Source of book: Audiobook from the library
Another long trip, another Terry Pratchett audiobook.
The title of this book - Monstrous Regiment - comes from a poisonous pamphlet written by the misogynistic dickwad and anti-Catholic bigot John Knox. More about him at the end. Entitled The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, it - among other arguments for why women shouldn’t be allowed to be monarchs - claimed that women were only created in the image of God compared to animals, and were not equal to men in that regard.
Terry Pratchett, of course, couldn’t resist taking the terms “Monstrous Regiment” in their modern meaning (rather than in the sense of “unnatural reign” originally intended), and making a novel about it.
So yes, this is a book about women in the military. But it is also about gender roles and stereotypes more broadly - and about that pesky question of why, given their competence and abilities, women are not accepted as leaders the way men are.
In addition, this book is queer as fuck. It contains Pratchett’s only openly gay relationship, arguably contains multiple transgender characters, and even within cishet norms, bends the concept of gender to the breaking point. And, since this is Pratchett, he also makes it wickedly funny.
One can only wonder where Discworld would have gone had Pratchett not died prematurely - it was clear he was unafraid to take on heteronormativity and the gender binary.
The setting for this book isn’t Ankh-Morpork, but the small theocratic nation of Borogravia. Think a combination of a Middle-Eastern Islamic state and the Balkans. Borogravia worships Nuggan, who appears to be mostly concerned about establishing an increasingly long list of “abominations” - the list of banned things.
In addition to the usual suspects, this list becomes increasingly bizarre and impossible as time goes on. Eventually, the chief exports become abominations, and crop rotation is forbidden, plunging the country into poverty and famine.
So, naturally, they invade a neighboring country!
This is of little interest to Ankh-Morpork until Nuggan declares the Clacks towers to be an abomination - anything modern, of course, as Fundamentalists do. When the towers are burned down, Ankh-Morpork suddenly has skin in this regional war, and is faced with the question of how to solve it, preferably without committing troops. (If this sounds familiar, well…)
Caught up in the middle of this is young Polly Perks. Her father owns a local inn and pub, but Polly pretty much runs it. Unfortunately for her, women owning property is an abomination (naturally!), so she is counting on her brother Paul to inherit, then let her run the thing.
The problem is, Paul has joined the army and disappeared. With Polly’s future in the balance, and her beloved (if naive) brother missing, she decides to cut her hair, impersonate a boy, and join the army to go look for him.
Since the war is going badly, recruits are in short supply, and the recruiters are willing to bend the rules a little, which is how the newly formed regiment Polly joins ends up with a troll, a vampire, and an Igor. There is also, shall we say, something rather secret about all of them.
In command of this regiment is the book-smart but combat-incompetent Lieutenant Blouse, who is well meaning but….well it’s a good thing the real commander of the group is Sergeant Jackrum, a wiley veteran who saved a general’s life back in the day.
Things get off to an interesting start when they run across an elite group of the enemy, capture them, and send them back where they came from naked and bound. Oh, and Polly also kicks their leader in the balls.
It turns out that said leader was actually Prince Heinrich, who is furious both at his humiliation and the fact that the incident made the news - William de Worde, last seen in The Truth, knows a great story when he hears one, and sees his chance to make Ankh-Morpork care about the war.
Vimes too sees an opportunity: if he can manipulate the war enough so that Borogravia has a chance, he can get both sides to accept a peace that allows their shattered countries a chance to rebuild.
As the squad is forced into combat before they are trained, they start to learn about each other. It is no spoiler to say that they all turn out to be women. There are a variety of reasons they joined up. Polly wants to find her brother. Shufti is knocked up by a soldier who abandoned her. Lofty and Tonker escaped from an abusive school, and are lovers.
Wazzer also escaped an abusive place, but has taken refuge in her religion - not so much Nuggan, but the Dutchess (the ruler of Borogravia, who is almost certainly dead, but nobody admits that) who is used as the figurehead for the religion. Wazzer’s devotion will be a key plot point - in Discworld, remember, belief creates the god, not the other way around.
Igor(ina) is looking for a chance to be her own boss - preferably serving a female clientele. Carborundum (aka Jade) is bored with the female troll roles. And as far as Maladict(a) - she wants an adventure.
Key to the story is the question of “passing.” The women, of course, have to “pass” as men. What does this involve? Well, a lot of changes to behavior and language, to fit the gender stereotype. And socks. Because socks give you power and even entitlement.
But there is also passing in the other direction. In order to gain access to the castle, the characters dress as washerwomen - a nice spoof on The Wind in the Willows if you know the details. Blouse - a thespian in school - is not as good at this as he thinks. But….the women in the castle aren’t going to rat him out because he is excellent and enthusiastic about ironing. (I recognize a bit of myself there…)
There is also a lot in this book about gender roles, gender stereotypes, and ultimately a strong argument that people should be allowed to be who they are - regardless of gender, gender identity, or sexuality.
There are so many great quotes in this book. Because I was driving most of the time (with a few spells taken by my 18 year old), I had no way to write them down. Fortunately, Discworld has many devoted followers who put lines online. Here are the ones I liked the most.
“The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.”
Having grown up in the Fundamentalist subculture, I entirely agree with this. True Christ-followers don’t believe they know everything - but fake-ass hypocrites always do.
I loved the many lines about the stupidity of a certain kind of patriotism and the senselessness of most wars.
“The enemy wasn't men, or women, or the old, or even the dead. It was just bleedin' stupid people, who came in all varieties. And no one had the right to be stupid.”
“You take a bunch of people who don't seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.”
“[The pamphlet] was very patriotic. That is, it talked about killing foreigners.”
“Stopping a battle is much harder than starting it. Starting it only requires you to shout ‘Attack!’ but when you want to stop it, everyone is busy.”
“It's all trickery. They keep you down and when they piss off some other country, you have to fight for them! It's only your country when they want you to get killed!”
“Bein’ a soldier is not hard! If it was, soldiers would not be able to do it! There is only three things you need to remember, which are, viz: one obey orders two give it to the enemy good and hard three don’t die.”
“There was always a war. Usually they were border disputes, the national equivalent of complaining that the neighbor was letting their hedge grow too long. Sometimes they were bigger. Borogravia was a peace-loving country in the midst of treacherous, devious, warlike enemies. They had to be treacherous, devious, and warlike, otherwise we wouldn't be fighting them, eh? There was always a war.”
And this line, which is pretty universally applicable:
“The four lesser apocalyptical horsemen of Panic, Bewilderment, Ignorance, and Shouting took control of the room.”
Regarding the issue of socks:
“And a woman by herself is missing a man, while a man by himself is his own master.
Trousers. That's the secret. Trousers and a pair of socks. I never dreamed it was like this. Put on trousers and the world changes. We walk different. We act different. I see these girls and I think: Idiot's Get yourself some trousers!”
An all too accurate assessment of folk songs:
“Then it is about sex,” said Polly flatly. “It’s a folk song, it starts with ‘’twas,’ it takes place in May, QED, it’s about sex. Is a milkmaid involved? I bet she is.”
It wouldn’t be a Pratchett book without at least one terrible pun.
“Er…what's that glass for, sir?'
‘It’s a monocle,’ said the captain. ‘It helps me see you, for which I am eternally grateful. I always say that if I had two I’d make a spectacle of myself.”
There is also an ongoing pun because the obnoxious corporal keeps calling Polly "Parts" rather than "Perks" - and she is a private so... which is also very on brand for the theme of the book - how much do parts actually matter?
Lest you think Pratchett falls for the obvious fallacy that women are moral angels (that’s Victorian condescension repackaged as “feminism.”)
“Besides, she thought as she watched Wazzer drink, you only thought the world would be better if it was run by women if you didn’t actually know many women. Or old women, at least. Take the whole thing about the dimity scarves. Women had to cover their hair on Fridays, but there was nothing about this in the Book, which was pretty dar—pretty damn rigorous about most things. It was just a custom. It was done because it had always been done. And if you forgot, or didn’t want to, the old women got you. They had eyes like hawks. They could practically see through walls. And the men took notice, because no man wanted to cross the crones in case they started watching him, so half-hearted punishment would be dealt out. Whenever there was an execution, and especially when there was a whipping, you always found the grannies in the front row, sucking on peppermints.”
That said, women deserve equality not because they are better than men, but because they are human to the same degree men are. We don’t let women lead because they do it better, but because they deserve the same chance men do.
This observation is also excellent:
“It was women’s work, and therefore monotonous, backbreaking, and social.”
And this one:
“He might be worth listening to. Even if you think he’ll only tell us lies. Because sometimes, sir, the way people tell you lies, if they tell you enough lies, well, they sort of…show you what shape the truth is, sir.”
I am sure there are several I wanted to quote - particularly an extended passage arguing against gender pigeonholing. Gender itself is mostly a set of culturally informed performances - different in time and place too. I have written before that the panic about LGBTQ people comes down to misogyny - the need to know if someone is female so they can be treated with disrespect. Pratchett gets this, and uses his skills at humor and satire to reveal how silly it all would be if only it didn’t have serious negative effects on our society and on all of us.
But really, read the entire book. Pratchett is entertaining and hilarious and all - but he is also a sharp social satirist, and a wise and compassionate writer.
***
About John Knox:
So, John Knox. How retrogressive do you have to be to make John Calvin - John fucking CALVIN look progressive?
As a child, learning from the A Beka curriculum, Knox was rather revered. Which is natural for a few reasons. First, he did lead the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, and certain elements of the Reformation were very positive. I will grant him that, just like I believe that Luther and Calvin brought some long-overdue reforms to both religion and government.
Unlike a lot of popular preachers, Knox never got rich off his audience or off of royal favors. In his way, he did in fact live out his beliefs, and I can respect that about him.
Likewise, Knox was correct in pushing back against absolute monarchy - he believed that if a monarch was unjust, their subjects were in the right in deciding to rebel. Very American there too, one might say, which is another reason the A Beka writers loved him.
But on the issue of women, hoo boy. The tract I referenced above was made in response to John Calvin’s own writing that because women led in the Bible, there was no issue per se with them ruling now. That the queens in question at the moment were Catholic was far more of a problem from Calvin’s point of view.
Knox argued that whatever might have happened in the Bible, God was certainly NOT putting women in leadership now. That role was completely forbidden to them - in society, the church, and the home.
Had he stopped there, I think I might have just written him off as another male theologian of that era (and often ours) who conveniently ignored just how competent these females were, and how capable of leadership. It’s kind of a “who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes” scenario, right?
But he went even further and fully dehumanized women. He compared them to the blind, the sick, the impotent, the foolish, the insane, and so on. We wouldn’t let those people lead, so why should we let a woman, who is all those things do so? Yeesh.
And, as I noted above, he flat out said that women were only to be considered “created in the image of God” in comparison with animals. In comparing men to women, only man was truly in the image of God.
Or, as has been noted, if God is a man, then men are gods.
That’s disgusting, false, unbiblical, and nasty. Just saying.
I should also mention that his conclusion was that, like the prophets of Baal, Queen Mary should be removed from office, and perhaps executed for being out of her place. Unsurprisingly, Mary didn’t take this well, and Knox was expelled from the country.
So pardon me if I refuse to revere Knox.
***
The Terry Pratchett list:
Rincewind:
Tiffany Aching:
Witches:
Watch:
Guards! Guards! (Stupid abridged edition, which is an abomination unto Nuggan and everyone else.)
Industrial Revolution:
Other Discworld:
Non-Discworld:
No comments:
Post a Comment