Wednesday 2 December 2020

Wyrd Sisters [#books #review]

by Terry Pratchett

Discworld
Sourcery
Pyramids


'What's to be afraid of?' she [Magrat] managed.
'Us,' said Granny Weatherwax, smugly.
(Page 17)

This book is amazing! It's fun (a lot!), it's engaging, it has wonderful characters, a very sweet love story, many absurd situations, fantastic settings, yet in all of this I found a metaphor of the current time that we are experiencing right now, and I almost don't believe that the book was written more than thirty years ago.
I think I missed a few things reading it in English, but I also think that some of those were puns that are still untranslatable and that therefore I would have missed the same, and I'm really glad I enjoyed Pratchett's original words because as always in this aspect, too, this book was incredible! A style that changes with the characters or with the scene, various reference from many sources, and Pratchett's usual brilliant way of using words.
I say it again, an amazing book, and I should say it again and again because saying it only once seems too little to show how much I loved it!

Quotes

The wind howled. Lightning stabbed at the earth erratically, like an inefficient assassin. Thunder rolled back and forth across the dark, rain-lashed hills.
[incipit]

Quaffing is like drinking, but you spill more.
(Page 15)

Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things. Well-known fact.
Granny
(Page 36)

He was pretty certain, though, that the witch wouldn't like the idea. He didn't like the idea of a witch not liking the idea.
(Page 54)

Magrat: He said Verence died of natural causes.
Granny: Well, being assassinated is natural causes for a king.
(Page 69)

'You're—you're not going to force me to go back [to the witches], are you?' he [the tax gatherer] said.
'Um?' said the duke. He waved a hand irritably. 'No, no,' he said. 'Not at all. Just call in at the torturer on your way out. See when he can fit you in.'
The taxman gave him a look of gratitude, and bobbed a bow.
(Page 72)

A year went past. The days followed one another patiently. Right back at the beginning of the multiverse they had tried all passing at the same time, and it hadn't worked.
(Page 75)

b'zugda-hiara: a killing insult in Dwarfish, but here used as a term of endearment. It means 'lawn ornament.'
(Page 105)

He'd been told not to let witches pass, but no-one had said anything about apple sellers. Apple sellers were not a problem. It was witches that were the problem. She'd said she was an apple seller and he wasn't about to doubt a witch's word.
(Page 144)

Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.
(Page 145)

Ninety percent of true love is acute, ear-burning embarrassment.
(Page 160)

'But milk jugs don't just drop out of the sky,' said Tomjon, demonstrating the astonishing human art of denying the obvious.
(Page 259)

Within seconds his face went white. His teeth began to chatter. He clutched at his stomach and groaned.
The observant will realize that this was because the king [a ghost] was already seated there. It was not because the man had used the phrase 'commence to start' in cold blood. But it ought to have been.
(Page 275)

The theater worried her. It had a magic of its own, one that didn't belong to her, one that wasn't in her control. [...] And it was worse than that. It was magic that didn't belong to magical people. It was commanded by ordinary people, who didn't know the rules. They altered the world because it sounded better.
(Page 276)

I'd like to know if I could compare you to a summer's day. Because — well, June 12th was quite nice, and...
The Fool
(Page 281)

We're bound to be truthful. But there's no call to be honest.
(Page 330)

Destiny is important, see, but people go wrong when they think it controls them. It's the other way around.
Granny
(Page 331)

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for commenting!

The Crocodile [#books #reviews]

by Maurizio De Giovanni Rating: 8 /10