Bibliography
Dec. 29th, 2013 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyDodger - Terry Pratchett
This is a Pratchett set in London, with Charles Dickens and the lad known as Dodger playing the starring roles. It's essentially a reimagining of the Artful Dodger without Oliver Twist - a young lad in the streets of more-or-less historical London who has the good luck to fall in with a Jewish refugee now settled in the city, and who finds himself with a wonderful opportunity to better himself and save the woman he loves. With a good dash of international politics.
It is, I hasten to add, a children's book, which explains some of the 'explaining the basics' passages, albeit about some of the best bits of London history - what a tosher is, how international politics works (i.e. marrying off spare princesses to stop countries fighting each other, which actually is A Bit Odd if you think about it), the London sewers (Bazalgette gets a cameo!), a bit of London politics, the people who did the great poverty survey, Dickens himself... all of which is familiar ground to an old cove like me who's spent quite a long time pottering around Victorian London one way or another, but which would be brilliant and fresh for a young adult reader with a bit of a historical bent. It's also quite nice to have a way of explaining Dickens in a way that might get past the 'you have to read Great Expectations and like it' problem that does sometimes turn up with school set texts.
Although there are the occasional passages, as I have indicated, where the Tone is aimed at younger readers and it feels a bit jarring, in the main I found this fairly entertaining, undemanding and good fun. There are some passages which feel as if they are repetitive if you know Pratchett's other works, particularly the ones involving Vimes and the general badlands of Ankh-Morpork's criminal underworld - I suppose it's difficult to completely rephrase one's set stock of observations on poverty and naughtiness, but there were the odd deja-vu moments. Never mind - a pleasing Christmas read for a Boxing Day afternoon.
This is a Pratchett set in London, with Charles Dickens and the lad known as Dodger playing the starring roles. It's essentially a reimagining of the Artful Dodger without Oliver Twist - a young lad in the streets of more-or-less historical London who has the good luck to fall in with a Jewish refugee now settled in the city, and who finds himself with a wonderful opportunity to better himself and save the woman he loves. With a good dash of international politics.
It is, I hasten to add, a children's book, which explains some of the 'explaining the basics' passages, albeit about some of the best bits of London history - what a tosher is, how international politics works (i.e. marrying off spare princesses to stop countries fighting each other, which actually is A Bit Odd if you think about it), the London sewers (Bazalgette gets a cameo!), a bit of London politics, the people who did the great poverty survey, Dickens himself... all of which is familiar ground to an old cove like me who's spent quite a long time pottering around Victorian London one way or another, but which would be brilliant and fresh for a young adult reader with a bit of a historical bent. It's also quite nice to have a way of explaining Dickens in a way that might get past the 'you have to read Great Expectations and like it' problem that does sometimes turn up with school set texts.
Although there are the occasional passages, as I have indicated, where the Tone is aimed at younger readers and it feels a bit jarring, in the main I found this fairly entertaining, undemanding and good fun. There are some passages which feel as if they are repetitive if you know Pratchett's other works, particularly the ones involving Vimes and the general badlands of Ankh-Morpork's criminal underworld - I suppose it's difficult to completely rephrase one's set stock of observations on poverty and naughtiness, but there were the odd deja-vu moments. Never mind - a pleasing Christmas read for a Boxing Day afternoon.
