Terry Pratchett -- Guards! Guards!

Guards! Guards! is the eighth Discworld novel, and perhaps the second best of the series right after Sourcery (so far it remains my favourite). I skipped Wyrd Sisters and Pyramids (volumes six and seven of the Discworld saga) due to the fact that I had previously read the Guards! Guards! graphic novel and I was quite curious about the book I already new it’s story, so it couldn’t possibly be a spoiler for the previous two stories.

The story of Guards! Guards! is quite funny, it’s a parody of… well of many things. The story the following: a secret brotherhood wants to summon a dragon upon the city of Ankh Morpork so they can overthrow the Patrician. The young boy Carrot finally learns at sixteen (and six feet) that he is not a dwarf by nature only by adoption and that he should join the city watch. With only his law-book, vitals protector, ancient totally not-magic and not-shining sword he goes to the city of Ankh to join the city watch and fulfill his destiny. Captain Vimes falls in love with the dragon breeder Lady Ramkin yet the arrival of the LARGE dragon ruins their best laid plans o’ swamp-dragons and men.

The panoply of characters is moderately extensive and it covers quite a few figures we stumble upon in our daily lives. Here are a few:

Constable Carrot – a righteous yet naïve boy, also very strong in battle. Raised by dwarfs in the spirit of justice he just refuses to do anything outside the book of law he has been given by Varneshi. The all corrupting city of Ankh seems to be unable of corrupting this young man. His naïveté is quite a source of humour. I can’t even remember how many times I burst into laughter due to his perpetual confusion and reactions.

Captain Vimes – the Discworld’s own Clint Eastwood. With a loaded swamp dragon he’s not afraid to use, punk!

Caporal Nobby – a supposedly human being (the species he belongs to is unknown even by the author himself). Corrupt to the marrow of the bone, trying to impress the rich (aka Lady Ramkin), occasionally trying to teach young Carrot a thing or two about real life.

Lord Vetinari – the true leader in the vision of Terry Pratchett. He pulls all the strings in the city of Ankh, because there is none more cunning than him. He likes to rule, he’s meant to rule, and no force on the face of the disc can stop him. How about a dragon? Will that put his reign in peril? You’ll only find out by reading the book.

Lady Ramkin – a big lady who loves dragons. And since she’s of noble blood she’s likely to be offered as a sacrifice to the dragon (whether she’s a maiden or not is not that important in modern Disworld times).

Of course there are more characters in Guards! Guards! But I’ll let you discover them yourselves.

Also there is a Guards! Guards! graphic novel. Of course it’s not even half as funny as the book itself, but its drawings are well done and I consider it depicts the world of the Disc much better than the book-covers for instance. Try not to read it before the book like I did. It’s a spoiler.

Also I couldn’t leave you without a few quotes from the book :)

All dwarfs are by nature dutiful, serious, literate, obedient and thoughtful people whose only minor failing is a tendency, after one drink, to rush at enemies screaming "Arrrrrrgh!" and axing their legs off at the knee.

People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else."

Lady Ramkin's bosom rose and fell like an empire.

The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the date last shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.

The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.

He looked up at the hooded figure beside him. 'We never intended this,' he said weakly. 'Honestly. No offence. We just wanted what was due to us.' A skeletal hand patted him on the shoulder, not unkindly. And Death said,
Congratulations.

Book Tag

Reading blogs, I’ve noticed this new book-tag and I found it rather funny. Not that I’ve been tagged or anything, but I decided it would make a good blog entry, therefore I tagged myself :) So here it is a minor guide to me and books.

A book that changed your life

The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. Hari Seldon was my childhood hero, a man that used his brains instead of an exceptional physical condition to save humanity. I guess that Seldon really was the best childhood hero a person could ask for. Beats the crap out of Superman and Batman...

One book you have read more than once

I’m not really keen for reading a book twice, and there are only a handful of books I gave a second read. My philosophy when it comes to reading books is this: there are many many many […] many books worthwhile reading in this world, and life is awfully short. So read as many as you can, and reading a book twice can be quite superfluous.

A book I read twice is The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin. I read first a Romanian translation and after I was given the English version I read it again. The book is marvelous and that makes me feel that my time has not been wasted by reading it twice. It also poses some really interesting questions about what it is to be human. A must-read for everyone, SF/fantasy fan or not.

One book you would want on a desert island

Well, if The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Surviving on a Desert Island has not been written yet I wouldn’t hazard into taking something like Robinson Crusoe or The Mysterious Island (Jules Verne).

I’d take something really BIG instead, I could read for the rest of my life and not finish completely. Like Encyclopedia Britannica – this would also be pretty useful when it comes to knowing the plants around me. And I don’t know if I’d have the life span of reading it more than four times.

One book that made you laugh

Read the previous blog entry.

One book that made you cry

I never cry – still, Mordecai Roshwald’s Level Seven nearly pulled a few tears out of me. Nearly, but not there.

One book you wish had never been written

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pissing off Eric. Oh wait, it never was written :) I just hope there will not be a moron to write it and a second even bigger one to print it.

One book you are currently reading

Guards! Guards! By Terry Pratchett. Review soon.

One book you have been meaning to read

The Last Three Minutes: Conjectures About the Ultimate Fate of the Universe by Paul Davies. Hopefully I’ll get my hands on it pretty soon.

Terry Pratchett - Sourcery

I was quite ecstatic when I found Terry Pratchett books (in English!!!!) at the local library. I already read the first four novels of the Discworld series (The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites and Mort) and I was really keen to read the numerous sequels. Also recently I read Guards! Guards! the graphic novel, which I found rather amusing. So the books I borrowed from the library were Sourcery – the fifth book of the Discworld series and Guards! Guards! – the eighth book. I read Sourcery surprisingly fast, first because I really enjoyed it and secondly because a friend of mine (who’s as much of a Terry Pratchett fan as me) wanted to read it asap.

The main character of the first two novels was the clumsy wizard Rincewind, who unfortunately disappears completely in Equal Rites and Guards! Guards! And since the first two books of the series were absolutely hilarious Terry Pratchett really had to use his entire humoristic wit to give our beloved Rincewind a proper comeback. And what a comeback it is… I kept on laughing like a maniac, Terry Pratchett really outdone himself with this book, it’s the funniest I’ve read so far. I’ve always said that there is no literature harder to write than humoristic one (the kind that really is funny, not just attempts to). And Terry Pratchett is a master of the humoristic art, he can make fun about modern theories about the conception of the Universe or subtly lecherous remarks upon the typical city inhabitants. His stories are roller coaster rides through the land of humour (a.k.a the Discworld), and Rincewind is the funniest coward on the face of the Discworld.

The story behind the book Sourcery is this: “There was an eighth son of an eighth son. He was, quite naturally, a wizard. And there it should have ended. However (for reasons we'd better not go into), he had seven sons. And then he had an eighth son ... a wizard squared ... a source of magic ... a Sourcerer”. Such a Sourcerer is a threat to the current state of affairs on the Discworld, and the fate of mankind lies in the hands of a party formed by Conina – a rogue who wants to be a hairdresser, Nijel – a wannabe barbarian warlord, Luggage (a large wooden luggage), a Seriph whose kingdom is about to be wiped out by the magic of the Sourcerer, and of course, the one.. the only… Rincewind! – the clumsiest “wizzard” on the face of the Disc. The result – one of the funniest adventures. Ever!

I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who appreciates a good joke. You don’t need to like fantasy literature in order to enjoy this book, but be warned – after reading it you’ll never be able to hold back a chuckle when reading any fantasy book (Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter included!)

If I didn’t yet convince you to read the book, here are a few quotes that might do the job:

He did of course sometimes have people horribly tortured to death, but this was considered to be perfectly acceptable behaviour for a civic ruler and generally approved of by the overhelming majority of citizens. [footnote: The overhelming majority of citizens being defined in this case as everyone not currently hanging upside down over a scorpion pit]

Of course, Ankh-Morpork's citizens had always claimed that the river water was incredibly pure. Any water that had passed through so many kidneys, they reasoned, had to be very pure indeed.

The vermine is a small black and white relative of the lemming, found in the cold Hublandish regions. Its skin is rare and highly valued, especially by the vermine itself; the selfish little bastard will do anything rather than let go of it.

It wasn't blood in general he couldn't stand the sight of, it was just his blood in particular that was so upsetting.

"I'm not going to ride on a magic carpet!" he hissed. "I'm afraid of grounds." "You mean heights," said Conina. "And stop being silly." "I know what I mean! It's the grounds that kill you!"

The subject of wizards and sex is a complicated one, but as has already been indicated it does, in essence, boil down to this: when it comes to wine, women and song, wizards are allowed to get drunk and croon as much as they like.

Some people think this is paranoia, but it isn't. Paranoids only think everyone is out to get them. Wizards know it

Trainspotting

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who need reasons when you've got heroin? (Renton)

Even now, while thinking of it I can barely hold back a chuckle. Trainspotting is for sure one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, Irvine Welsh's novel really amazed me. While reading it I kept on laughing continuously at the adventures of Rents, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie, and at the less important stories, that gave a certain depth to the Scotland of junkies portrayed by Irvine Welsh. The translation I read was pretty accurate, and it had a lot of footnotes in which explanations were given about the original expressions – the Scottish vernacular makes as much sense as Chinese in for me ("Ah suppose man, ah'm too much ay a perfectionist, ken? It's likesay, if things go a bit dodgy, ah jist cannae be bothered, y'know?"). I even found it hard to find a proper subtitling for the movie on the net. If I’ll ever get to Scotland I wonder how the hell I’ll cope there (hope they speak plain simple English). Also I wonder if they’re any English-Scottish dictionaries…

I don’t understand why the author chose the particular title for his book, the Trainspotting word might have some secret meaning I don’t get. So far, from what I understood from the translator’s footnotes a trainspotter is either an eccentric person or a bloke who just sits in train station and stares at the trains. Who knows, it might suggest the dreary of the modern world (the fact that trains aren’t that used in the modern days in UK – from what I understood).

The book is basically the story of lowlifes the inhabit the city of Leith, addicts to heroin, cocaine, methadone, valium and many others (“Fuck it, we would have injected Vitamin C if only they'd made it illegal”). It’s filled with profanity; honestly I’ve never read a book with so much cursing in it. Hell, even I don’t curse that much, but I guess the cursing is part of the book’s charm (I myself am totally against any form of censorship), I can’t imagine it without them. The writer makes no compromises, the book is dark, and its humour is as sadistic as possible. Also it has its rather spooky scenes, for instance at one point Renton (the mainest character of the main characters character of the book) hallucinates that Allison’s dead baby is haunting him. I found that passage really well written, more psychedelic that all the Fight Club book + movie.

Trainspotting is quite a peculiar narration, for it has a multiple point of view and each character has its own typical verbal clichés (for instance Spud say “likesay” an awful lot of times) and also the style itself changes as the author shuffles the narrators. It’s the first time I encountered this style in narration, which makes Trainspotting the most original novel I’ve read recently (it definitely beats Fight Club when it comes to the originality part).

The movie is based on a screenplay written by a certain John Hodge. Usually I prefer movie adaptations in which the writer of the novel/short story/novella/comic is also the writer of the screenplay (like Interview with the Vampire for instance), screenplay which changes the initial story a lot. Also the director adapted the characters to the actor intead of doing it exactly the other way around. All the movie’s actors are very good at what they do (especially Ewan McGregor), but the movie’s Renton is not the book’s Renton, and the same goes for Sick Boy and Begbie. Even Spud seemed a bit exaggerated. However, the movie itself is great. Danny Boyle chose a very original way of directing it, and unlike Requiem for a Dream it’s quite fun, you just can’t stop laughing during it.

John Grisham's Rainmaker

Since I came from Roşia Montană I didn’t really do many things besides sleeping, spending time on the Internet and reading. I didn’t get to read much over there – I was way too busy carrying things around. So when I came home I devoured John Grisham’s Rainmaker. I finished it a few days ago, but I didn’t much feel like writing a review of the book before now.

The book was pretty good, no doubt about it. I do not feel much spiritually enriched after reading it I’ve got to admit – meaning I haven’t learned anything from it, save for a few things about the American law, but still I enjoyed it quite a lot.

The subject of the book isn’t that original though. It’s about a boy named Rudy Baylor (also the narrator), a student at law school, who wants to sue this big insurance company named Great Benefit (the classic David versus Goliath). The problem is he hasn’t yet passed his bar exam and he’s flat broke. And unemployed. He also falls in love with a young girl who’s married to an abusive ex-high-school baseball star. So basically poor Rudy has a lot of problems up his mind, and he’s not the superhuman Mitch McDeere (from Grisham’s first novel The Firm). Actually I really the fact that John Grisham did a novel about a guy who is totally different from his precursor Mitch McDeere – the guy who was handsome, hard-working, sporty and completely lacking any flaws. Rudy is just a normal guy, one of the least glamorous members of today’s (actually the 90’s) society. And his battle is quite inspirational; since none of us is Mitch McDeere it’s much easier to identify with Rudy, the young loser.

One of the flaws of the book is that it gives a lot of unimportant details about Rudy Baylor’s life. Not that they’re boring to read or something, but some of the books incidents could have been easily left out – like anything that concerned a character named Miss Birdie, a character that I found superfluous for Rudy’s Baylor evolution as a character.

I really liked the end of The Rainmaker, due to its moderate realism, yet that is as much as I’m gonna tell you about it – I’ll let you read the book and have the pleasure of reading it yourselves – it’s really worth it.

I’ve also seen on the net that there is a film made after the book. Unfortunately I haven’t seen it, you I’ll make sure I’ll see it one day. Especially since it’s directed by Francis Ford Copolla, a film-director I really like a lot. I just need to find it at a local video store.

FânFest

I returned back home on Tuesday, and ever since I’ve been doing nothing but sleeping and fumbling around in front of the computer. I didn’t even get out drinking a beer in a bar (yet!). I was way too tired even for that – to tired even to write a blog entry earlier. My trip to Roşia Montană really wore me out I guess. However it was more than worthwhile.

The Road

Getting to Roşia Montană implied taking a train all the way to Cluj and then take a bus that left me 15 kilometres from Roşia Montană, and hitchhike (first time in my life – I’m not really into hitchhiking) all the way to the central square of the village. From there I had to climb uphill of a rather muddy road all the way to the plateau where the FânFest festival would be held in two days. The road took me some ten hours (waiting in the bust station at Cluj included), but the clean air and the breath-taking sceneries of Roşia Montană were really worth it.

The Preparations

They implied a whole lot of work, work that I – a genuine couch potato – am not accustomed to. Still, I soon got the hang of it, and though not being one of the top workers in the camp, I really tried to help around as much as I could. It was tiresome of course, yet it didn’t feel that bad when having a lot of interesting and cool people around to talk with. And it was quite healthy for me – I never work out at home. Since I won’t ever be joining the army I guess that volunteering for FânFest is the next best thing to make you work out for free (without having to pay at a local gym).

The Festival

It was undoubtedly very loud, but that was just the whole point of it – to make noise in order to make ourselves heard. Unfortunately there were some who misinterpreted the whole purpose of the festival. For instance there was a group of young men who kept waving the flag of Romania and shouting “we do not sell our country!”. You see, FânFest is aimed against the destruction of the Roşia Montană valley and not against foreign investments – which are exactly what my country needs desperately at the moment.

Also I ought not to mention the ubiquitous punks. I’ve developed quite a repulsion towards them lately, I’ve got to admit. And I thoroughly despise punk culture per general. It’s not even anarchism it’s all about, just plain stupidity being paraded. And all these young kids do is get drunk and brawl all the time. Sometimes they even use drugs, thing which made the life of the First Aid volunteers tougher. One of these poor-witted specimens even decided it was a wise thing to pull out a blade at three persons he did not know, thing which resulted in him being left unconscious with four broken ribs and a broken jaw. He has no one to blame but himself for his complete stupidity.

The concerts were mostly good, despite the fact that the budget was smaller than last year, and also many bands quitted due to the fact organizers could not accommodate them at a hotel. Some bands are just into music for the money I guess...

The Aftermath

As expected there was a lot of dirt left after the festival (which ought to be eco friendly). And of course the dirt had to be picked up entirely by the volunteers. Picking up cigarette buds was quite a nuisance, but someone had to do it. At least after we left we left that entire plateau (commonly known as Jig Vădoaia) clean.

Also Monday all of us volunteers had a party. We didn’t get to have much fun during the festival, but we sure made up for it at the after-party. It was really fun, and we did our best to fend off the cold with alcohol and cigarettes. Also it meant even more socializing with the other volunteers, people that made working actually fun.

The Volunteers and Organizers

Perhaps I would have disliked all that hard work quite a lot if it weren’t for the other volunteers. All of them were really great people, whom I hope I shall meet again soon.

Also the team of volunteers was not strictly Romanian. Of course there were volunteers that did nothing all day, but they were eliminated from the volunteers’ team on Friday, so only the hard working ones were left.

We had people from other countries as well, such as France, USA, Canada or Hungary. Unfortunately both my French and Hungarian are to poor even to practice, so basically I talked to every non-Romanian person in plain English.

There were some organizers that did nothing but give orders and do nothing but sit on their bottoms all day long, yet there were also a handful that worked side by side with us, organizers that were basically volunteers with a badge of a different colour. It was guys like these that gave inspiration to the common volunteer.

Next year

If the bastards from Gabriel Resources Ltd won’t start mining those beautiful landscapes and if there’s going to be a FânFest I’ll be glad to volunteer again. It was an experience worth repeating, and I’m actually looking forward to go there again, put up some military tents, eat the food we were served daily in a canteen-tent, listen to the dirty jokes the guys said and many such small things that add up to the charm of volunteering for the FânFest.