Monstrous Regiment By Sir Terry Pratchett

Monstrous Regiment

By Sir Terry Pratchett

Hello there. Gary T. Stevens here again, and here is our second Discworld review for this month so our ever-lovable (Is he though?) (I'm trying to be nice here! [Yes, and he’s my pseudobrother, so I don’t have to be.]) Devil Dog-turned-anthropologist can work on his Atlantis Summer material. Well, that, and inspiration. Indeed, this was initially to come first and was written on "speculation", so to speak, that it might be needed, and because I was inspired. It was since moved to be second so that its release corresponds with Memorial Day, for a reason that will soon be apparent. So let us begin another foray into the wonderful world brought forth from the imagination of the (lamentably) late Sir Terry Pratchett: the Discworld!

Monstrous Regiment was published in 2003 as the thirty-first novel in the run. It was a nominee for the 2004 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. It is also accepted to be the last "stand-alone" novel in the Discworld series, as in, we would not see its protagonists again, and all the future novels would be part of one sub-series or another (though I would argue 2009's Unseen Academicals is more a stand-alone than a Wizards novel given the primary characters were mostly new ones who weren't wizards, but that's personal taste). Some of my more historically-knowledgeable readers may recognize the title, or at least feel it scratching at their brainpans for recognition (Yes. God damned Protestantism). Suffice it to say that yes, it's a reference, and finding it is a sort of spoiler to parts of the book. But just parts. Also, looking up the reference online is cheating!

This entry takes us far from the usual setting of the Disc, Ankh-Morpork, and even further from there than the Kingdom of Lancre from Carpe Jugulum. Now we go to the far end of Uberwald and the river plains and valleys of the Kneck River and other environs, where a host of small countries have traditionally feuded and warred with one another for the usual reasons such countries do so. War is something of a sport to these people, and none have practiced it as vigorously or enthusiastically as the people of Borogravia. The Borogravians, like all their neighbors, are a monarchy, because who doesn't enjoy breeding hemophiliacs? (Habsburg Jaws don’t grow on trees. Trees have branches!) In this case, they are ruled by the Duchess Annagovia (or just "The Duchess" to most folk), who is very old, has no heirs, and may or may not be dead (Well that’s a problem. Of course, she might have heirs if she wasn’t so inbred her germ line cells could no longer divide. On the other hand, that might just mean her Duchy might get something better than a monarchy for a government.). (The alternatives appear to be a military junta, theocracy, or being taken over by the neighboring kingdom of Zlobenia ruled by a distant cousin.[No Robespierre solutions huh?])

Complicating this is that the Borogravians are also a theocracy, as the entire nation is governed by Nugganatic Law (Oh no.). Unfortunately for them, unlike some of the more chill deities and divinities up on Dunmanifestin, Nuggan is a… tetchy god. He's the kind of god who would write editorial letters to newspapers signed "Disgusted from Dunmanifestin" (When your god is also a Karen…). While most deities and their religions have the decency to have a single holy book or set of holy writings that are left alone, the Book of Nuggan receives regular updates, and those updates are typically the Abominations, those things that Nuggan finds offensive. It is an ever-growing list that now includes such items as garlic (Okay so vampire), chocolate (About as much fun as Oliver Cromwell), cats (So he’s a jealous god…), dwarves (Dick), accordion players (Poor Bear McReary), the color blue, crop rotation (Time for the Holy Holodomor! Take that Lysenko!), and babies (Well good, fewer mouths to feed with their catastrophic famine!) (Granted, eventually it means no more Borogravians, and since Discworld gods are powered by their believers' belief…). To put it simply, Nuggan is now the kind of deity who wears his underpants on his head (and who will presumably declare them an Abomination at some point too). The people of Borogravia have responded to this by directing more and more of their prayers at their ancient and possibly-dead Duchess, hoping she might intercede with their insane divinity, but so far it doesn't seem to be working (When life gives you lemons FIND A NEW GOD!) (Sage advice there.)

I share this information with you to provide the backdrop for introducing our protagonist: Polly Perks. The daughter of a tavernkeeper in the small town of Munz, Polly begins the book by commencing her transformation into Oliver Perks so that she might join the army in flagrant defiance of Nugganatic Law, which includes enforcement of gender roles and certainly does not see soldiering as something "of Women". (This is why gender roles are dumb, kids.) She has very important reasons to do so, at least to her, not the least of which is the fate of her family's tavern and her duty towards her simple-minded brother. I do not call her our story's hero because, as we shall learn, she is not the "hero" of this story, though her role will be quite interesting regardless and she will show many worthy qualities that might have made her the hero otherwise. Above all, she is our viewpoint character for most of the book, through which we will meet a host of other recruits. Polly — now dubbed "Ozzer" by her new comrades — is joined by fellow humans Shufti, Wazzer, Tonker, and Lofty, as well as the troll Carborundum, an Igor, and Maladict the vampire. Yes, I said vampire, but if you're worried about Polly's neck, you needn't be: Maladict is a Black Ribboner, a vampire who has taken the Pledge, forsworn human blood, and displaces the thirst with a devotion to something else (coffee! [I approve and understand this addiction]) (This actually becomes important to the plot).

As you might expect, these recruits all have their own motivations, their own little stories, some more involved than others, to sign up for Borogravia's army. And the recruiting party is glad to have them. Borogravia is, as always, at war, but this time it's different. Cities and states from opposite sides of the continent have joined up with their local enemies for various reasons, most of them due to the Borogravians' pigheaded adherence to Nuggan's whims and their many hereditary vendettas with neighbors making them, in the eyes of the other nations of the Disc, a sort of rogue state in need of a kicking. So now the country is facing a war against overwhelming force while they rot from within, and these recruits soon learn just how bad things are in their decaying nation. (Yeah, they really really need to find a new God). (And this is still sage advice.)

As desperate as their situation proves, they do have a couple things going for them. Well, mostly one thing, but it's a big one. While the recruiting party's Corporal Strappi is a nasty bullying coward who seems destined to be the victim of not-so-friendly fire, Sergeant Jackrum is the legend of the Borogravian Army. This fat sergeant is a truly ageless soldier who knows everyone and is known by everyone, he knows every dirty trick in the book and, more importantly, those that aren't found there. He will stop at nothing to look after "my little lads" until they are safely with the rest of their regiment, the Ins-and-Outs (also known as the Cheesemongers, which the book will dutifully explain better than I). Along the way the squad meets its commanding officer as well, Lieutenant Blouse, who is naive, apparently hopeless as a combat commander (Awwww he’s a butterbar! How cute!) (a staff butterbar to boot), but yet will show his own skill and capability in the trek that awaits them. For it is not long before Polly and her comrades meet the enemy, setting off a chain of events that will take them to the stage of history.

I dare not say anything else, because I do not want you, readers, to be spoiled about this book. As always Sir Terry is as quick to make observations about the nature of people, good and ill, as he is to satirize or derive other humor from the situation of our protagonists. There are undoubtedly dark places in this world. When one character is asked what they used to do, their reply is "I used to be beaten", and similar horrors are hinted at in the backgrounds of some of Polly's other compatriots. For another point, when someone expresses to Polly the idea that the country would be better if it were truly run just by women, she ruminates on her devout mother's worst behavior, and on the old ladies who enforce social rule and law with merciless glee. Borogravia's society is certainly patriarchal, but as in reality, that doesn't mean women don't have some role and can be just as terrible when enforcing said society. The question arises naturally as we read on: "What does Borogravia even have to be so proud over? Why would anyone want to fight for this miserable, nasty, rotting little country?" It makes for interesting observations from both the characters and Sir Terry's narrative perspective.

As one might expect from a story with a lot of soldiering involved, military humor does come up quite a bit. So too do observations, and humor, about gender roles and the perceptions of gender. Polly is proud of how well she remembers to fart, belch, and scratch, and practiced walking in trousers before signing up, as well as using the privy without "getting her feet wet" (an act I have heard a number of transmen would share her pride in accomplishing [Oh yeah, they take great pride in it. Also, if you are trans and reading this, you are valid, you are loved,]). The humor is there, ready to provide levity when the book's darker moments remind us of what war means for those who suffer through it. Polly confronts the need to potentially kill and laments the lack of training, the training that turns the sons of mothers and brothers of sisters into mere straw men to stick pointy metal things into. After all, Monstrous Regiment is an anti-war story, and you're not getting away from the darkness that entails.

For the record, it is also an anti-sexism story, arguably going to the extent of deeply questioning the very idea of fixed gender roles in society (Good, because those are stupid. As is binary gender, which is not only stupid but runs counter to human biology. Sorry transphobes, but I am a biologist and facts don’t give a fuck about your reactionary feelings.) (Quiet, they think we're the liberal/socialist pansies who place feels over reals, you're just going to confuse… ah, never mind, carry on!), or at least how we perceive them. But it is not just about these topics, and wherever it explores any of these subjects, it does so in Sir Terry's own special way that I can only describe as a grasp on language that most writers, myself included, may never reach. The power of words is often debated in not just literature but politics. Sometimes we can't even agree on what words mean. Sir Terry clearly understood that power and he writes his stories, and their messages, to guarantee as wide an understanding as I think could be hoped for.

Is it a perfect book? No, because there is no such thing, not even in Discworld (though I figure the preceding book Night Watch comes close). In this case, there are legitimate complaints about it. Even this far from Ankh-Morpork, Sir Terry still finds himself giving a guest role to Sir Samuel Vimes, with several of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch accompanying him to Borogravia and environs. Indeed, Vimes is the viewpoint character whenever we are not following Polly, and plays his own role in the shaping of events. I personally didn't find them too onerous, though I can see the argument that it was overdone. Having a vital item literally dropped onto our protagonists, for instance. I give Sir Terry the credit of believing he wasn't simply "trapped" by circumstances in the story but opted for the humor of the resulting scene since there is no mystery for the reader as compared to the characters. We know Vimes did it, even a bit of why he did it. It is the fact itself that can feel too convenient.

The validity of Vimes' role aside, I can also understand why some people find the climax a bit too easily handled. That said, I do not share these complaints, as I believe the book contains within its own message, and the events, the corollary to the apparently "easy" victory. Because in the Discworld, as in our world, there is no magic moment where everything changes for the better. Things do get better, but the next day will come, and eventually, you'll have to work to make things better still, or simply keep what you have gained. The book does not give us a happy ending, at least not the kind we're generally used to. Some characters get as close to a happy ending as they can hope for, but there is no happily ever after, and Polly in particular has no certain ending, just a path she chooses.

As I did with my first review, I will not give this a letter grade. I will say I do enjoy this one slightly more than I do Carpe Jugulum, but that's like asking me to choose between two fine dishes I enjoy dining on. Each has its own strengths, its taste, and texture, setting it apart from the other, and I enjoy both equally. As I said before, the Discworld is a setting about stories, and these are both good and meaningful stories. In this case, it is also about how our own petty-mindedness, our own stupidity, can destroy everything we love if we let it. Blindly following the same path of those who came before us, without regard for where we are, is a path to the same doom that Polly and her country face in this book, and you can't just ignore the big problems while caring about small ones. As Polly herself will eventually put it, if you want to care about small things, you have to start caring about big ones, and even the world might not be big enough.

Consider this book highly recommended.

Black text is your brave guest editor Gary Stevens

Red is your only slightly demented editor Dr. Ben Allen.