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Book Discussion - Monstrous Regiment

[(Anonymous)]

Carrying on from here

https://meme-of-bilitis.dreamwidth.org/879.html?thread=228975#cmt228975

Re: Book Discussion - Monstrous Regiment

[(Anonymous)]

I love this book, nonnies. It's so important to me.

I know I'm swimming against the fandom tide (and I do love Mal) but Polly and Jackrum have always been my faves. I like that Polly's journey isn't (what seemed to me when I read it as a kid) the typical journey of coming-of-age or women-in-war stories where the girl learns some self-esteem and then everything goes back to normal; specifically she learns she's good at being a sergeant.

Pace all the stupid Mark discussion, I also like that it doesn't really matter in this book how characters "might identify."

Re: Book Discussion - Monstrous Regiment

[(Anonymous)]

Polly is one of my favourite characters in Discworld, ever (I keep wondering how she'd get on with Angua) and I'm always kind of puzzled by people who think she's self-interested or selfish or even a "judgmental jerk" like I saw in one discussion (I mean....everyone in MR is a judgmental jerk to some extent if we want to go there). She isn't sweet, and she's motivated as much by getting away from the Duchess (heh) and marrying as she is finding Paul, but she's pragmatic because she's a sergeant type.

One of the things that most irritated me about Mark's HORROR that Polly was going to be like Jackrum (not to make this All About Mark) is that Polly isn't a copy of Jackrum. She's not a warrior. She's a fighter, but she's not fitting into the place he had, because she's a woman and a different person. And the environment is different: there's the newspapers and the clacks and the women's earlier victory even if they did get stuck in those silly uniforms. Polly can be radical by being openly herself, and it's not the same way Jackrum was radical by taking on the military male persona and fully inhabiting it. I had the feeling that at the very end she's more genderqueer than the meme MR nonnies seem to think (isn't she wearing trousers?) but maybe I was reading too much into it. I do love how she says "You are my little lads - or not, as the case may be - and I will look after you." (emphasis added) She's not just imitating Jackrum, she's building on what they did together.

I also love how unapologetically ride or die Thelma-and-Louise Lofty and Tonker (hmm, the initials match) are. I think maybe the closest other "good" characters get to wiping out the opposition like that is maybe Agnes in Carpe Jugulum, and she doesn't do it. But Pratchett doesn't condemn or even judge them, like with Wazzer. It's like he's just saying, this is the consequence of treating people that badly.

And I think Jackrum is one of Pratchett's best characters ever. He's like something out of Dickens or Peake.

Re: Book Discussion - Monstrous Regiment

[(Anonymous)]

I just re-read this book and ugh, it's just as good as I remembered. Women crossdressing is one of my favorite narrative tropes, and although this is one of the more serious executions of it, it's still super great.

I love how open to interpretation the question of gender is for half the cast! Jackrum, Polly, Mal... it's very ambiguous to me (especially in Mal and Jackrum's cases) and I love it that way.

Tonker/Lofty are <3 </3 <3. Their lives have been so awful, but they have each other and they're so ride or die now! I love them. ;;_;; And I'm 100% here for Polly/Mal and their continuing adventures in the army post-book. I love their dynamic-- how Mal is cool and collected and more worldly, but how Polly is the born leader, and how they manage to work together and bounce ideas off each other and manage other people together. They're just so perfect!

Re: Book Discussion - Monstrous Regiment

[(Anonymous)]

how Mal is cool and collected and more worldly, but how Polly is the born leader

I am all about this. I need everything with Mal doing what Polly says in a loyalty-kinky and/or subby way.

Re: Book Discussion - Monstrous Regiment

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Yesss exactly. And like, Mal is super collected, with a cup of coffee in hand or a cigarette (or Discworld equivalent) but also super ride-or-die with Polly's mission to fix Borogravia and doing anything for her.

Re: Book Discussion - Monstrous Regiment

[(Anonymous)]

Jackrum always reminds me of what Le Guin said she wanted to do with Estraven, in Left Hand of Darkness: "I was privately delighted at watching, not a man, but a manwoman, do all these things, and do them with considerable skill and flair." I don't know if it's so much a competence kink, but I love the way Jackrum knows how to handle nearly everything, and it's based on that keen sympathetic but clear perception, like Polly has (and Vimes). (In fact this book is such a mirror of the first couple of Watch books, with Jackrum and Vimes, and maybe Angua and Polly, in corresponding roles.)