Monstrous Regiment [Kintsuji Bookclub]

Discussion in 'Fan Town' started by Helen of Boy, Mar 2, 2015.

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  1. Helen of Boy

    Helen of Boy Hugcrafter Pursuivant

    Welcome, book lovers! Let's talk about Monstrous Regiment, shall we? (If you want to talk about The Amulet of Samarkand or The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, click the name to go to the appropriate thread.)

    Before we begin, though, a few guidelines, if you don't mind? Well, even if you do, guidelines it is!
    1. All posts after this one are fair game for untagged spoilers. The assumption is that you'll acquire the book, read it, and come back to talk about it once you've read it. That might not be for a few weeks, and that is totally fine.
    2. If you're have a hard time finding the book, or want to talk about the rules or selection or problems or anything else not related to the content itself, bring that over to the main Bookclub Thread. We'll help as best we can. Same with if you think these guidelines aren't useful, they can be changed!
    3. You can totally post in here without being done, though. Just scroll all the way down and write out your thoughts if'n you want to liveblog them. (Please let us know where you are so we don't reply/tag you and spoil things unintentionally if you care about not being spoiled.)
    4. Ignoring this thread until you're caught up might mean missing alerts. That's totally okay. You can find it in the forum browser or in your list of Watched Threads (if you're watching it).
    5. You can participate in as many of the Bookclub threads as you want, in whatever order you like. The idea here is to provide discussion and encouragement in a way that lets everyone have the best reading experience we can manage.
    I hope those aren't too stringent, we can edit them as we need to, but since we're doing three books at once we can't really parcel them out section-by-section, not everyone will be reading them all at once, it may take people time to find some of the books, and some people read at very different paces.
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2015
  2. Beldaran

    Beldaran 70% abuse and 30% ramen

    Oh man, this is such a good book. I'm glad y'all are reading it. I'm going to re-read it just for this.
     
    • Like x 1
  3. Helen of Boy

    Helen of Boy Hugcrafter Pursuivant

    This is gonna be the third or fourth time for me, but I'm re-reading all the ones that got selected this time. Starting with this, because wow.

    First Discworld I ever read, aside from the Amazing Maurice which I didn't know to be such at the time I read it.

    Sergeant Jack Jackrum remains one of my favorite characters in anything, for whatever reason. "By my oath, I am not a violent man."
     
    • Like x 2
  4. Mala

    Mala Well-Known Member

    This is my first time going through this one. Everyone in this regiment is a girl, aren't they? The plot twist is that everyone in this book is a girl. Everyone in Discworld is actually a girl. Vimes is a girl, Carrot's a girl, Death's probably a girl
     
    • Like x 6
  5. sicknastyspades

    sicknastyspades Most Rad.

    Aah Monstrous Regiment! There is so much I love about it, but the ending in particular was amazing. Probably my second-favourite ending to a Pratchett novel.

    (I spoilt the "twist" for myself. That's what you get for knowing the quote where the title comes from.)
     
    • Like x 2
  6. Lissiel

    Lissiel Dreaming dead

    ...i may or may not have had a headcanon for some time that carrot actually is a girl, but between the boyshaped and the dwarf genderweird no one notices.
     
    • Like x 3
  7. Lissiel

    Lissiel Dreaming dead

    How far are various people? Should i wait a bit before commenting on end-of-book things?
     
  8. sicknastyspades

    sicknastyspades Most Rad.

    Maybe comment on them under spoilers?
     
  9. Helen of Boy

    Helen of Boy Hugcrafter Pursuivant

    Well, the thought was that the thread would get used by people that either didn't mind spoilers, were done reading (and so had an understanding of the whole book), had read it before, or who were updating their progress more than reading all the rest of it. Dunno if that's actually what people want, though, so just go wild!

    Under spoilers or not, let's talk about this!

    On that note: This reread it's much more obvious who provided Perks with the socks. There are lots of other little things I keep noticing, too, but forget every time I put the kindle down to come mention them. Alas!
     
  10. sicknastyspades

    sicknastyspades Most Rad.

    Anyway, there's a lot of stuff in Monstrous Regiment that I particularly like.
    I was sort of bothered by the "whole group of them are girls, literally all" on a first readthrough, because Small Me thought it was gratuitous. Big Me actually likes it a whole lot, though, because that's the point of the book: Borogravia's been really badly screwed up by the war. You still need soldiers but you've killed off all your young men; what did you exprct would happen?
    It's like... that scene where they run into a bunch of peasants walking in the opposite direction.That really hit me hard when I was a young bean. PTerry's great because he seems to have a really solid idea of how exactly things (people, countries) work. It's why humourous fantasy writers citing Pratchett as an inspiration have become code for "SS runs fast in the other direction": they don't have that same understanding of the background.
    (I read an interview with him where he insisted that fantasy authors should read outside their genres, and ever since then I've been reading fantasy and periodically thinking "this author reads primarily fantasy", because they ping as trying really hard to come up with something ~new~ and ~original~ without knowing much about the foundations you build a world on. Branderson, for instance, is one of those authors who gets a lot of compliments for his ideas without actually carrying those ideas out very well.)

    I also loved a lot of small details - that line at the end of the book where Polly says everyone will remember it as Wazzer's story, the running gag about food or items of clothing being named after people, everything about Jackrum.
    (Pratchett books always hold up incredibly well to a re-read. I like to read them every couple of years, because I'll always catch new jokes and pop-culture references I didn't know before.)
     
    • Like x 4
  11. overpants-anon

    overpants-anon Qualified Lurker

    The whole Sergeants and Ruperts thing reminds me of an interesting piece of WWI trivia: most of the officers involved with the trench wars had no combat experience, never went near the actual trenches, and in general didn't really know what they were doing

    (most of my wwi knowledge consists of anecdotes about people not knowing what they're doing, I get the impression that it was sort of a running theme)

    The "everyone's a girl" thing really worked for me, mostly because it surprised me every time (with the exception of Maladict, but I get the feeling that reveal was supposed to be anti-climatic)

    He tricked me into thinking too small. I was sitting there like, "maybe that character is a girl", "or maybe that one", and then the real answer was all of them, and it was beautiful

    I also really liked Vimes, I'm gonna have to find more books with him in them now
     
    • Like x 4
  12. Helen of Boy

    Helen of Boy Hugcrafter Pursuivant

    It took me so long to realize that Rupert was probably a pun off of Louie as reference for a Lieutenant.
    While you've had slight spoilering, the Watch books, beginning with Guards, Guards! are the way to go. I know the next after that is Men at Arms, I don't recall the rest in order but it's something along the lines of Feet of Clay, Jingo, Fifth Elephant, Night Watch, Thud!, Snuff. (A quick wiki check tells me I am correct in this.) He appears in other books, too, but that's the series that introduces him.
     
    • Like x 1
  13. Lissiel

    Lissiel Dreaming dead

    The night watch books are my favorites. Men at arms is a pale romance novel and no one can tell me different.

    I found it really frustrating after a while that /everyone/ was a girl. Like. I wanted there to be boys who recognized them as excellent soldiers in their own right and helped them regardless of sex instead of having to be blackmailed into it over their own internalized misogyny.
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2015
    • Like x 1
  14. budgie

    budgie not actually a bird

    well, there is blouse, who's the only man (presumably; he's a gentleman so we'll take him at his word) who spends enough time with them to recognize their skill.
     
  15. Lissiel

    Lissiel Dreaming dead

    Yeah but blouse is clueless. I cant remember (rereading but not there yet) does he ever actually realize they're really girls?
     
  16. blue

    blue hightown funk you up

    unrelatedly: genderqueer maladict 4 lyf
     
    • Like x 3
  17. budgie

    budgie not actually a bird

    well, he never figures it out on his own, but when they tell him he's quite delighted and goes off citing historical precedent.
     
  18. Mala

    Mala Well-Known Member

    I may have been up until 5 am finishing this...
    Oh good I'm not the only one! (Also trans Jackrum)
     
    • Like x 3
  19. overpants-anon

    overpants-anon Qualified Lurker

    seconded
     
  20. budgie

    budgie not actually a bird

    thirded!

    i would be 100% for a genderbent guards! guards!
     
    • Like x 2
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