The Auditors are at it again. They usually are.
Summary
We begin to learn about the Life of Wen the Eternally Surprised at the moment of his enlightenment about time. Death and the Death of Rats have noted that the Auditors of Reality are up to something, though they’re uncertain exactly what. Death asks to see a beginning and is shown Nanny Ogg being visited at different times in her life by a figure who insists that she must come to midwife a birth. She finally does come and help as an old woman, and then returns home. Death takes out an album of memories and remembers when he was part of the group of five Horsemen instead of having a “solo career.” He wonders if he should call on old friends. He thinks he might need to call on family again, though he promised he wouldn’t. Jeremy Clockson is visited by Lady Myria LeJean, who wants to employ him to make the most accurate clock in existence. Jeremy is the greatest clockmaker on the Disc, left at the clockmaking guild’s doorstep at birth. He takes medication now because he once killed a fellow clockmaker for running his clocks five minutes off. LeJean gives him a downpayment, suggests he read a specific fairy tale, and promises to bring him invar (a special metal) to make the clock.
Buy the Book
The Crane Husband
Susan is a teacher at present, and currently teaching her class about time by transporting her classroom to various locales across the Disc. She gets a message during her lessons from her grandfather to see him. The History Monks are having difficulty with a novice named Ludd (he is too smart and things always seem to disappear when he’s in the room, which they assume is down to theft), so they decide to apprentice him to Lu-Tze. Jeremy reads the fairy tale in the book given to him and finds that it’s about a glass clock and captures Time, only it breaks because it has one piece that isn’t glass. He has a dream about the clock and wakes to find a delivery on his doorstep—an Igor has been hired to be his assistant. His milk is delivered at its usual time by Mr. Soak, and Jeremy finds out that all of Igor’s previous masters were mad. He insists that he’s not and Igor makes himself useful. Lobsang Ludd (who used to be Newgate Ludd before he was brought into the order) reports to Lu-Tze with a letter, and an order for him to present them both to the abbot in the Inner Temple. Lobsang is shocked that Lu-Tze is allowed to do this and also confused about his reputation; he is talked about as an incredible maverick of sorts, but he’s only a sweeper with a garden.
As they walk through the temple dojo, Lu-Tze is challenged by one of the monks who is furious a sweeper would dare come through. Lu-Tze is unbothered. Jeremy tries to write down the plans for the clock based on his dream only to find it’s not quite right. He finds out that Igor’s grandfather worked on the glass clock—it was real, and then, once it was destroyed, it was as though it was never made. The dojo fighter learns who he has challenged and is mortified. Lu-Tze asks the dojo master if he can introduce Lobsang to the Device of Erratic Balls as they move through. Then they move onto the Mandala, which horrifies Lobsang because he can see different sorts of patterns in it. He has a flashback to his recruitment that is maybe just him stepping into the past and then is back a moment later. Lu-Tze goes to see the abbot (who is currently a baby via reincarnation) and talks to him about Lobsang, specifically the fact that he can understand the mandala and do many things he shouldn’t be able to do. This is the reason Lu-Tze has been given charge of him. Susan has a meeting with Madam Frout, her school’s headmistress, because parents are balking at her teaching methods, but she doesn’t much care about that.
As Susan and Madam Frout are talking (and Frout is realizing yet again that she cannot sack Susan or even let her leave or she’d have no students), the Death of Rats shows up. Susan stops time, complains about being summoned and follows him anyway. The abbot and monks know that Lu-Tze is the right person to train Lobsang because he learned his own way, which is why he’s a sweeper instead of a high monk; he could never be trained by their methods, but he has special abilities that he imbued in himself. Lu-Tze agrees that there’s no other option and he’ll have to train the kid to find his own unique way. Susan goes to the gentleman’s club Fidgett’s to talk to her grandfather, who explains that the clock from the fairy tale was real and being built again, that the Auditors are involved, and that if it is completed the world will end next Wednesday. Death cannot see where the clock is being made because it’s being kept from him by someone… like him. This is why he needs Susan’s help. It turns out that Time had a son with a mortal. Dr. Hopkins of the guild comes to see Jeremy at his scheduled interval to check on him and bring more medicine. When he leaves, Jeremy tips his allotted daily spoonful into the sink, as he’s been doing since starting this new project.
Commentary
Okay, so I either haven’t read this one, or don’t remember it well, so this will be fun…
…but also a little sad because we are reaching a point in the Discworld series where we will start hitting last stories within certain groupings. Obviously, Death is always around, and there is one more short story starring him, but this is effectively the last Death book, and the last Susan book.
There’s a lot of setup happening in this one, as well as philosophy around what time is and what it’s for, or at least how it’s perceived. Or as Wen says to Clodpool, “People need to be able to waste time, to make time, to lose time, and buy time.” Time is perhaps one of the wildest constructs the mind insists upon using, so obviously there’s a lot to play with there. And then we have the extra bonus of having Time personified (appreciate that it’s a woman instead of the usual Father Time deal) and having had a child, which is enough to make even Death squirm.
We’ve got two sons of guilds who don’t fit within their assigned briefs despite being extremely talented, which I’m sure isn’t at all important. (And obviously one of them is Time’s kid.) Is the constant use of the Igors getting to be a bit much for me? I think it might be, even if it does make sense here. Just a little too much Igor.
And, of course, we’re back with Susan, who now has a school job where she’s kind of Ms. Frizzle-ing her way into being the greatest teacher via wild trips. I’m not sure if that was the intention, but I like the idea of exchanging Poppins for Frizzle here. (I also can’t really fault Susan for thinking people should pass proper exams before becoming parents; obviously that’s a very bad idea in practice, but it constantly amazes me how little thought people put into why they want to be parents. Because we societally don’t really think people need reasons. It’s just, as Pratchett would put it, how we’ve always done things.)
While I don’t think that Madam Frout’s methods for teaching are terrible on their face, the thing about Susan’s methods that I always appreciate is refusing to treat students or charges like children. That was always a pet peeve for me as a student, personally. Like I get it, I’m a kid, but you don’t have to rub that in, thanks.
Then we get our wonderfully awkward grandfather-granddaughter chat, and when they start talking about time we get this bit: “YOU MUST NOT CONFUSE THE CONTENT WITH THE CONTAINER.” Which brings me to mind of an argument that happened a while back online where people wanted to know if the Kool-Aid Man was his Kool-Aid or only his jug, and now I’m trying to apply that to this view of time and… you know what, I’m gonna stop. My brain’s clearly had it for today.
Asides and little thoughts:
- On mugs that say things like “To The World’s Greatest Grandad”: “Only someone whose life contains very little else, one feels, would treasure a piece of gimcrackery like this.” With the large caveat that you can like whatever you like, fellow humans, I cannot pretend that I don’t regularly have this exact thought. Just incredibly allergic to the Michael’s-fication of home decor.
- The description of Lu-Tze says that he “was sort of generically ethnic, so that he looked as though he could have come from anywhere,” which is… a sort of fascinating (accidental, one hopes) centering of whiteness when you think about it. Because the description using the word “ethnic” means he couldn’t actually come from anywhere—it suggests that he could only come from “anywhere” that “ethnic”-appearing people come from (i.e. not where white people come from). Which isn’t being treated as bad or good in context of the narrative, but it is relevant for being an extremely white person way to frame ethnic appearance as other.
- I can’t help but be amused that The Matrix’s “there is no spoon” convo has become shorthand for philosophy that people don’t really understand.
Pratchettisms:
The apprentice gave him a bleary look. It was too early in the morning for it to be early in the morning.
A sign emerged, rather shakily, on springs, with an effect that was the visual equivalent of the word “boing.”
WITCHES ARE MATRILINEAL, said Death. THEY FIND IT MUCH EASIER TO CHANGE MEN THAN TO CHANGE NAMES.
True, the book had said that Time got trapped in the clock, but Jeremy had no interest whatsoever in things that were Made Up.
And there she met the tiny part of Death which found it hard to deal with people when it thought of them as real.
There were still a few late lunchers frozen in their work, napkins tucked under their chin, in an atmosphere of happy carbohydrates.
The ascent of mankind must have been a boon to them. At last there was a species that could be persuaded to shoot itself in the foot.
Next week we’ll read up to:
He brought the sword down and cut off the yeti’s head.
Thoughts
One of my favorite books. Lobsang and Lu-Tze, Death and Susan, Auditors in human form, and the Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Apocralypse in other books ).
And chocolate.
What more could you want?
In this part, it’s basically just introducing the characters. The new ones are Lobsang Ludd, the personification of time who had a son, Jeremy, a mysterious woman named Lady Myria LeJean, and an Igor (not one we’ve met previously).
Thoughts on Emmet’s thoughts
I also regret not seeing Susan again but as, this is also the last of the Auditors, it makes sense in the overall arc of the stories. Besides, not to give it away, but Susan’s exit is sublime.
I think this is the last of the old school mad scientist and lightning Igors and, beyond his significance to the plot, I could forgive his existence solely for the “We R Igors” placement agency.
I agree with your comments on ‘vaguely ethnic’ but I also believe it reflects a trend in Pratchett’s British society (and, less so, American society) towards a polyglot community. In recent British politics there have been leading politicians of Indian, Pakistani, and Kurdish descent, but without the clues of their names you wouldn’t know. They might even be identified as suntanned whites, if Britain ever got sun.
Pratchettisms
My If life was a party, he wasn’t even in the kitchen. (Jeremy)
Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried its hands and the blood cleaned up. (re Jeremy)
The pigeon . . . joined the other pigeons . . . cooing very gently to them in pidgin pigeon.
Miss Susan had privately marked him down as Boy Most Likely To Be Killed One Day By His Wife. (re Vincent)
“There’s no educating a smart boy.” (Rimpo re Ludd, although not that far from Susan re Vincent)
“I’ve never been venerable, except in cases of bad spelling.” (Lu-Tze)
“Nice try but no cylindrical smoking thing.” said Lu-Tze. (I’m writing this as I smoke my cigar)
If children were weapons, Jason would have been banned by international treaty.
“It is the Way of Mrs. Marietta Cosmopilite, 3 Quirm Street, Ankh-Morpork, Rooms To Rent Very Reasonable. No, we don’t understand it, either. Some subscendental rubbish, apparently.” (senior monks – note subscendental is the opposite of transcendental)
Lu-Tze shook his head sadly. “And the sound of one hand clapping is a “cl,” he said.
Vitamins are eaten by wives. (from the footnote on gentlemen’s clubs)
“No one would be that stu–” Susan stopped. Of course someone would be that stupid. Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying “End-of-the-World switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH,” the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry.
HUMANS ARE THE MOST UNOBSERVANT PEOPLE IN THE UNIVERSE.
“Cultural” sort of solved problems by explaining that they weren’t really there. (Dr. Hopkins)
“Tetht the printhiple, tetht the printhiple,” muttered Igor. Thorry, thur, but Igorth do not ‘tetht the printhiple.’ Thtrap it to the bench and put a good thick bolt of lightning, that’th our motto. That’th how you tetht something.”
Notes
Jeremy Clockson is probably named for Jeremy Clarkson, the host of the Top Gear car show in Britain for many years.
We see what I think is the first c-mail (clacks-mail) address, Yethmarthter Uberwald. Discworld has not yet achieved domains (e.g. Yethmarther@uberwald.com).
Clodpool’s discussion with Wen about the coat reminds me of Hughnon’s discussion with Vetinari about the clacks.
““No one would be that stu–” Susan stopped. Of course someone would be that stupid. Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying “End-of-the-World switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH,” the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry.”
Having worked in retail, I agree. Fire exits clearly and unambiguously labelled as such in huge font, ‘FIRE EXIT: Only use in emergency’. (Mainly because said door is hotwired to set off an automatic alarm at the fire station). You may guess how many times every day the manager had to ring them up and say, “Sorry; another muppet”.
This was always a favorite of mine and not the last nor first time we have seen the monks. Lu Tze shows up in Small Gods and the Abbott had a walk on in Mort. The both provide some interesting commentary on organizations and humility.
Where has this book been published as *The* Thief of Time?
Jeremy is so relatable. He feels doomed to be left out of the social world, feels he doesn’t understand people, strives to create a persona of an ‘interesting person’ (and would do so via books and classes if they existed), and lectures eloquently on his subject of knowledge and passion to people who would rather be conversing conventionally.
It has been pointed out that the Abbot’s babyish talk and actions reflect his child body’s reactions to his adult-thought-based emotions. When relatively relaxed, he wants food. When frightened, he feels the need for a potty. When frustrated, he throws things and hits people.
I want to watch Nanny Ogg stroll into that club, eat the ‘gentleman’/’schoolboy’ food, and see if the men still won’t notice her presence.
‘There was a drumroll. Susan glanced down. The Death of Rats was seated in front of a tiny drum kit.’ That’s adorable.
Pratchettisms:
“Questions don’t have to make sense, Vincent. But answers do.’
‘It would be far too cynical to say that here the term “gentlemen” was simply defined as someone who can afford $500 a year. They also had to be approved of by a great many other gentlemen who could afford the same fee.’
I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THE END OF THE WORLD WAS EVERYONE’S RESPONSIBILITY, WOULDN’T YOU?
Looking back:
The Way of Mrs. Cosmopolite was first described as a footnote in Witches Abroad, another throwaway joke that became a hefty plot bunny. Mrs. Marietta Cosmopolite (now Cosmopilite in Thief of Time) appeared before that, as a Holy Wood costume-maker in Moving Pictures. Yet ancient Lu-Tze was ‘young’ when he discovered her and her Way. L-Space Wiki contributors have suggested multiple possible explanations for this.
Jeremy sleep-writes the plans for the clock all over his bed and its surroundings…as Dibbler sleep-wrote Blown Away. That bodes. (Does it *ever.* #cosmere) Though it’s said somewhere that this often happens to Leonard of Quirm.
Looking ahead:
This book introduces Grim Fairy Tales (probably written, compiled, or edited by Agoniza and Eviscera Grim) and the Ankh-Morpork tradition of Guilds raising their foundlings, which will respectively result in the human co-protagonists of a later book.
“Most of the time, I think [Ludd is] not all there.”
Near the very beginning: “Death picks up the mug in a skeletal hand……and took a sip, pausing only to look again at the wording he’d seen thousands of times before, and then put it down.”
The narrative here transitions from present to past tense within this single sentence. Why?
“It was hard to deal with people when a tiny part of you saw them as a temporary collection of atoms that would not be around in another few decades.”
I suspect Pratchett would be amused if he knew that all atoms in the human body are replaced every five years. https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/18427/are-all-the-atoms-in-our-bodies-replaced-on-a-regular-basis
@0: Susan has a meeting with Madam Frout, her school’s headmistress, because parents are balking at her teaching methods, but she doesn’t much care about that. Most parents, even the parents of the terrorific Jason, are happier with Susan teaching their children; her students actually learn. Some parents are nonplussed at their children being more self-reliant (e.g., going searching for closet monsters to smash instead of cowering from them), and one couple hear unexpected things about themselves, but few are unhappy. Miss Frout is very unhappy, because she thinks children should be children for much longer; she doesn’t like the fact that after a year with Susan children know what is a plausible plot and what is them being talked down to. (There are some people who shouldn’t be parents; there are a lot more who shouldn’t start schools, although the fraction of those who actually do is probably less.) In some ways the author’s view is an offshoot of C. S. Lewis’s despising “progressive” education (cf Eustace Scrubb, and the school he and Jill were at), which I disagree with — he was taking an either/or approach and ignoring the huge gray middle — but Pratchett starts (as you note) by appreciating someone who treats children as potential adults, which I don’t think Lewis would have approved of.
The clacks address of Igors R Us is precisely in period, given the newness of clacks; domains would be a century later.
A few more Pratchettisms:
Their dark glasses and huge ill-fitting black suits put them down as people who put people down. Not nice people, but nicely phrased.
No dog ever ate the homework of Miss Susan’s students, because there was something about Miss Susan that went home with them; the dog brought them a pen and watched imploringly while they finished it, instead.
Up until now, Jeremy’s definition of “people” had not included anyone with more stitches than a handbag.
When you look into the abyss, it’s not supposed to wave back.
I’m always intrigued by people saying “this is my favourite Pratchett, I always go back to it” because for me it’s the reverse. It’s the only Pratchett that I haven’t reread, and I remember thinking when I read it “oh dear, is this the point at which Pratchett stops being any good”.
(Everything that follows is my opinion and you aren’t a bad person for disagreeing with any or all of it.)
It wasn’t, of course, the beginning of the end; the very next mainstream Discworld novel is the amazing Night Watch, but Thief of Time always struck me as weak.
The “Jeremy Clockson! Clockson! Because it sounds a bit like Clarkson!” joke is very thin and you’re reminded of how thin it is every time he appears.
We don’t see Death or Susan at their best, because they work best when they have comic and/or grounded characters to play off against, like Mort or Albert or Mrs Flitworth. Everyone in Thief of Time is serious and ethereal and driven by big mystic forces; it needs a Vimes or a Nanny Ogg, or even a Medium Dave. (Nanny’s there but she doesn’t get enough screen time.)
Jeremy doesn’t really have a personality as such because he isn’t really human as such.
Lu-Tze is good as a major supporting character helping to drive the action along, as we’ll see in Night Watch, but he’s being asked to carry a lot of the plot here as a main character and I don’t think he’s strong enough; it feels like we’ve always seen him from outside, never from inside his head, and that’s not good for a main character.
And the Auditors are not much good as villains; by definition they don’t have personalities or needs. They were good as a one-off in Reaper Man but it was a mistake to bring them back.
The description of Lu-Tze says that he “was sort of generically ethnic, so that he looked as though he could have come from anywhere,” which is… a sort of fascinating (accidental, one hopes) centering of whiteness when you think about it.
I would read this as “wherever he was, he looked as if he came from somewhere else”. Which is another dig at the “Way of Mrs Cosmopilite” joke about wisdom always being better received if it comes from somewhere else. The point is that Lu-Tze looks slightly foreign everywhere he goes.
Pratchett here is poking fun at a certain sort of mild UK bigotry that uses “ethnic” as an adjective for all non-white people lumped together, derived from “ethnic minorities”. So the idea of someone looking generically ethnic is a comic contradiction in terms – he can’t look Afro-Caribbean and South Asian and Chinese and Arab all at once! But by having “ethnics” as a single category when we talk about people, we’re implying that there is something that all these “ethnics” have in common apart from just not being white.
@9 – I can see where you’re coming from and, to a certain extent, I agree with you.
This is certainly not a serious book and it doesn’t really advance anyone’s story arc (other than Susan’s). Instead it seems more of what in architecture is called a folly. And I, personally, love it for that.
This seems to be Pratchett unhinged, as if it’s his random thoughts, people, and jokes that he’s written on his bedsheets.
It’s much more something to be enjoyed rather than something to be considered. It’s comfort food rather than haute cuisine.
But as you point out Pratchett’s edge will come back with a vengeance in subsequent books.
One note, as far as Jeremy’s search for a personality, it reminds me of T. J. Klune’s excellent book How to Be a Normal Person.
@5 Jeremy is so relatable. He feels doomed to be left out of the social world, feels he doesn’t understand people, strives to create a persona of an ‘interesting person’ (and would do so via books and classes if they existed), and lectures eloquently on his subject of knowledge and passion to people who would rather be conversing conventionally.
In some ways, Jeremy is indeed relatable, but when Pratchett writes about his conversations where he bores people with descriptions of clocks and implies that Jeremy is unaware of why people don’t find the convo stimulating – that’s a level of ignorance I’ve never seen in an adult. It’s not believable imo. It’s justified, though, if you consider that Jeremy isn’t quite human.
Jeremy is extremely autistic. He plays into certain negative stereotypes of autistic adults, particularly those who would have been known by the outdated and ableist term “savant.” His special interest is monetizable and can be parlayed into a productive career but doing so requires guidance, medication and management. I’ve known several adults, some in assisted living, who exhibit very similar traits.
@8: I suspect Pratchett was quite aware of that replacement; he read quite a lot of assorted science. ISTM reasonable to read his argument that the collection — the relationships among all the atoms present — would itself be gone.
@11: You may not have noticed, or you may just have been lucky, not to run into anyone like Clockson. I have. (I even remember one cringeworthy case when I was that person; I was … younger.)
@11 @12 @13
In modern Roundworld terms, Jeremy might be autistic but based on my experience with my definitely autistic nephew, he seems more OCD to me (as one who has some symptoms of OCD.
But, in any case, social awkwardness can happen to many people (me, me) and may just be that.
As far as people who will drone on and on about a boring topic, I’ve run into them all the time, especially in staff meetings. Telemarketers are trained to keep people on the phone no matter how bored or negative you become. And then there’s the internet filled with people who won’t shut up.
I’m a little surprised how many people find Jeremy relatable and sympathetic given that he is, explicitly, a murderous lunatic.
But this is another weakness – I don’t remember another Pratchett in which a character who’s supposed to be sympathetic has a back story in which he killed an innocent man, and it’s treated as a throwaway laugh line. It feels a bit… callous, for Pratchett.
Clarkson is not a murderous lunatic. Norman Bates is a murderous lunatic; Clarkson snapped — once — in reaction to a mean-spirited “practical” “joke”. That the Guild covered this up because of his skills doesn’t reflect well on them, but that’s a separate issue. I’m not sure I’d call Clarkson a sympathetic character, but some of us here see our own faults enlarged in him and are disinclined to condemn him out of hand; your mileage and perspective may vary.
@13, 14
I’ve met plenty of people who drone on forever about topics boring to others, they just like to hear themselves speak. But it’s pretty rare, in my experience, to come across those who are completely unaware of their own dullness and its effect on others. It seems that Jeremy can’t even grasp the concept that not everyone is into clocks. This is a level of ignorance beyond any I know.
Just a reminder to please be thoughtful and circumspect about the language and terminology you choose to use, particularly when it comes to language that’s often associated with derogatory and stigmatizing views of mental illness. When it comes to diagnosing a fictional character, it might be best to agree to disagree, here, and move on, rather than insisting on one interpretation.
@6: Unless the Fairy gets you, you’ve a reasonable chance of keeping your teeth most of the way to the end. Not your first teeth, of course. I suppose Cohen the Barbarian’s last set are keepers.
@20 – Yes, good point. Tooth enamel isn’t replaced once it’s laid down. The cells that produce it all die after the tooth erupts. So it isn’t altered throughout your life.
Another callback: a burst of xylophone music escapes from Death’s memory album. Possibly a memory of little Susan using his ribcage as a xylophone, as mentioned in Soul Music.
Instead it seems more of what in architecture is called a folly. And I, personally, love it for that.
This seems to be Pratchett unhinged, as if it’s his random thoughts, people, and jokes that he’s written on his bedsheets.
This is a good way of putting it. It’s a dump of all sorts of good ideas that he’s not been able to fit into other books – Reaper Man felt a bit the same, with two half-books, the “Death retires” one and the “Wizards vs. out-of-town shopping malls” one shoved in together despite the very great difference in tone.
@23 Well the events in this book do clearly affect someone’s arc, but we won’t realize it for about four weeks.
“Nanny Ogg crossing over from her own series” is how I think of her appearance, and I wish more of it happened. I like seeing Gytha away from Granny, and we’ll see moving on that I really think there’s a hint of Granny’s no-nonsense nature in her that apparently is more obvious when the latter’s not present.
One thing that does stick in my craw somewhat with Sir Pterry is how plot threads that he dislikes can just get handwaved away in a line in a different book. He said at one point that he didn’t like Susan being a Duchess, so it seems like it’s being ignored here, but I have a memory of one of the other 40 books* talking about the DUKE of Sto Helit without elaboration. Was her title stripped by Queen Keli or a successor? Or did she surrender it like Harry and Meghan? Probably the latter but he never elaborated.
@24 – Susan is still a Duchess. She inherited the title when her parents, the Duke (Mort) and Duchess (Ysabel) died in Soul Music. The other Duke (who tried to assassinate Princess Keli) may or may not still be around. Queen Keli definitely is, being referenced in several later books.
In Hogfather Susan is definitely still a Duchess but, as she (and Pratchett) explains, she wants to be her “Own Person” with a “Real Job” and therefore became a governess. After all, the role of a Duchess is boring, at best.
By this book she is a school teacher and her title is no longer mentioned but it presumably still exists.
To put it in Roundworld terms, she gave up her duties but not her office just as Prince Harry did. Harry and Meghan still retain their titles and Prince Harry is still fifth in line for the Crown.
@22: A popular little “classical” piece heavy on xylophone is the “Fossils” from Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals”. You can tell he has musical bones. :-) It cribs a phrase from his own “Danse Macabre”, which is also given to xylophones there if you listen through it, but the “Fossils”, and the rest of the menagerie, including pianos, are more fun. Wikipedia has some rather antique recordings.