Raising Steam

[=Tamar]

*confused* I can't see any of those things, =Tamar. All I see is the train coming out of a tunnel; I'm not even sure if the human figure is Dick Simnel or possibly Moist von Lipwig.

I'm pretty sure that's Dick Simnel. He's the inventor being celebrated in the book.

I can kind of see a humanoid figure on the right of the picture, but I'm not sure if that's a troll or simply the mountainside.

Good observation. I'm not sure either but logically it ought to be a goblin figure even though we have an easily visible goblin already. It might be said to represent the relationship of the goblins to the engine, as being creatures of earth and iron.

As for the larger image that I see, it's not a big deal. I just look for things like that. If you want to try to work it out, I guess I'd suggest starting with the little white kneeling figures. The train has two round white headlights, glowing in the dark. They send out a strong beam of light which is drawn angled toward the side and downward. The train is also haloed with light, to make it show up against the dark background. The surrounding glow is especially strong where it defines the ledge and lower ledge, that Simnel is standing (dancing?) on. Behind the headlight is a larger dark round shape, and that makes an upward curve in the white light part that starts just below the white headlight circle.
It's especially clear on the left side of the cover. If you look at the headlight as being the head, the slanted beam as the body, the shape of the ledge and lower ledge make the white part have kneeling legs and a robe. The curved edge on the white begins just below and to the left of the head, where a wing would start. The "wing" starts white but it shades into gray, and the shape of the glow around the train gives it the fore-edge of a large upraised wing.
The one on the right side is slightly obscured by the stone face/s (I've seen three faces in that so far).
Two kneeling figures like that are often seen in pictures of altars. The squared ledges of the train are fine as a train shape, but they could be seen as a symbolic altar shape. Then, what's on the altar? That's explained near the end of the book: Iron Girder herself, when she "speaks" to Moist von Lipwig. "All it takes is for people to believe... Some even call me goddess." The goblins surround her, worshipping.

If you completely ignore Simnel and Of the Twilight the Darkness, you can see her veiled face. Little triangular eyes formed by the two bent pipes to eithe side of Simnel's head. Below them the horizontal line (well, on the right anyway) that defines the veil. The two black round forms with the cut-out made by the angels' heads that become the high, curved corners of her collar. Below that the squared bits are the top of the bottle she emerges from. Or, if you prefer, the overcoat collar, and the lower ledge becomes shoulders.

 

[Mixa]

Wow, =Tamar! When I’ll have the book I’ll certainly look the cover even closer! In what other drawings have you seen that double meaning? I’m amazed!

I totally understand you, Rath! That’s why I’m having so much fun rereading the Discworld books… I’m surprised of how many I keep on discovering!

Mx

 

[=Tamar]

In what other drawings have you seen that double meaning? I’m amazed!

I think most of the UK covers have something like that. Josh Kirby did them, and Paul Kidby seems to be continuing the idea.
Sometimes they are easier to see in the small thumbnail pictures. than in the full-sized pictures.
Most of the covers can be found online easily using Google Images.
The first one I noticed was in the Josh Kirby cover for Feet of Clay, where a clay face is emerging from the fog.
It's the one with a bat flying next to the head of the golem; later versions have removed the bat and
what I assume is a streetlight. Removing them damages the image but the rest of the face is still there.
The bat and the streetlight are the eyes of the large face. The streetlight has lines that even give it an eyelid.
The body of the golem is the mouth. His head becomes the nose and his shoulders define the cheeks.
Metaphorically I suppose you could say it represents the earth beginning to speak in the form of golems.

 

[RathDarkblade]

It's several years later, and I think I finally found the inspiration behind the name of Dick Simnel's home (Swine Town). It's so simple and so brilliant that I don't know why I didn't think of it before. *facepalm*

You see, I'm currently reading a guide to everyday life in the Wild West. Here and there, it refers to places like Fort Laramie (Wyoming) and Tombstone (Arizona) as a "cow town". This is because the cowboys, whose job it was to round up cattle for their employers (the big cattle-ranch owners), sometimes ended up chasing the cows through the town - a process known as "stampeding" the cattle.

Naturally, I instantly thought of the similarity between "cow town" and "swine town". But wait - there's more! *grin*

The Wild West was a period of US history that happened roughly during the second half of the 19th century, and especially between 1875-80 and 1900. Around the same time, the first Transcontinental Railroad was being built across America. By 1880, travelling by train from the American East to the West was starting to become commonplace - hence the phrase "Go West, young man", with the promise of freedom and the wide open spaces, etc.

Now the overall themes of "Raising Steam" take on a new dimension, don't they? The first America-wide railway is mirrored by the Ankh-Morpork to Uberwald railway, or the A-M to Sto Lat railway, or... well, everything!

Not only that, but there are parallels with the grag attacks on the train in American history, too. From Wikipedia:

"When the work on the Transcontinental Railroad entered Indian-held lands, especially the Great Plains, the Native Americans saw the railroad as a violation of their treaties with the United States. War parties began to raid the moving labor camps that followed the progress of the line. The Union Pacific Company responded by increasing security and hiring marksmen to kill American bison, which were both a physical threat to trains and the primary food source for many of the Plains Indians. The Native Americans then began killing laborers when they realized that the so-called "Iron Horse" threatened their existence. Security measures were further strengthened, and progress on the railroad continued."

By the way, the term "Plains Indians" includes such famous tribes as the Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Blackfoot, Plains Apache, and Lakota Sioux, among others.

So again, there is a clear parallel here. Just as the Indians feared for their way of life and attacked the railroad, so the grags are afraid - deathly afraid - of the power of the new railroad to change their lives.

Anyway. Sorry to go on and on like this, but I just found this out, and thought I'd share. What do you all think, hmm?

 

[raisindot]

Interestingly analysis, Rath.

I don\'t quite buy \"Swine Town\" is a reference to U.S. \\Cow Town.\" It\'s far more likely that Pterry was referring to Swindown, a rural British town that later become an important center of industrial manufacturing, particularly related to railways.

Also keep in mind that railways weren\'t exactly new to the U.S. during the period you mention (1875-1900). Most of the eastern, southern and midwestern U.S. were thoroughly networked with railways by the U.S. civil war (1960-1865). In fact, the reason why so many soldiers fought in the Civil War in so many places was because the railways were able to transport them to the number battle scenes.

The building of the trans-continental railway was actually a cooperative (and some say competitive) venture between two large railroad companies--The Union Pacific Railroad (which started its line in Omaha, Nebraska and went west) and the Central Pacific Railroad (which started in San Francisco and works its way east). Both companies had agreed to \\\"meet\\\" their lines in Promontory Summit, Utah, and this occurred in 1969.

Unlike in RS, there was no great political pressure to complete the line--the motivation was solely economic. But I do think there is a narrative parallel between the use of goblins and other non-human races as labor and the use of Chinese immigrants in the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad line. The Chinese were hired because the CPR couldn\'t fine enough white men on the west coast to take on this extremely dangerous work. Thousand of Chinese men came to the U.S., and their tireless work and knowledge of advanced explosives enabled the progress to move forward at a much faster pace than it would have otherwise, just as the goblins and gnomes\' knowledge helped the RS railway progress forward. Still, the Chinese in the U.S. were never accepted into U.S. society and not long after the railway was completed the government enacted laws to restrict further Chinese immigration.

I also don\'t quite accept the analogy between the dwarfs and the American Indians in terms of railway-related resistance. The Indians (note almost all of the conflicts occurred on the Union Pacific line) had a legitimate complaint--having been pushed ever westward by the endless annexation of their lands by whites, the Indians rightly believed that the railway was going through their tribal lands, holy sites and hunting grounds that it would lead to further white settlement in those areas (and they were absolutely right about that). The Indians\' concerns were rightly economic and built on a known history of usurpation by whites. Had the executives of the Union Pacific actually tried to negotiate rights-of-way with the plains Indian tribes, instead of just arrogantly assuming that that the land was theirs to use, it might have saved a lot of trouble on both sides.

The reactionary dwarfs in the Raising Steam, on the other hand, were motivated solely by cultural biases and bigotry. They didn\'t own the lands the railway was being upon and their economic livelihood would in no way be threatened by it. Arguably, it would be improved, since a railway would allow for faster movement of Dwarven ore and fat to AM and other cities. And the first terrorist acts committed by the deep down dwarfs started happening long before the railway had advanced very far.

If you\'re looking for a great one-volume history of the building of the transcontinental railroad, I thoroughly recommend Nothing Like It in The World, by Steven Ambrose.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Also keep in mind that railways weren't exactly new to the U.S. during the period you mention (1875-1900). Most of the eastern, southern and mid-western U.S. were thoroughly networked with railways by the U.S. civil war (1960-1865). In fact, the reason why so many soldiers fought in the Civil War in so many places was because the railways were able to transport them to the number battle scenes.

The building of the trans-continental railway was actually a cooperative (and some say competitive) venture between two large railroad companies--The Union Pacific Railroad (which started its line in Omaha, Nebraska and went west) and the Central Pacific Railroad (which started in San Francisco and works its way east). Both companies had agreed to "meet" their lines in Promontory Summit, Utah, and this occurred in 1969.

Unlike in RS, there was no great political pressure to complete the line--the motivation was solely economic. But I do think there is a narrative parallel between the use of goblins and other non-human races as labor and the use of Chinese immigrants in the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad line. The Chinese were hired because the CPR couldn't fine enough white men on the west coast to take on this extremely dangerous work. Thousand of Chinese men came to the U.S., and their tireless work and knowledge of advanced explosives enabled the progress to move forward at a much faster pace than it would have otherwise, just as the goblins and gnomes' knowledge helped the RS railway progress forward. Still, the Chinese in the U.S. were never accepted into U.S. society and not long after the railway was completed the government enacted laws to restrict further Chinese immigration.

All true... very true, and very sad. :-(

I also don't quite accept the analogy between the dwarfs and the American Indians in terms of railway-related resistance. The Indians (note almost all of the conflicts occurred on the Union Pacific line) had a legitimate complaint--having been pushed ever westward by the endless annexation of their lands by whites, the Indians rightly believed that the railway was going through their tribal lands, holy sites and hunting grounds that it would lead to further white settlement in those areas (and they were absolutely right about that). The Indians' concerns were rightly economic and built on a known history of usurpation by whites. Had the executives of the Union Pacific actually tried to negotiate rights-of-way with the plains Indian tribes, instead of just arrogantly assuming that that the land was theirs to use, it might have saved a lot of trouble on both sides.

The reactionary dwarfs in the Raising Steam, on the other hand, were motivated solely by cultural biases and bigotry. They didn't own the lands the railway was being upon and their economic livelihood would in no way be threatened by it. Arguably, it would be improved, since a railway would allow for faster movement of Dwarven ore and fat to AM and other cities. And the first terrorist acts committed by the deep down dwarfs started happening long before the railway had advanced very far.

Very true! Please note that I am not equating the Indian raids on the railroads with the grag-inspired acts of terror. The only thing that links them is that both the Indians and the grags were afraid for their way of life, that's all. I'm also not equating Lord Vetinari with the US governments or with the bosses of the Union Pacific. I think that American history in the mid-to-late-19th-century is one long tragedy, especially as regarding the Indian tribes; just think of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce, or Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull of the Lakota Sioux.

The same period was also a tragedy for immigrants to the United States, especially the Chinese, the Irish and the Jews. The same era that saw the rise of the railroad barons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould and Edward Harriman - men who were literally worth millions - also saw incredible poverty for the railroad workers, as well as the factory workers. Men could usually be paid as little as a few dollars a day, and be horrifically beaten up if they went on strike. :-(

If you're looking for a great one-volume history of the building of the transcontinental railroad, I thoroughly recommend Nothing Like It in The World, by Steven Ambrose.

Stephen Ambrose is a fine writer indeed, and I have read that one (about 5 years ago). Before Ambrose, though, I read Pierre Berton's The National Dream and The Last Spike, both very fine books. If you're interested in Canadian history too, then Berton is well worth reading.

 

[raisindot]

Having "audio-read" Raising Steam again, I have a better appreciation for it than the first time around.

But one thing that bothered me the first time still bothers me this time around, and this is the lack of continuity surrounding the Umnian golems.

At the end of Making Money, we know that Moist is able to "order" the stone golems to do these things because he was able to convince the dead necromancy professor to give him a number of ancient Umnian phrases. It's also pretty clear that the stone golems don't speak.

Yet, in Raising Steam, Moist somehow knows enough of the ancient Umnian language to order a couple dozen Umnian to dig a two thousand mile tunnel to Uberwald and position themselves to support the shakey train bridge, and then to tunnel back when they're done. Unless between the end of MM and RS Moist had many more sessions with the necomancy professor (which is doublful, because his spirit was transferred into a seat in the Pink Pussycat club, presumably never to take corporeal form again), it's really no plausible that his "little Umnian phrasebook" would have enough language to describe such a very complex task.

For the same reason, it made absolutely no sense that Moist's golem horse could suddenly understand and speak perfect Morporkian. In MM it was made clear that the Umnian golems had no chems and therefore weren't able to do anything other than follow basic orders. They couldn't think for themselves. Now, with one question, the stone horse not only can speak but he can gallavant around and have fun.

Also on the issue of the use of stone golems, Vetinari made it totally clear that if there was any evidence that the stone golems had been used, Moist would pay a visit to "the kittens" or worse. Yet, after they cross the bridge, Moist tears up a clacks message from Adorabelle that had reported on the golems' progress. Unless this clack message was written in a code that only Moist and Adorabelle could understand (and this isn't mentioned in the text), every single clacksman between Ankh Morpork and the bridge would be able to read this message and know the golems were coming--providing plenty of "evidence" that Vetinari coudl have used against him.

I realize that this was Pterry's last adult DW book, and that he was struggling against his diminishing capacities, but you would have hoped that his editor would have identified these narrative problems and suggested what might have been easy expositional fixes--for example, saying somewhere that during the time period between MM and RS Moist had somehow learned more ancient Umnian--there might have been a funny little vignette on how Moist threatened to remove the necromancy professor's chair from the strip club if the old lech didn't come back and teach him more. Or, simply added the word "encoded" before "clacks message" in the paragraph about Adorabelle's golem progress note would have resolved this incongruity.