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Jun. 4th, 2006 09:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swatkatSo I decided to rejoin the human race by getting that really, really long overdue haircut. A novel plan, you will say. I thought so too. Little did I know what fate had set in store for me.
'Please make sure it's long enough for me to tie it up,' I said. Because it's FREAKING HOT, as you know, and I don't like hair falling all over me.
'Of course,' she said. She, as in the stylist. She's a generally nice lady, and I trust her, so I let her do as she pleased without paying too much attention to what she's doing (and well, I find this kind of thing horribly boring, so I was thinking about other things to entertain myself).
And then it was done, and I realised, to my HORROR, that she had cut it short - so short that it's quite IMPOSSIBLE to tie it up in *any* way, and did I mention how hot it is? And worse, she'd cut it so that my hair, which is quite wavy by itself, is now an impossible mass of curls. Basically, it now looks like I have a crow's nest on top of my head. Oh, and there's a lock in front which keeps falling over my eyes and I *hate* when that happens. *headdesk*
Of course, this means that I'll never have to comb my hair ever again because it makes no difference whatsoever. None. Believe me, I tried (somewhere I can hear my ten year old self shrieking in joy). My mother said it was 'cute', because a. it's just like my family to mock me in time of distress (and today I'll be meeting the entire lot of them *shudders*) or b. she really thinks it's cute because my hair was exactly like this when I was a kid, and our scary history teacher would tell me to comb my hair everyday, which I did, but it made no difference anyway.
*
Yo,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nell65? Let's talk about Carpe Jugulum and my issues with it.
Thematically, Carpe Jugulum is closest to Night Watch, in the sense that it deals with what Vimes calls 'the beast within' (interestingly, this is also what Angua's story is about to a large extent. if I ever get around to writing my Angua essay, I'll talk about it). For Granny, there's always the temptation to give in to the beast, to the dark forces that a powerful witch like her must always face. I liked how vampirism becomes a metaphor for the darkness, with contrasting vampires - the new count who didn't play by the rules, and the old count who did. And the importance to play by the rules, because otherwise it becomes unfair.
But where the book ultimately fails, I think, is that it gives Granny too little screentime. There are too many characters, too many contrasts and parallels, too many strands of action which pushes Granny to the background and makes her story less important, less convincing than it should be. Compare Night Watch - it's all Vimes all the time. There's Carcer, who will not tame the beast; Vimes, who will. It's the simplicity of the plot that works. In Carpe Jugulum it's just too convoluted. I almost felt that Granny *should've* died, although she couldn't have if the theme (overcoming the darkness) was to work.
Some things I loved:
- Granny's reaction when she learns Magrat has named the daughter after her
- Speaking of Magrat - how much did she rock in this book? I particularly loved the end, where Granny is ordering them about again and Agnes begins to protest because she hasn't grown up yet, but Magrat stops her and calmly makes the tea. Because *she* knows what Granny went through and what Granny fought against, and how great that makes her.
- The priestwhatshisnames recognition in the end - the way he learns to see everything as holy.
- Nanny Ogg. She's made of teh awesome.
'Please make sure it's long enough for me to tie it up,' I said. Because it's FREAKING HOT, as you know, and I don't like hair falling all over me.
'Of course,' she said. She, as in the stylist. She's a generally nice lady, and I trust her, so I let her do as she pleased without paying too much attention to what she's doing (and well, I find this kind of thing horribly boring, so I was thinking about other things to entertain myself).
And then it was done, and I realised, to my HORROR, that she had cut it short - so short that it's quite IMPOSSIBLE to tie it up in *any* way, and did I mention how hot it is? And worse, she'd cut it so that my hair, which is quite wavy by itself, is now an impossible mass of curls. Basically, it now looks like I have a crow's nest on top of my head. Oh, and there's a lock in front which keeps falling over my eyes and I *hate* when that happens. *headdesk*
Of course, this means that I'll never have to comb my hair ever again because it makes no difference whatsoever. None. Believe me, I tried (somewhere I can hear my ten year old self shrieking in joy). My mother said it was 'cute', because a. it's just like my family to mock me in time of distress (and today I'll be meeting the entire lot of them *shudders*) or b. she really thinks it's cute because my hair was exactly like this when I was a kid, and our scary history teacher would tell me to comb my hair everyday, which I did, but it made no difference anyway.
*
Yo,
nell65? Let's talk about Carpe Jugulum and my issues with it. Thematically, Carpe Jugulum is closest to Night Watch, in the sense that it deals with what Vimes calls 'the beast within' (interestingly, this is also what Angua's story is about to a large extent. if I ever get around to writing my Angua essay, I'll talk about it). For Granny, there's always the temptation to give in to the beast, to the dark forces that a powerful witch like her must always face. I liked how vampirism becomes a metaphor for the darkness, with contrasting vampires - the new count who didn't play by the rules, and the old count who did. And the importance to play by the rules, because otherwise it becomes unfair.
But where the book ultimately fails, I think, is that it gives Granny too little screentime. There are too many characters, too many contrasts and parallels, too many strands of action which pushes Granny to the background and makes her story less important, less convincing than it should be. Compare Night Watch - it's all Vimes all the time. There's Carcer, who will not tame the beast; Vimes, who will. It's the simplicity of the plot that works. In Carpe Jugulum it's just too convoluted. I almost felt that Granny *should've* died, although she couldn't have if the theme (overcoming the darkness) was to work.
Some things I loved:
- Granny's reaction when she learns Magrat has named the daughter after her
- Speaking of Magrat - how much did she rock in this book? I particularly loved the end, where Granny is ordering them about again and Agnes begins to protest because she hasn't grown up yet, but Magrat stops her and calmly makes the tea. Because *she* knows what Granny went through and what Granny fought against, and how great that makes her.
- The priestwhatshisnames recognition in the end - the way he learns to see everything as holy.
- Nanny Ogg. She's made of teh awesome.
