Equal Rites (Discworld 3)
Sep. 4th, 2021 09:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishIn which Terry Pratchett takes gentle aim at Rampant Sexism, with not wholly satsifying results when viewed from thirty-odd years later.
I feel that I ought to like Equal Rites a lot more than I ended up liking it. (I loved the title.) The setup is good: a dying wizard comes to a tiny village and names as the heir to his power the just-born son of a blacksmith, who turns out to be a daughter (in a culture where Women Aren't Wizards), and hijinks ensue. And I'm amused by the way the book recapitulates the first half of A Wizard of Earthsea: young wizard goes to a reclusive rural teacher, wants to learn more, and goes off to the School of Wizards, where something terrible breaks through from another reality.
Eskarina, the young wizardess, reminds me of ... I don't know about myself specifically, but certainly of the kinds of kids I enjoyed hanging out with as a kid. "[T]he infuriating way she had of relentlessly pursuing the thread of an argument long after she should have put it down" feels deeply familiar. I liked Granny Weatherwax, too, though she seems a bit ... unpolished? More like a collection of tropes and less like a full character. I guess that's also true of Esk. Thin characters, maybe that's my trouble.
Or maybe it's that blatant sexism and gender-essentialism are more frustrating than sources-of-amusement these days, even when they're being taken down a peg or three.
Yeah. That might be it. I enjoyed pretty much everything to do with the various witches, and mostly wanted to bang my head against a wall whenever the wizards showed up. (Except for the dead wizard's staff. Pratchett writes animate objects exceedingly well.)
And the book itself feels slight. Neither the social commentary nor the story are strong enough to carry it along. I certainly don't regret having read it, but it feels like the weakest thus far. Though it is at least moving in the direction of "stories that happen to be set in Discworld" rather than "stories about Discworld".
Three cheers for the Librarian, but that was always going to be the case.
I feel that I ought to like Equal Rites a lot more than I ended up liking it. (I loved the title.) The setup is good: a dying wizard comes to a tiny village and names as the heir to his power the just-born son of a blacksmith, who turns out to be a daughter (in a culture where Women Aren't Wizards), and hijinks ensue. And I'm amused by the way the book recapitulates the first half of A Wizard of Earthsea: young wizard goes to a reclusive rural teacher, wants to learn more, and goes off to the School of Wizards, where something terrible breaks through from another reality.
Eskarina, the young wizardess, reminds me of ... I don't know about myself specifically, but certainly of the kinds of kids I enjoyed hanging out with as a kid. "[T]he infuriating way she had of relentlessly pursuing the thread of an argument long after she should have put it down" feels deeply familiar. I liked Granny Weatherwax, too, though she seems a bit ... unpolished? More like a collection of tropes and less like a full character. I guess that's also true of Esk. Thin characters, maybe that's my trouble.
Or maybe it's that blatant sexism and gender-essentialism are more frustrating than sources-of-amusement these days, even when they're being taken down a peg or three.
Yeah. That might be it. I enjoyed pretty much everything to do with the various witches, and mostly wanted to bang my head against a wall whenever the wizards showed up. (Except for the dead wizard's staff. Pratchett writes animate objects exceedingly well.)
And the book itself feels slight. Neither the social commentary nor the story are strong enough to carry it along. I certainly don't regret having read it, but it feels like the weakest thus far. Though it is at least moving in the direction of "stories that happen to be set in Discworld" rather than "stories about Discworld".
Three cheers for the Librarian, but that was always going to be the case.
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Date: 2021-09-05 11:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-05 09:38 pm (UTC)