SPOILERS Snuff *Warning Spoilers*

[Beti]

Snuff

It's so interesting reading everyone's takes on Snuff. I only found this site a couple of weeks ago and while reading Snuff I was looking forward to finishing it and coming back here to see what other people thought. And boy did I get an earful!

I've read/listened to almost all of Pterry's book numerous times and I can't say I have a favorite. Most I liked instantly and a few I only liked after listening to/reading them a few times.

I'm hoping Snuff will eventually be the second category because I'm not in love with it right now.

Some of the trouble is, I think, my educational background and reading interests. I was not an English major and don't read much other than SciFi/Fantasy so the Jane Austen aspect, other than the title Pride And Extreme Prejudice, was lost on me. When I read Pterry, I frequently check the Annotated Pratchett File and I've learned a lot from that. (I hope that will be updated one of these days. The edition I have stops at A Hat Full Of Sky).

As some other people have said, some of the out-of-character behavior squicked me. As did the uncharacteristic language Pterry used. Specifically, Lady Sybil using the word "bitch". She may think it and she may use some euphemism that means the same thing but for her to come right out and use the word? Twice? Much too vulgar for her.

And using the word "shit"? I was totally weirded out by that. Not the word itself. I'm ex-military. I have no problem with blue language and have even been known to use it myself once in a while . But it seems like most other things on the Disc are referred to using euphemisms - and sometimes pretty amusing ones at that: King of the Golden River, Ladies of Negotiable Affections, the Guzunder, the oblique description of the rubber "chew toy" from TT, etc.

Using the actual words seems rather heavy handed to me and beneath Pterry. While I use that sort of language on a regular basis, I'm also aware that it doesn't make me sound particularly clever. (I realize that "bugger" and "bloody" may be considered vulgar in some circles. But, at least in the US, I think they are generally seen as just amusingly British and aren't really considered to be as bad as their local equivalents.

On an unrelated note, I've read a few comments referencing events in I Shall Wear Midnight that I don't really remember. I don't have that among my audio books and I don't remember the plot overview on Wikipedia. I can't quite believe I'd have missed a book but I think I might have. That's actually kind of a treat - like two new Pterry books in one month!

 

[pip]

Finally finished snuff yesterday evening and I enjoyed it.
Not Terry's greatest work but certainly not his worst.

Some oddities in there to be sure, Vetinari seems to be losing it, he's lost control of his own mind and even confuses the name of the boat alongside letting the Crossword get to him so much and the Assassination order at the end seemed crude by his standards. (is Terry mirroring himself here ?)
Also the whole Willikens thing was a bit disturbing but I took it as showing what Vimes might be like without the BAdge. Vimes always saw himself as the Pottential Psycho killer but maybe the vigilante killer is more likely.
I quite liked the Goblins and the various peoples dealings with them. The Pooh lady is a good character thrown into the mix andyoung Sam brings a little fun to the whole thing.

I found Vimes to be generally as interesting a character as he has been in other books and always enjoy his internal grappeling with himself.

On the whole i enjoyed it. I thought a little bit of the humour and wit was missing but that was the same for Thud . The book is definitley of the darker variety which won't appeal to all and the ending is a bit messy but overall worth the read.

 

[meerkat]

I certainly thought it was dark. The murder of the goblin woman was very vivid. Very un Pratchett like. But on the whole I loved it.

And it would be interesting if Willikins had a book of his own!

As for Lord V losing it slightly, we never have seen him truly annoyed. He has claimed he is but there has been little to show it other than a snapped line or a raised eybrow.
He can't lose it yet!! He hasn't completed the Undertaking yet! That could make for a good book!

 

[pip]

I certainly thought it was dark. The murder of the goblin woman was very vivid. Very un Pratchett like. But on the whole I loved it.

And it would be interesting if Willikins had a book of his own!

As for Lord V losing it slightly, we never have seen him truly annoyed. He has claimed he is but there has been little to show it other than a snapped line or a raised eybrow.
He can't lose it yet!! He hasn't completed the Undertaking yet! That could make for a good book!

Willikins has really become an interesting character since we saw the start of the real man in Jingo. He's a good guy, a good butler and a loyal friend. But he scares the crap out of you at the same time.
I'm sure Dwarfs still thread carefull yaround him and he would be an interesting focal character for a future plot Maybe even a prequel with him growing up on the streets then working for the Ramkins .
Still not sure an Lord V but we'll see. He did worry me a little in the book

 

[raisindot]

Hi, Beti! A belated welcome.

I, too, felt that PTerry's used swear words rather strangely in the book. He has the used the world 's**t' before, but (as far as I remember) only in dialogue form, never in exposition, and never in the way he used in exposition here, meaning "other annoying things." One of the great things about Pterry's writing style has always been his precise and sophisticated word choices and avoidance of the vernacular in his sentence structures, as juxtasposed with the often crude and idiommatic language of accompanying dialogue. Here, he puts a crude word in the exposition as a shortcut and it works terribly.

I also hated that Sybil said the word 'bitch.' Maybe Pterry's trying to show that she has loosened up significantly, but the use of such language is so out character for her that it's not funny. It would have been so much better had she chosen a euphemism or at least seemed to struggle saying the word.

 

[pip]

Agrre with Beti and Raisin on the language thing. Something shouldn't go so far out of character for someone. Yes have her get angry but an angry Sybil for me still wouldn't curse.
Shes not a Mrs Weasly by any ways or means.
I did find certain aspects of the book a little cruder than i've come to expect including a bit of the violence and Lord Vetinaris actions .

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

I have to say it - what is actually wrong with the word B*TCH? In context in Britain in the equivalent class - landed gentry of the dog (dragon) breeding/kennel club showing/huntin', shootin' and fishin' variety - Sybil would 'b*tching' and 'sh*tting' all day long, every day and not an eyebrow would be raised...?

I know in the US that calling somebody a bitch is possibly at least offensive as the f-word if not quite the c-word (because I've had this conversation with my co-mod on DreamWorlds and apparently she views it as hugely offensive) but honestly! And why would the upper classes not say it pray? They can swear away quite happily thanks v. much like the proberbial trooper or navvy in fact... Colloquially in the UK b*tch at worst is as 'bad' as bastard with the same denigration level just more gender-based in that you'd be talking about a bad-tempered/low-moralled woman that comes from the canine (& feline too) usage as bitches are female and generally pregnant and therefore not particularly disposed to be sunny-natured...

Sh*t - well any woman who breeds animals handles plenty of the stuff and I've no doubt would have v. little problem with saying the word at 'work' especially considering the swamp dragons digestive idiosyncracies. So as the country is full of animals all crapping away quite happily where and when they feel like it it's hardly noteworthy let alone cringeworthy surely?

 

[Anonymous]

Jan, I can't really agree with your logic there.
Having grown up in the countryside(well, rather a backwater village, but remains the same at brasstacks) I know several farmers, cattlebreeders etc that never said 'sh't' unless being really, really really REALLY pissed off.

 

[raisindot]

SPOILERS FROM OTHER BOOKS AHEAD



Can't agree with you there either, Jan.

Using such language isn't in Sybil's genetic makeup. Her upbringing as the aristocrat of all aristocrats has instilled such a sense of decorum that she is almost completely unable to say anything explicitly bad about anyone. That's partly why she's the female equivalent of Carrot--she makes everyone feel that they're special, even when she (unlike Carrot) fully realizes she's dealing with complete twits.

What makes her such a funny (and enjoyable) character in previous books is how totally incongruous she sounds when she's the most angry at someone. Like at the end of TFE, when she has to escape from the werewolves' castle, and when she confronts Lady Serafina, who has effectively kept her prisoner all this time, all she can muster up as an insult is, "You never answered my letters!" Now THAT is great humor because it's so rooted in who she is. If Sybil had said, "You stupid doggie bitch!" it would have been totally out of character for her.

 

[Doughnut Jimmy]

I've only got as far as page 3 of this thread so apologies for dragging up old comments.
Snuff is good but not as good as ISWM or UA to my mind.

The last line of the book is hilarious and leaves the audience laughing - always a good thing

I agree with Swreader that the first scene with Jane "Austen" is good, but before she comes up with her description of her book doesn't Sam make some rude remark about romance novels - it seemed to me that Jane's description was a very pretentious way of avoiding saying she was writing a romance and therefore the scene was also quite funny (but then I don't like JA books).

More to say but got to go

 

[Beti]

Snuff

I have to say it - what is actually wrong with the word B*TCH? In context in Britain in the equivalent class - landed gentry of the dog (dragon) breeding/kennel club showing/huntin', shootin' and fishin' variety - Sybil would 'b*tching' and 'sh*tting' all day long, every day and not an eyebrow would be raised...?

It did occur to me that Sybil would very likely use bitch in the female dog context. That would seem very realistic to me since I've really only heard it used by the landed gentry breeders that you describe. But I can't see her using it as a "bad word", i.e., about a woman she disliked.

And on that note, I believe it was in TT that Pterry wrote that the upper class could treat their friends like garbage but would be viciously, icily polite to their worst enemies. And Sybil is the top nob of all the nobs.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Put it down to transatlantic romanticism on the titled classes then - Sybil's the true stereotype of the quintessential English Lady who doesn't exist for real.

The closest we've had in recent history to a RL Sybil is probably the current Queen's mother and you can bet that she called Wallis Simpson a bitch and much worse in the 'privacy' of Buck House - and of course that proves by Jeff's rules that Terry is definitely losing his grasp on reality and character development if you want to keep Sybil that pure

 

[Australis]

I remember Princess Anne telling someone to "naff off" once. Rhyming slang. NAAFI truck.

I admit being a little surprised myself at the increase in language, but damn, I hear worse on the street every day (I must live in a bad neighbourhood) and the same is being said in public about our Prime Minister. It is a sad reality of today.

 

[Doughnut Jimmy]

Having read the rest of the thread...

Poo is full of information and I applaud young Sam for appreciating this fact.

As far as language goes Sybil in the country could be quite different from Sybil in town.

Having grown up in the countryside(well, rather a backwater village, but remains the same at brasstacks) I know several farmers, cattlebreeders etc that never said 'sh't' unless being really, really really REALLY pissed off.

That may be true of some but there are plenty who say it a lot.

 

[meerkat]

Sybil is annoyed as the pruning of the rose bush shows. Her beloved Sam has been insulted and therefore so has she. Of course she would swear! She is annoyed, and the rose bush is that stupid woman's neck.

 

[Tonyblack]

Sybil is annoyed as the pruning of the rose bush shows. Her beloved Sam has been insulted and therefore so has she. Of course she would swear! She is annoyed, and the rose bush is that stupid woman's neck.

Exactly!

 

[meerkat]

 

[raisindot]

Sybil is annoyed as the pruning of the rose bush shows. Her beloved Sam has been insulted and therefore so has she. Of course she would swear! She is annoyed, and the rose bush is that stupid woman's neck.

The Sybil of earlier books might have hacked the rose bushes but she wouldn't have sworn. She would have said, "Oh, Sam," or say some kind of non-sequitor that would have made absolutely no sense in real time but would have made perfect since within the context of her character.

 

[raisindot]

To another subject:

What do people think of Pterry's use of The Summoning Dark in the book?

For me, of all the things that are bad about Snuff, this is the absolute worst.

The whole point for the existence of The Summoning Dark in Thud! was to give Sam Vimes a reason to shake off its influence when the time to make a critical, life-changing decision came to a head.

Unlike all of those possessed by the SD before him, Vimes was able to prevent himself from committing the action that would have totally consumed him. The SD salutes him as it leaves and leaves the tattoo as a symbol of his moral, physical and spiritual victory.

Or does it? According to Snuff, it either never really left him or it came back at his own bidding. It's a part of him now, one he controls and exploits for is own use. It's a super-power, that he uses to reveal crime details that he never would have been able to find out itself. It's a glorified babel-fish, enabling him to talk to goblins in their own language.
Vimes is no longer the 'mortal' cop who (mostly) avoids magic and denies the existence of supernatural forces like the Summoning Dark; he now welcomes the assistance of such forces to provide investigative shortcuts, as long as they don't go too far in trying to control him.

It's a terrible plot convention, and one that removes nearly all of the tension from the story. Vimes can do anything, because he's rich, he's fearless, he has street-fighting skills, he's powerful, and he's got an ancient demonic helped available at any time.

What's left for him at this point? He's become Alexander the Great after the Gordian knot. There's nothing he can't do.

 

[Anonymous]

From what I heard and read, if I may add this, several people dislike the idea of Vimes, basically, getting superpowers.