[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Terry Pratchett (was: Smell of Cabbage)

[Kathryn Cawte]

Kathryn said:
>>My current favourite is Night Watch - but you really need to read the
other
Watch books first. It's the Discworld does Les Mis, although more subtley
than he did Macbeth.>>
 
OK, I'll bite.  I've never seen Les Mis, how does Night Watch parallel it?
 
Abigail
 
Now firstly let me say it doesn't have the same plot, but it has several
recognizeable elements from it. Secondly I read the book at Christmas and am
now hazy on the setails, have to read it again.  The major action in the
musical (since the book is big enough to use as a table at a dinner for 6
and as such covers much more) is set in an uprising in Paris between the
students and the authorities which is crushed. The barricades are where a
lot of it happens. Simultaneously we have a policeman hunting down a
murderer (although admittedly the murderer is our hero, who is assuming the
identity of someone else).Several of the scenes during the rebellion
parallel scenes from the musical, especially the army charging the barricade
and the resistors raising a flag. The most obvious bit (I thought) was that
in the musical there is a street kid called Gavroche (who eventually dies
risking his life for the rebellion). He's a thief and a ragged little urchin
- he's also Nobby to a T.

Oh and the memorial Vetinari suggests at the end, seven men raising a flag .
.. go and look at the Les Mis logo sometime.

Really like I said it's subtle but as someone who has seen the musical and
listens to the soundtrack regularly there are just enough lifted scenes and
parallels to make it obvious that it's deliberate, without turning the book
into Les Mis itself.

K