Пратчетт идет изумительно легко. И интересно. Не то что бы это удивительно, особенно учитывая, что я, как оказалось, вообще не помню "разгадки" и сути интриги в
Men at Arms Ну так сколько лет прошло. Я только помню мелкие детали, что "вот там было смешное, а еще была такая-то сцена где-то в книге,
а может, это в другой книге было", ну и еще некоторые вещи вспоминаю пост-фактум: ахчерт! точно, вот это же было! Я прям помню!..
Но я сейчас читаю в оригинале и поражаюсь легкости текста. Он прямо бежит. Видимо, все-таки английский весьма заметно вырос с тех пор, как я читала его на английском последний раз. Не то что бы было так уж сложно, но тяжелее, чем сейчас. (Хотя я сейчас не понимаю - как. Такой легкий текст. Вообще. Может, это в этой конкретной книге?..)
Но все-таки тогда это были мои первые
книги на английском. Все-таки фанфики, даже самые крутые и навороченные - немного не то ><. Не то что бы нет книг, которые читаются легче некоторых фиков - естественно, есть, - но все же.
С тех пор я много разного-другого читала, и смотрела, и общалась, и проч, и проч.
Просто ощущение, что я прям раз! - и проглатываю, - и меня это радует. Потому что Пратчетт - довольно-таки нескончаемый, и пока я не прочту большую часть
ВСЕГО, у меня не наступит, гм... назовем это "синдромом третьей части ВК"
(аррр, каждый момент, когда приходится так вот делить, меня расстраивает, но куда ж денешься. в любом случае, не называю их книгами, потому что книга - одна. с другой стороны, частей - шесть >< ).
И да. Я листал у Нины недавно Пратчеттовский тег. И. Эта. Я не думал, что оно и правда так сложно - не выписывать >< Я совсем забыл уже, да!
Здесь, правда, это немного сглаживается тем, что я читаю в электронном виде, а у меня там даже не отметишь как-то, если только страницы записывать. Но вот немножко.
Тут я как раз остановилась, практически - чуть дальше, - и это прекрасно. ))"And there's dwarfs breaking windows and everything!" said the grocer. "A dog's not safe!"
"You can't trust 'em," said Cuddy.
The grocer stared at him. "Are you a dwarf?" he said.
"Amazing! How do
people do it," said Cuddy.~~
еще парочкаMany great landscape gardeners have gone down in history and been remembered in a very solid way by the magnificent parks and gardens that they designed with almost god-like power and foresight, thinking nothing oi making lakes and shifting hills and planting woodlands to enable future generations to appreciate the sublime beauty of wild Nature transformed by Man. There have been Capability Brown, Sagacity Smith, Intuition De Vere Slade-Gore . . .
In Ankh-Morpork, there was Bloody Stupid Johnson.
Bloody Stupid 'It Might Look A Bit Messy Now But Just You Come Back In Five Hundred Years' Time' Johnson. Bloody Stupid 'Look, The Plans Were The Right Way Round When I Drew Them' Johnson. Bloody Stupid Johnson, who had 2,000 tons of earth built into an artificial hillock in front of Quirm Manor because 'It'd drive me mad to have to look at a bunch of trees and mountains all day long, how about you?'
The Ankh-Morpork palace grounds were considered the high spot, if such it could be called, of his career. For example, they contained the ornamental trout lake, one hundred and fifty yards long and, because of one of those trifling errors of notation that were such a distinctive feature of Bloody Stupid's designs, one inch wide. It was the home of one trout, which was quite comfortable provided it didn't try to turn around, and had once featured an ornate fountain which, when first switched on, did nothing but groan ominously for five minutes and then fire a small stone cherub a thousand feet into the air.
It contained the hoho, which was like a haha only deeper. A haha is a concealed ditch and wall designed to allow landowners to look out across rolling vistas without getting cattle and inconvenient poor people wandering across the lawns. Under Bloody Stupid's errant pencil it was dug fifty feet deep and had claimed three gardeners already.
The maze was so small that people got lost looking for it.
But the Patrician rather liked the gardens, in a quiet kind of way. He had certain views about the mentality of most of mankind, and the gardens made him feel fully justified.
~~
Vimes smiled. Someone was trying to kill him, and that made him feel more alive than he had done for days.
And they were also slightly less intelligent than he was. This is a quality you should always pray for in your would-be murderer.
He dropped the pole, picked up the crossbow, spun past the window, fired at an indistinct shape on the opera house roof opposite as if the bow could possibly carry across that range, leapt across the room and wrenched at the door. Something smashed into the doorframe as the door swung to behind him.
Then it was down the back stairs, out of the door, over the privy roof, into Knuckle Passage, up the back steps of Zorgo the Retrophrenologist, into Zorgo's operating room and over to the window.
Zorgo and his current patient looked at him curiously. Pugnant's roof was empty. Vimes turned back and met a pair of puzzled gazes.
" 'Morning, Captain Vimes," said the retrophrenologist, a hammer still upraised in one massive hand.
Vimes smiled manically.
"Just thought—" he began, and then went on, "—I saw an interesting rare butterfly on the roof over there."
Troll and patient stared politely past him. "But there wasn't," said Virnes. He walked back to the door. "Sorry to have bothered you," he said, and left. Zorgo's patient watched him go with interest.
"Didn't he have a crossbow?" he said. "Bit odd, going after interesting rare butterflies with a crossbow."
Zorgo readjusted the fit of the grid on his patient's bald head.
"Dunno," he said, "I suppose it stops them creating all these damn thunderstorms."
~~
Cuddy had only been a guard for a few days, but already he had absorbed one important and basic fact: it is almost impossible for anyone to be in a street without breaking the law. There are a whole quiverful of offences available to a policeman who wishes to pass the time of day with a citizen, ranging from Loitering with Intent through Obstruction to Lingering While Being the Wrong Colour/Shape/Species/Sex. It occurred briefly to him that anyone not making a dash for it when they saw Detritus knuckling along at high speed behind them was probably guilty of contravening the Being Bloody Stupid Act of 1581. But it was too late to take that into account. Someone was running, and they were chasing. They were chasing because he was running, and he was running because they were chasing.
~~
Ну и просто.
"It's his badge," said Carrot. "Good grief. He's holding it so tight it's cut right into his hand."