 'logical' vowel shifts and inflections of older forms of English. http://www.grijalvo.com/Citas/Peculiar_English.htm http://www.reflectionsedge.com/archives/may2005/eftt1_eb.html http://www.ielanguages.com/enghist.html Mind you, I still cringe when I see 'baited breath' when the writer obviously meant 'bated', or 'of' for 'have', but I'm an old fogey and know it. The language is moving on without me, as is quite proper, since the world does the same for all of us eventually. Lee Anne ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 14:44:04 -0700 From: Lee Anne Phillips Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] anybody there?/m. regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU At 09:52 AM 6/18/2005 -0700, you wrote: >I wasn't implying anything else. I merely said that in Britain, that's the >way its done. Nor was I implying anything except that, in Britain, that's not always the way 'it's done' nor is the 'British' way of doing inverted commas completely foreign to the good old USA. The example I gave, from the BBC, is written in at least one of the "received" styles, the BBC being what it is. In fact, the varieties of English appear to be converging on some fronts whilst diverging on others. "Cultivated" speech everywhere is slowly becoming closer to 'mid-Atlantic' whilst street speech seems more flexible and is evolving away from the standards. Here is the styleguide of the Economist of London, which uses the 'American' style of inverted commas for quotations and the 'British' style for other uses: http://www.bbctraining.com/onlineCourse.asp?tID=5487&cat=0 And here is the styleguide of the Guardian, which uses the same rules for quotations and so on as above: http://image.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/ The AP Stylebook, of course, uses the 'American' style for everything: http://journalism.wlu.edu/Stylebook2000.pdf Lee Anne ------------------------------- We shall begin today by reviewing the correct use of the apostrophe, which is defined grammatically as "the little thing that is hard to find when you put it inside quotation marks," as is shown in this example: "'". - Dave Barry ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 09:29:36 -0400 From: "Intihar, Phebe L USAEC/LogSec Team" Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] anybody there?/m. regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU YR saying, "Terry Pratchett is, first and foremost, a satirist of humanity." He's somewhat derivative of Douglas Adams -- I just found a short line in another of his that is essentially identical to one in Adams -- but I suppose it would be hard not to be if you are in that line of writing and are from Britain. The humor is deeply characteristic of the British-irony school. Phebe YR saying, "Thats a British thing. But I have found Pratchetts novels to be about the worst copy edited of any mainstream published novels I have read. I have actually found instances of :of: being used instead of :have:, e.g. I would of gone." COULD also be a British thing. They do use different "helper words." "Different than" instead of "different from," which drives me crazy, but it isn't the only example. Phebe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 02:56:06 -0700 From: Joyce Jones Subject: [*FSFFU*] FSFFU Monstrous Regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Sorry, I'm very late getting to all the posts about Monstrous Regiment, a book I just loved, and was surprised to see that most of the discussion was about punctuation! I didn't notice anything about punctuation because I listened to it on tape. Now that was a fun experience. The different voices were a hoot especially Igorina and Maladicta. I liked it better than any book I've listened to since Angela's Ashes. Just a sucker for accents, I guess. I loved the whole story of the Igors. Now there's a health care professional I wouln't mind seeing. The commentary about war and thinking with your sock was as feminist as you can get, but I was very disappointed in the characterization of older women. Basically he says, if you want to see oppression, they're the ones you go to. This doesn't fit anything I've seen of older women. Some can be oppressive and reactionary, of course, but as a rule, you can't beat men for the real down and dirty stuff. And young men, ala moral squad types, are the creme de la creme. The trial of the errant women soldiers kind of harkened to ol' Phyllis Schlaffly days, her idea that she could be a fine woman, wife and mother while also being a full time political storm trooper, but the rest of you young lovelies just couldn't handle it. It was resolved better that Phyllis would have though. Or how abut John Ashcroft? If I had to be under investigation by a tribunal, I'm thinking I would stand a better chance with Phyllis than with John. I liked the post about Pratchett's difficulty in writing action scenes. There were certainly times when I was listening and could't figure out who was doing what to whom and why, but I thought that was just because I couldn't follow it visually. Did you all read the copy with a toy soldier looking figure on the front? Did that seem to anyone to look like Polly? Certainly wasn't at all how I pictured her. This was the second Pratchett book I've read, and neither one has had Granny Weatherwax. Which books is she in? I may have to go for a third. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 09:25:27 -0400 From: Frances Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] FSFFU Monstrous Regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU > This was the second Pratchett book I've read, and neither one has had > Granny Weatherwax. Which books is she in? I may have to go for a third. She first appears in Equal Rites, but really starts coming into her own in Wyrd Sisters, where we meet the unforgettable Nanny Ogg for the first time, then reappears in Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, and Carpe Jugulem. Latest appearances are in Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky. Frances ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 08:50:23 -0700 From: Yvonne Rathbone Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] FSFFU Monstrous Regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU On 6/24/05 2:56 AM, the Muses inspired Joyce Jones to write: > Sorry, I'm very late getting to all the posts about Monstrous Regiment, a > book I just loved, and was surprised to see that most of the discussion was > about punctuation! I didn't notice anything about punctuation because I > listened to it on tape. Now that was a fun experience. I read this one on tape as well (read, listened, you know!) and have read several others this way. Pratchetts books lend themselves to the medium. His humor translates well and you dont have to be distracted by the bad copy editing! I havent really posted my thoughts on the book yet though. Ill do so in another message. > I loved the whole story of the Igors. Now there's a health care > professional I wouln't mind seeing. Igors show up in several books. They play important roles in Carpe Jugulum, Thief of Time and the Sam Vimes story that takes place after Night Watch, the title of which I cant remember offhand (anyone?). > The commentary about war and thinking with your sock was as feminist as you > can get, but I was very disappointed in the characterization of older women. > Basically he says, if you want to see oppression, they're the ones you go > to. This doesn't fit anything I've seen of older women. I think old women can be fairly oppressive. In many traditional cultures, its often the older women who are the most active in upholding some of the more opressive customs, such as genital mutilation and bride laws that are just slavery. But you are right that Pratchett writes them as a group, but does not do the same for their male counterparts, particularly the young bucks, who also do so much of the cultural policing. Pratchett writes from a fairly enlightened, but certainly male viewpoint. He has said in interviews that he cannot write weak female characters. He is can write strong women who have a flaw to overcome through being more compassionate with themselves (Granny Weatherwax, Susan: Granddaughter of Death). At the same time, there is a feminist effect in that it is often hard to disintinguish the central core of the female characters from the male characters and the way Pratchett writes, this core is very recognizably human. YR ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 15:40:47 -0400 (EDT) From: Mary Downs Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Oppressively conservative old women To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU In a message dated 6/25/2005 1:05:32 A.M. EDT, yvonr@EARTHLINK.NET writes: > I think old women can be fairly oppressive. In many traditional cultures, > its often the older women who are the most active in upholding some of the > more opressive customs, such as genital mutilation and bride laws that are > just slavery. M: Sort of "If I had to go through it, all you young girls do, too?" Such self-centered thinking that it's disgusting. If any of you are familiar with Lois McMaster Bujold's "Mountains of Mourning," there's a perfect example in there. If you're not, you've missed a wonderful novella, published with several others in _Borders of Infinity_ by Bujold. Mary ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 15:03:02 -0500 From: NeilRest Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Oppressively conservative old women To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU At 02:40 PM 6/25/2005, Mary Downs wrote: >Sort of "If I had to go through it, all you young girls do, >too?" Such self-centered thinking that it's disgusting. This is elementary group indoctrination. If you become a Marine, or an M.D., or pledge a fraternity/sorority, for instance, you get the same thing. Neil -- NeilRest@rcn.com . . . but as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. -- Ambrose Bierce ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 13:25:42 -0700 From: Vireo Nefer Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Monstrous regiment To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU although i'd heard public or assertive, non-submissive women referred to as "monstrous," historically, perhaps Pratchett ran across this title: *First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women* by John Knox (1558). More about this title here: http://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualNLs/firblast.htm (i recently found it noted in *The Book of Curses* by Stuart Gordon.) And, let's not forget Robin Morgan's lengthly poem "Monster"! i love Pratchett, tho MR is not one of my faves. Still i heartily recommend all the Discworld titles.