It’s time to listen to and discuss Year of the Pig
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Even if you listened to it before and just want to discuss it - dive right in! Just please use spoiler tags!
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I know what @deltaandthebannermen is going to say about this one and I already agree. I found this one quite unbearably tedious and unfunny, and I didn’t much like the side characters either. I don’t think I found it boring at least
As I said in my review: I’m really glad it exists, as it shows the range of stories you can do under the Doctor Who umbrella. However I found it interminably dull.
Wasn’t a big fan of this on a first listen, but on relistens where I know what to expect from it it’s become a real favorite. Everybody eats approximately ten meals over about a day and a half while talking to each other in their poshest accents. Peri spoils Proust for the Doctor just because he’s being a bit of a pretentious ass. Just a delightfully cozy story.
Biggest point against it is that it’s just waaaaay too long to be a 2-parter, especially when it is such a meandering low-action story. First part is over 75 minutes long and as much as I enjoy the cozy vibes I’m ready for a break point well before then. And at least in part 1, there’s a really natural cliffhanger point right in the middle (when they enter Toby’s room and Albertine uses the weapon on them) which makes me think it may have been written as four parts but forced into two because it’s meant to be in the middle of S22[1]. If it were 4 parts or just a bit shorter I’d likely give it a 4.5/5, but as is I’d say 4 stars.
though I reject that timeline placement because purely on vibes I think it should be much later for 6+Peri, and tend to think of it as shortly before The Reaping ↩︎
Also just have to say that 2006 was an insanely good year for Peri audios like there are no misses here just four of my favorite stories with her
Easily the worst BF story that isn’t Nekromanteia. Barely worth the 1/10 I’ve given it. Want to know why, read my review. I have tried really hard to ‘get’ this story and try to see why some people love it so much but almost every bit of it just rubs me up the wrong way. I struggle with a lot of Matthew Sweet’s writing but this is the worst of the bunch.
You guys are mean to this one.
Really charming and unique, I found that it was brimming with creativity and had a real sense of style to it that’s hard to find in any other story.
I can tell why some people really don’t like it but I had a blast.
Full review here, if you enjoy, please leave a like
Can definitely tell that ol’ mate Matty is squeezing his literary doctorate for all it’s worth for the background details here… but I quite like it. It’s weird and it gets into societal treatment of the Other, looking at how the ‘freakshow’ mentality results in some… interesting notions of how human beings should be treated; I dig this kind of commentary, especially with how it relates to the national mood on the eve of World War I.
Had an interesting moment while reading @deltaandthebannermen’s review of this:
‘look how intellectual I can make this ostensibly silly and escapist children’s sci-fi show..aren’t I clever’.
One of those “the reason why you hate it is the reason why I love it” moments for me, lol
Yeah, I fully admit that part of my issue with this story is it made me feel a bit stupid. But I am an English Literature graduate so really I shouldn’t feel as put out by something like this as I feel. I suppose this is one of those situations where I feel that, whilst it may a good piece of writing, it isn’t a good piece of Doctor Who and when I’m picking up a Doctor Who story, I want the latter more than the former. The sweet spot is when it is good mix of both, of course.
Maureen O’Brien is very good though.
You have more formal education on such things than I do. Knowing about Sweet’s background, I went in fully prepared to have a lot of literary references to go over my head (what I call the ‘League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ effect). Whatever knowledge I have about sensation fiction is all second-hand (or maybe even third-hand), but it felt like I got the gist of what it was going for.
With that in mind, I absolutely understand that “am I too stupid for this?” reaction. Not even just for this specifically, but as a general response to a given work; I’ve had my fair share of such in my own line of work. Personally, I’m willing to gel with stories that make certain assumptions about how much I know about certain subjects, so long as it makes the prospect of making the effort to learn more about such things seem worthwhile for extra context, rather than absolutely essential to understand what is even happening.
Honestly I didn’t see anything particularly intellectual or pretentious about this audio? I can see how you can say that about “Ish” but not this one. It’s more silly than anything else, but not obnoxiously so[1]
I listened to this again last month and I still enjoyed it. I think DW needs more low-stakes stories.
(I know I say that line a lot, but there are some audios whose humor really irritates me. I prefer them more in the line of YotP where it doesn’t feel like the author is trying to be as over-the-top quirky as possible to force a laugh out of you. Dial it back.) ↩︎
All the stuff about Proust for starters which goes nowhere but seems to be really ‘important’ to the narrative. Do we need to understand or know about Proust to understand or appreciate why those references are in the script?
Loads of back story for each character which contributes nothing to the story whatsoever (except within the characterisation I suppose, but there is so much of it that none of it really lands.)
The ‘witty’ script which just ends up feeling, as I say in my review, like the person at the party you end up nodding and smiling politely at desperate for the opportunity to make your apologies and find someone else to talk to.
And those scenes where Toby lists all the food which just go on and on and on and on and on… why?
But I celebrate that Doctor Who can do different types of stories and accept that this really lands for some people despite leaving me completely cold (and not a little inferior). And I did enjoy it slightly more second time round so maybe it will grow on me over time (but at two and half hours (in only two episodes!) I’ll need a fair amount of willpower to give it another go).
I don’t know much about Proust, (I say, while looking at the copy of Swann’s Way I picked up from a “free books” shelf specifically because of this audio, but haven’t touched since), but I was never under the impression that the references were for anything but a running gag and a bit of extra characterization.
Now we know that Peri is an avid reader, that she managed to read Proust years before the Doctor ever did, and that they have this interest in common. It was just a coincidence that the author happened to also be at the resort they were staying at, and all the characters knew it. And since pigs like to eat and Proust’s books are also known for their vivid descriptions of food, it all kind of ties into each other.
I would say this story is arguably more accessible than the other Six stories with Poe and Lovecraft, or the one with Jamie in the Land of Fiction, because those stories actually took place within authors’ literary worlds. The writers expect you to have some knowledge of the plot and settings of the authors they’re highlighting.
The Ultimate Poe expects you to know the ins and outs of Poe’s works because Six and Mel jump from poem to poem. The entire audio takes place within numerous settings of the poet’s creation and Six and Mel use their knowledge of the poems to help them out of sticky situations.
The Lovecraft Invasion includes characters that Lovecraft created along with explicit references to concepts he included in his books. It also features the author in a speaking role
The Land of Fiction one is a mix of both of those.
Meanwhile Year of the Pig takes place in Belgium, which has nothing to do with Proust, and features characters that are not of his creation. The writer could have switched “Proust” with some fake name and nothing about the story would have changed. You can’t do that so much with the others.
I’ll say that I know pretty much nothing about Proust and don’t really feel like I’m being left out by the story. I get a sense that there are some layers that might enhance the story more if I did, but not that I’m missing anything essential.
I do think this one comes down to mainly just being a small eclectic cast of characters talking to each other and revealing bits about their lives without a whole lot in the way of plot and without going much of anywhere. Can definitely understand that that’s just not what a lot of people want, but I find it really charming when I know what to expect from it, and definitely don’t feel like it’s trying to be too intellectual as to feel condescending.
As mentioned above though, big agree on the length. Really should have been 4 parts (and/or just edited down closer to two hours, though I do find the slow meandering pace to be a big part of what works here, so not sure I’d actually want to lose that much)
And to me that makes Proust’s inclusion even more baffling and a sign of ‘look how clever I am because I’m referencing Proust’. I would much rather a story using an author or their writings as an inspiration actually use those things - TV Who does it too, like The Unquiet Dead or The Unicorn and the Wasp.
If Proust is just there then, what’s the point? So we find out Peri has read all his writings? And? So Sweet can include lots of (very long) scenes of a talking pig listing what it wants to eat because Proust used to include long lists of food in his works? (But thank you for that information because that’s something I didn’t know and means at least one aspect of this story now makes a lot more sense).
It references Proust specifically because it definitely is engaging with his style and themes. What little I know about À la recherche du temps perdu is that it is an early example of stream of consciousness literature and is generally more introspective rather than action or plot-driven, and Year of the Pig definitely follows in that style. It also deals heavily with themes of memory and I imagine some of that is being pretty directly engaged with in the audio.
Adding to this conversation by saying that I love a bit of Proust, but hadn’t read any when I first listened to this story. I did have a working knowledge of Proust-isms, though (my mum’s a big fan[1]! I thought he was one of the universally known European writers like Chekhov and Tolstoy but I’ve come to realise he isn’t.)—so I recognised the influences.
I enjoy The Year of the Pig a lot. It definitely is too long! But I appreciate the contemplative and light-hearted atmosphere, and the plot being apparently so random but actually very nicely constructed. I can see how people might not enjoy it, though!
and also knows Matthew Sweet a bit so disclaimer there ↩︎
None of this is convincing me that this story isn’t talking down to me… 
Definitely a YMMV thing, because I’m of the opposite opinion. It’s like that joke people make about English class assignments “Why did the author choose blue curtains for the story?” Maybe they just wanted them blue, there doesn’t need to be a reason.
I don’t think every addition to a story has to have a deep meaning, or be relevant to the plot. It’s nice to just have something exist because the author wanted it to, and that’s all. 
Idk I guess I just don’t feel that. Like I said, I felt like it was perfectly understandable and compelling on its own without knowing about Proust. Lots of art is influenced by other works and draws from and engages with them, but that conversation between works is generally a layer that enhances something for those familiar rather than a barrier to those who aren’t, and for me that’s very much the case here. If anything, I feel interested in potentially reading Proust in order to get more understanding of this story that I love, but I don’t feel that I’m being talked down to for not having read it already.
