https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zae-Tq73pQ8&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1WCoalyh3AZrt0ncBvRhShFyQycLG5lf4X2H8Au-vTME-akzGx_rRBeL0
Maybe
even more a top contender for favorite Discworld book now. STP was
even more prophetic than he realized here, as the USPS is now under
attack by a swindler (the swindler in GP meaning Gilt, not Moist, who is
a straight up, unabashed conmnan whose usual cons don't involve
grandiose portrayal of himself as some paragon of "virtue" and who is
able, when pushed, to turn what is good in the skill [the ability to
encourage actual belief] toward a greater good ... our current president
never makes it to that part of becoming about something nobler, and you
would never catch him doing something like admitting his crime to a
woman he is trying to woo by being actually honest for a change)
(But I'm not sure about the treatment of ADB ... the whole "naughty boy" has sexual undertones, and in the book, what made her character work so well is that she is so entirely a sharp-edged cynicism that worked as a complex and textured character because the genuine human shows through from under it and she isn't afraid for it to, because she knows that the waryness and no-bullshit insight and confident action are.also unmistakable .. you're never in doubt about her cynicism, nor that what drives it is the need to protect her love for her brother and her care for the golems .. and those things make her, on the page, I think, a woman who can also fall in love, but again protecting that ... one of my favorite lines, maybe in all the Discworld, is "she quite liked the bit where he was hanged and made him repeat it" ... on the sexual undertone of the whip in this scene, I don't think it fits with what is there for the props in the book, like the threat of the stilleto heel through the foot, which is simply a threat of sheer pain as deterrent to bull-shit and not some kind of S&M undertone [and STP throws in that nice pop culture reference of the kind he likes to do, in this case the Dirty Harry line: "Now, I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, 'could she press it all the way through to the floor?' And you know, I'm not sure about that myself"] ... the fact that it is something other than S&M inuendo of dominatrix heels is, I think, evident in the sheer adversarial tone [even-footed combative stance against an enemy on the same plane, not controlling domination] that follows it: "The sole of your boot might give me a little trouble, but nothing else will. But that's not the worrying part. The worrying part is that I was forced practically at knifepoint to take ballet lessons as a child, meaning I can kick like a mule; and you're sitting directly in front of me; and I have another shoe." ... btw, just as a plug for reading the book if you never have, Moist has an absolute effing awesome response later, when he says he will bankrupt Gilt and she asks how exactly he intends to do that, and he replies, "I've no idea, but anything is possible if I can dance with you and still have ten toes left. Shall we dance, Miss Dearhart?" ... it really is my favorite love story ever ... and an amazing piece of insight on the mysticism of virtue in a fallen world: the main target of a con like Trump's is actually himself, to be able to believe in himself as a strong and effective wheeler and dealer, and the rest of the world is just props, which is self delusion, but there is a mystical way to turn that unavoidable human foible on its head: when ADB asks who he is trying to fool with the good stuff he does, he replies "me, I think," and that honesty is what opens it to insightful portrayal of the project of believing in one's own ability to be good as a way to con oneself into actually being good ... and I am a huge fan of STP's use of dancing as a motif, recalling my suspicion that he is a T.S. Eliot fan, and he uses it in these wonderful odd places, like the dam-slam scene in Snuff when the captain's wife says, as the first surges of the dam-slam catch up with the boat, "if you don't learn to dance to the rhythm of the slam, you'll dance with the devil soon enough").
(But I'm not sure about the treatment of ADB ... the whole "naughty boy" has sexual undertones, and in the book, what made her character work so well is that she is so entirely a sharp-edged cynicism that worked as a complex and textured character because the genuine human shows through from under it and she isn't afraid for it to, because she knows that the waryness and no-bullshit insight and confident action are.also unmistakable .. you're never in doubt about her cynicism, nor that what drives it is the need to protect her love for her brother and her care for the golems .. and those things make her, on the page, I think, a woman who can also fall in love, but again protecting that ... one of my favorite lines, maybe in all the Discworld, is "she quite liked the bit where he was hanged and made him repeat it" ... on the sexual undertone of the whip in this scene, I don't think it fits with what is there for the props in the book, like the threat of the stilleto heel through the foot, which is simply a threat of sheer pain as deterrent to bull-shit and not some kind of S&M undertone [and STP throws in that nice pop culture reference of the kind he likes to do, in this case the Dirty Harry line: "Now, I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, 'could she press it all the way through to the floor?' And you know, I'm not sure about that myself"] ... the fact that it is something other than S&M inuendo of dominatrix heels is, I think, evident in the sheer adversarial tone [even-footed combative stance against an enemy on the same plane, not controlling domination] that follows it: "The sole of your boot might give me a little trouble, but nothing else will. But that's not the worrying part. The worrying part is that I was forced practically at knifepoint to take ballet lessons as a child, meaning I can kick like a mule; and you're sitting directly in front of me; and I have another shoe." ... btw, just as a plug for reading the book if you never have, Moist has an absolute effing awesome response later, when he says he will bankrupt Gilt and she asks how exactly he intends to do that, and he replies, "I've no idea, but anything is possible if I can dance with you and still have ten toes left. Shall we dance, Miss Dearhart?" ... it really is my favorite love story ever ... and an amazing piece of insight on the mysticism of virtue in a fallen world: the main target of a con like Trump's is actually himself, to be able to believe in himself as a strong and effective wheeler and dealer, and the rest of the world is just props, which is self delusion, but there is a mystical way to turn that unavoidable human foible on its head: when ADB asks who he is trying to fool with the good stuff he does, he replies "me, I think," and that honesty is what opens it to insightful portrayal of the project of believing in one's own ability to be good as a way to con oneself into actually being good ... and I am a huge fan of STP's use of dancing as a motif, recalling my suspicion that he is a T.S. Eliot fan, and he uses it in these wonderful odd places, like the dam-slam scene in Snuff when the captain's wife says, as the first surges of the dam-slam catch up with the boat, "if you don't learn to dance to the rhythm of the slam, you'll dance with the devil soon enough").
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