The Shepherd's Crown - No Spoilers in this thread please.

[mirandashell]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

Oh lord yes, she couldn't not go back. It wouldn't have been believable, not to me at least, if she hadn't.

As for the ending, I felt it was a bit rushed. More of an early draft than the finished thing. I'm sure he'd have done another couple of drafts if he could.

 

[Perikles]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

Greetings everyone! I'm a long-time lurker and thought it'd be an appropriate occasion to register for this particular book. Please forgive my crude English, I'm sincerely trying to articulate myself but I perfectly know of my limitations.

I surmise it's safe to say that most, if not all of us will not be in a neutral state of mind whilst reading this book. It's almost impossible not to think of the circumstances (the very last Discworld novel!), the tragic real-life events loom large over this final book. Despite, nay because of this, I'll daringly say that I did not like this one much at all.

It reminded me a lot of Raiming Steam as far as the dramatis personæ is concerned: we get lots and lots of characters (new and old), most of whom do little to nothing to progress the plot and, worse yet, don't really resemble their old selves (in case of the established protagonists, that is). Geoffrey seems like a doublet of young Carrot, but really has not much of a personality. Magrat acts stereotypically determined and could've been almost anyone. Mrs Earwig is of course able to put aside her haughty attitude when the time comes, just like the Duchess did in the last book, regardless of how (un)likely this is.

I also did not like the crass contrast between the disquieting events and the surprising amount of fools' antics in the book. In one scene we get a premonition of a beheaded woodcutter and shortly thereafter Tiffany whole-heartedly laughs at some tiresome Feegle shenanigan. When the final battle starts and everything should be at stake, Petulia remarks that it is quite easy to defeat the elves since they're less intelligent than pigs. That's neither funny nor does it proof some character-specific point, it feels decidedly awkward and out of place.

The way Nightshade was handled was, for me, undoubtedly the low point of the book. I really didn't buy her character arc (she "matured" into her despicable personality over the course of an unthinkably long time yet turned to an amiable and loyal friend over the course of a few days by dint of carrying a basket and helping an old man?) but I was honestly shocked that she got disposed like that. It had no weight to it, no narrative point, no dignity. It devaluated her evolution (if one likes to think of it as that) entirely.

The scene with Granny was indeed fantastic. Immensely touching, lasting, beautiful. I have to say that this is one of the strongest vignettes we got over the course of 41 Discworld books, there is not even a modicum of doubt from my point of view. That's also certainly down to our disposition as longtime readers and admirers of this fabulous universe, I do think it stands on its own merits, however. It's also a powerful narrative strike that pushes the reader forwards.

All in all, I was not really disappointed since I expected something like this. The latest books had a certain imitating quality to them: what if someone who knows the Discworld stupendously well decided to write his own adventures within this universe? Lots and lots of familiar faces, well-known events get refered to, certain key words and phrases are mentioned, but the deeper understanding of all those aspects gets lost in the process. Still, I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't hurt to witness changes like that. I'm aware of the afterwords and the fact that Pratchett had no chance to refine the book, but that's "just" an explanation, not a consolation.

 

[Tonyblack]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

Welcome officially to the site. I'm glad you de-lurked.

Geoffrey was interesting I think, as he had a sort of glamour - a human version - that the elves had. I don't see him so much as a version of Carrot as a young William de Worde. He's turned his back on his family and is determined to make a life for himself. I loved the fact that he wanted to be a witch rather than a wizard. And he made a great witch with his ability to make friends so easily.

The plot about the three children, two boys and little Tiffany, seemed to fizzle out without going anywhere. I suspect that would have been a a plot device that was going somewhere.

I'll write some more later.

 

[Sister Jennifer]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown - No Spoilers in this thread please

Tomorrow is Father's Day & yesterday I was in a local bookshop buying my dad DW books as a present, (Small Gods & Feet of Clay). A guy in the same section comments on TP and his dying which we both commiserate over. Idle chit chat about all things DW for 5 min he then says, You know in his last book he...

Is murdering someone in a bookshop for giving away the plot to a book you haven't read something you'd go to jail for? If it is then I'll be seeing you all in 15 - 20 years cause bloody murder was done yesterday.

 

[DickSimnel]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

Nightshade's thread in the book is an interesting one. Previously she's been powerful and arrogant but her arrogance has been built on a foundation of her power. You can't have one without the other but, as she's now introduced, her power has been seriously weakened in general and her previous mistakes have also weakened her hold over her subjects. The Queen's Elf society, as opposed to the King's, is a purely martial one in its structure. You stay in power while you're successful and she's be unsuccessful too many times. Her being deposed is inevitable. Although she's succeeded by a male Elf, she's treated like the old queen of a bee colony - wings removed and ejected from the hive and left in a condition where she can't survive alone.

She's never needed to depend on herself. She has no interpersonal skills because she's always been (pardon the mixed metaphor) top dog and served with everything her mind could imagine. Her rescue by Tiffany and her forced exposure to a different form of society means she has a chance to learn for the first time in her long life. That she is able to empathise is a as much a surprise to her as it is to the reader but, beyond that, she begins to feel confident in herself - in her independence. That's why she can go back to her old kingdom and confront her former subjects in her full pomp and offer them her experience as an opportunity for change.

It's also why she has to die because that's a step much too far in a martial society. Empathy destroys the necessary "us and them" mentality of a warrior. The return of the King and his brutal response suggests a re-merging of the two aspects of Elf society but his apology for his actions shows that he's much further along this route than the Queen was before the start of this book. Elves will no longer be a threat to the human world until humans are extinct and the King sees that. He's patient where the Queen's elves were not. Terry was closing the book on the Elves. They were something of a one-trick pony and there was nowhere for them to go after this.

Keith

 

[Perikles]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

Geoffrey was interesting I think, as he had a sort of glamour - a human version - that the elves had. I don't see him so much as a version of Carrot as a young William de Worde. He's turned his back on his family and is determined to make a life for himself. I loved the fact that he wanted to be a witch rather than a wizard. And he made a great witch with his ability to make friends so easily.

I was thinking of his uncanny ability to settle disputes which was one of Carrot's prominent traits before it eventually faded away in later books. In this sense, Carrot also has a glamour (charisma) to him, and so does Geoffrey. I can see the parallels to William de Worde, however, that's a good point to make!

Nightshade's thread in the book is an interesting one. Previously she's been powerful and arrogant but her arrogance has been built on a foundation of her power. You can't have one without the other but, as she's now introduced, her power has been seriously weakened in general and her previous mistakes have also weakened her hold over her subjects. The Queen's Elf society, as opposed to the King's, is a purely martial one in its structure. You stay in power while you're successful and she's be unsuccessful too many times. Her being deposed is inevitable. Although she's succeeded by a male Elf, she's treated like the old queen of a bee colony - wings removed and ejected from the hive and left in a condition where she can't survive alone.

[...]

That is a very "human" way of looking at her constitution, however. Obviously, as humans we can only abstract so much as we're bound by our biology as a human being. But I always thought of the elves as being disctincly different regarding their psychology. Their conditio humana (no pun intended) includes a domineering, selfish, arrogant outlook on the world regardless of their socio-economic rank, so to say. It's their go-to status on things, they don't even consider many aspects of social interaction, let alone courtesies. Their martial form of government stems from this disposition, not the other way around. Elves are not just particularly nasty humans with shape-shifting abilities and an alluring aura, they are alien, minatorial creatures. The same thing applies for the other discworld races, too. A dwarf is not merely a growth-restricted human with a trifle unusual opinions but an entirely different life form altogether.

Those habits are therefore deeply ingrained in their collective memory. And Nightshade was exceedingly good at that, one has to wonder over how many corpses she had to walk in order to get into that position and to keep it. Thus, it comes as a surprise – for me at least – how fast she changes her paradigms. She's evidently an intelligent individual, otherwise she would not have been able to rule over the elves for as long as she did. She can assess a new situation and knows what is beneficial to her and what is detrimental. I still have problems believing that she throws away the very foundation of her cultural, if not genetical (for lack of a better word) identity within this short amount of time. Especially considering that it was Tiffany who embarrassed her to the bone and is indirectly responsible for her demise.

I certainly agree with you that the other elves would want to kill Nightshade for her inacceptable (from their point of view) transgression. I definitely understand the motive. I just feel that from a narrative standpoint it feels remarkably hollow. Nightshade was denied to do anything substantial, there was no real tension or drama during the confrontation, she just got murdered almost immediately. One could say that this is the ultimate price for her to pay: since she left the codex of glamour behind her she had to die in an unglamorous way. I for one would've wished for a more empathic ending. It felt very unemotional - not to say cold - to me.

 

[Tonyblack]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown - No Spoilers in this thread please

OUCH! What an idiot. People can be so thoughtless.

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

Feegled from CA's forum. I have not read it as I have not finnished the book.
http://www.discworldemporium.com/forum/ ... 77#p712077

 

[mirandashell]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

Thank you for Feegling that. What Gaiman said explained a lot about the book. And what Grace said in the post just above reflects exactly how I feel about reading that last book.

 

[DickSimnel]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

I certainly agree with you that the other elves would want to kill Nightshade for her inacceptable (from their point of view) transgression. I definitely understand the motive. I just feel that from a narrative standpoint it feels remarkably hollow. Nightshade was denied to do anything substantial, there was no real tension or drama during the confrontation, she just got murdered almost immediately. One could say that this is the ultimate price for her to pay: since she left the codex of glamour behind her she had to die in an unglamorous way. I for one would've wished for a more empathic ending. It felt very unemotional - not to say cold - to me.

I see what you mean but I think her abrupt and violent death threw her humanisation (for the want of a better term) into stark relief. I don't mean that she was becoming a human being by association with Tiffany and the local people but that her new situation - in essence a complete loss of power - allowed aspects of her personality that would otherwise never have been seen to be explored. With power she had no need for empathy. She could take anything and everything and foul and despoil things for the pleasure of being cruel. Without power she has to rely on others or die and she doesn't have the pomposity to prefer death to life, however it's changed for the worse. In experiencing the life of humans some potential windows opened in her mind and she saw things in a new way. That's an enormous step because Granny told her that she'd never learned anything in a very long life. Nightshade's personality is growing and she's becoming open to alternatives.

What she hadn't learned is politics. She's never had to compromise or cajole. She made no attempt to persuade the Elves of her new way but assumed she could walk back into her old position on her return. That cost her her life but, and I think it's an important but, her death brought the King out of his sweat lodge to take charge in no uncertain fashion. He seems to be much more intelligent than Nightshade and appears to have come to a kind of accommodation with humanity. Putting it simply "We'll outlive you so we'll wait for our chance." We can speculate about how his active involvement will affect Elvish society now that both parts have been reunited but we'll never know now.

Keith

 

[meerkat]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

Page 332 top para. Cried like a leak! Also sobbed at Ridcully's reaction at the grave. I intend to read it again as soon as my tear glands have refilled.

 

[pip]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown - No Spoilers in this thread please

I'm getting a tad annoyed as Waterstones hasn't even dispatched my copy yet

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown - No Spoilers in this thread please

I've returned mine to them as they took too long to deliver it to the shop for collection, bought one elsewhere. :x

 

[pip]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown - No Spoilers in this thread please

Well I just had an annoyed conversation with Waterstones on the phone. Hopefully sorted but I probably won't see my book til next week.

 

[Tonyblack]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown - No Spoilers in this thread please

Fair play for Amazon. I got my two copies on the day of issue (the Kindle edition arrived just minutes after midnight). I posted a copy to Sharlene in Arizona and it only took a couple of days over a week to arrive. The book was also a good deal less than the pre order price and they reduced it to match.

 

[=Tamar]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown - No Spoilers in this thread please

Terry was always very much involved in the cover artwork - certainly since Paul Kidby took them over. I can only assume that Terry was happy with the way Tiffany looks. She's never been described as particularly attractive - this was clear in I Shall Wear Midnight and previous books. I'm happy enough with the cover.

I found a comment he made in an interview from around Sept 2, 2010:

http://bookwitch.wordpress.com/intervie ... nny-books/
EXCERPT:
Bookwitch: 'Did you have anyone particular in mind when you created Tiffany?'
pTerry: 'No one has ever been able to draw her.'

I take that to mean that even the Kidby pictures aren't quite what he was thinking of.
I tend to agree with you that Tiffany is probably an average-looking young woman, who probably qualifies as "cute because young".
I don't recall any details ever being given about her face, so details can vary - but none of the extant pictures in 2010 get it right.
So I am developing an idea that she may have a square face, or a pointed nose, etc. We know she has brown hair and eyes.
I think she may not look much like the other young witches in the Ramtops, so any details that are given about them are probably not true for her; e.g., Petulia Gristle has a round face, so I'd assume Tiffany doesn't.
I'm tending toward the idea that that Tiffany may have a more pointed nose than Kidby wants to draw.

 

[MrsWizzard]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

The article with Neil certainly explains a lot. The past two days I've been walking around muttering "She's in that cat, I know she's in that blasted cat!"

As soon as I got the book I pretty much exiled myself from the board until I could finish reading it so I would be safe from spoilers. I even had to quit Facebook for the time because the Terry Pratchett page kept posting quotes from the book, which I had to shut my eyes and scroll past before I could inadvertently read them. I got the full force of Granny's death and all the denial that came with it.

While I was reading I spent the whole three days concocting how Terry could sneak Granny back to life by the end, whether it be through hiding in You up to some half-baked, desperate idea I had where Nightshade would take on Granny's appearance and do some otherworldly body-jumping. In case you couldn't tell, I was a wee bit desperate.

It just struck me so hard because I don't think he's ever killed off one of the main main characters. I kept thinking there's no way he just said Granny Weatherwax died, he's gotta be sneaking her back somehow. I'm going to go ahead and accept the Granny-hiding-in-You thing as canon, because that's pretty much what I inferred from the ending anyway. Also because I don't think I've ever legitimately cried at a book before this one.

Some things I would have liked to see more of, which I'm sure PTerry wanted to write more on:
- Exactly what Granny Weatherwax died of. Her death took me a bit off-guard because there really was no indication she was sick or decrepit. It's also why I was probably obsessed with her somehow coming back throughout the book.
- Eskarina in general, her son, who her son's father is/was. I remember a lot of speculation after ISWM that Preston would turn out to be her son, but evidently not.
- Tiffany/Preston. I'm actually fine with how it turned out in the book, but I would have liked to see a bit more dialogue between them. I really really like Preston's character.
- Future Tiffany
- G̶r̶a̶n̶n̶y̶ ̶W̶e̶a̶t̶h̶e̶r̶w̶a̶x̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶m̶a̶g̶i̶c̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶l̶i̶f̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶f̶a̶i̶r̶!̶ *ahem* I seriously cried, and I'll probably cry again later.

The witches, including Tiffany Aching, weren't my favorites when I was younger reading them for the first time. It wasn't until I got to Carpe Jugulum some years ago when I started really liking them and rereading all of the witches books. I grew to like Tiffany a lot more once I read Wintersmith and decided to give the first two another read, and then I adored her. I just hadn't needed her yet.

I loved this book and it's probably going to be a while before I bring myself to read it again, because losing PTerry and then Granny Weatherwax all in the same year...Too much.

That being said, I was in the middle of a reread of Witches Abroad before my copy of The Shepherd's Crown actually arrived, and revisiting that one has been making my day!

Thank you, Mr. Pratchett, for everything.

 

[DickSimnel]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown - No Spoilers in this thread please

At one of the Clarecraft weekends, in a Q&A session, I asked Bernard Pearson whether it was easier for an artist or model-maker to work with an author like Mervyn Peake, who describes everything in infinite detail, or with one like Terry who offers much less detail. He immediately said that Terry was easier. He said something along the lines that Terry wrote the characters as holes in the text into which the reader was invited to put their own ideas to make up the missing parts. Peake's characters were so tightly defined that it was much more difficult to reproduce them whereas Terry's offered some latitude.

Keith

 

[raisindot]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown - No Spoilers in this thread please

Terry was always very much involved in the cover artwork - certainly since Paul Kidby took them over. I can only assume that Terry was happy with the way Tiffany looks. She's never been described as particularly attractive - this was clear in I Shall Wear Midnight and previous books. I'm happy enough with the cover.

I found a comment he made in an interview from around Sept 2, 2010:

http://bookwitch.wordpress.com/intervie ... nny-books/
EXCERPT:
Bookwitch: 'Did you have anyone particular in mind when you created Tiffany?'
pTerry: 'No one has ever been able to draw her.'

I take that to mean that even the Kidby pictures aren't quite what he was thinking of.
I tend to agree with you that Tiffany is probably an average-looking young woman, who probably qualifies as "cute because young".
I don't recall any details ever being given about her face, so details can vary - but none of the extant pictures in 2010 get it right.
So I am developing an idea that she may have a square face, or a pointed nose, etc. We know she has brown hair and eyes.
I think she may not look much like the other young witches in the Ramtops, so any details that are given about them are probably not true for her; e.g., Petulia Gristle has a round face, so I'd assume Tiffany doesn't.
I'm tending toward the idea that that Tiffany may have a more pointed nose than Kidby wants to draw.

I tend to agree with Pterry's statement. But that is partly because Pterry really never provided a really good description of TIffany beyond the brown hair and eyes and short stature. Tiffany doesn't perceive herself as particularly attractive, which we know because she's constantly comparing herself to more attractive girls. Perhaps because the series is a YA series Pterry was uncomfortable with the idea of giving too much "physical" description to someone who was a teenager (or younger) through most of the series. He certainly doesn't shy away from describing physical details that lead of excellent illustrations. For example, Kidby's depiction of Nanny Ogg fully captures Nanny's round stature and toothless, "wrinkly apple core" face.

 

[raisindot]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

AVAST, SPOILERS AHEAD INCLUDING THOSE OF OTHER DW BOOKS

Okay. I'm sorry once again to have to take off the gloves when discussing a late-period Pterry work, but we all need to separate Pterry the author and man (who we all loved as a person and whose literary legacy will never tarnished by the serious decline in his later wkrs) from a critical review of the work that he chose to publish (or, in the case of The Shepherd's Crown, may have been published without his prior consent since it was never finished in his lifetime). Pterry knew as well as anyone that publishing a book leaves you fair game for critical hurrahs and condemnations. That he continued to publish books even as Alzheimer's was seriously eroding his ability to produce work even remotely resembling the quality of his best works was his decision--a brave one, but bravely alone is not a free pass to critical soft shoe.

I've said for a long time Pterry's work began a serious decline starting with Snuff and Raising Steam bore little resemblance in terms of sharpness, humor, and logic to the great DW novels. I do believe that his Alzheimer's was affecting his ability to write, particularly in terms of dialogue, and what his style evolved to become was one with huge long, bloated paragraphs of exposition, and stilted, Victorian-style dialogue where certain "tics" were repeated over and over (such as the character constantly reaffirming their memes, such as "If this doesn't happen my name isn't Moist/Rob Anybody/whoever" or "I am the Hag of the Chalk/Queen of Lancre/Queen of the Elves."

Sadly, all of these flaws manifest themselves in the worst possible way in The Shepherd's Crown. To me, the only truly wonderful scene in this was the death of Granny Weatherwax and her burial by Tiffany and Nanny and Ridcully's visit. My guess is that Pterry wrote and stored this somewhere long before he pieced together the rest of the novel. However, I would quibble that her conversation with Death is oversentimental, and his dialogue style is not typical--for example, using several different names to refer to Granny. Death is always very formal and logical, so (in a better book) he would have always referred to her as Mistress Weatherwax. But that's a quibble.

The problem is that the rest of the book is a derivative mess. It's essentially a grade Z retread of the far superior narrative elements of Wee Free Men and Lords and Ladies. There's really no narrative logic as to why Peasebottom all of a sudden decides to invade the SW (other than the barriers being weakened after Granny dies. But that itself is not a strong enough motivation. Peasebottom is essentially the Ardent of this novel, and essentially the Elves' invasion repeats the same "rebellion against human" plot of Raising Steam, with Nightshade playing a variation of the outcast Rhys and Tiffany, the witches and the old men and villages retreading the roles Moist, Vimes and the "good" dwarfs in Raising Steam. We even need to have the King of the Elves play referee as he did in L&L.

As he did in Raising Steam, more recent books, Pterry lost the focus of his narrative, bringing in all kinds of new characters and using unneeded cameos that added nothing to the story.

Worst of all, the humor--the key "selling point" of the DW series--is completely gone. Oh, he tried, but the artificial "curly-q" dialogue fell flat. Even the feegles weren't funny. This book had more footnotes than just about any recent DW and they were all head-scratchingly incoherent, and not funny at all. And the references--once an enjoyable mainstay of DW novels--were just plain awful "Elvish has nearly left the building?" Bizarre references to Monty Python's "Lumberjack Sketch"? Awful.

Like his previous few books, this one was not properly edited to curb these excesses. In the afterward, Rob Wilkens hints that a full draft was never completed and that some of it might have been written by ghostwriters. If this is true, I wonder whether sections of Snuff and Raising Steam were also written by others, since the style of those two books are completely different than everything Pterry wrote previously.

In the end, this is valuable as a final statement by Pterry. Compared to most other YA books, it's is vastly superior. It's only when you compare it to any other DW novel he wrote that its painful flaws become apparent.

Now, there's a whole different way to look at The Shepherd's Crown--as Pterry's allegorical treatment of his own pending death. I do believe that he wrote the death of Granny Weatherwax--and the reaction it caused around the DW--to allegorically represent the death he knew was coming to him; how he was preparing for it (by doing as many good works as possible right up to the end), and the global tremors his death would cause among his fans and the literary "hole" his passing would leave behind.

I might submit that Lord Peasebottom symbolized the final stages of Alzheimer's were shutting down his ability to think and create--as symbolized by the weakened Nightshade. One could also suggest that Peasebottom represented Pterry's fears about how his literary legacy--particularly in its decline over the last few books--might be harmed by harsh late-period critics like me, and perhaps the battle against the Elves represented the attempts by his fans to fight against these attacks.

There are so many other things that could be analyzed--the references to cross-dressing, men taking roles traditionally reserved for women and women taking on roles normally reserved for men alone could fill up a whole essay. But I'll stop now.