"Dark eagle, the issue in equal rites isn't so much the ideas involved, which do a good job at showing the differences between how witches and wizards approach things, and how differently entrenched both can be, (indeed Pratchett handles gender relations rather better here than he does in the mutch later monstrous regiment in some ways).
The issue in Equal rites is that firstly one major character who then proceeds to go on and be awesome in the series, Granny Weatherwax the witch, is a bit jarring compared to how she comes across for the rest of the disk world saga, being a far softer, less certain and more traditionally grandmotherly character than the tough as nails sociopathic old battleaxe who will do the right thing and bugger everyone else we get to see later.
Also, the over all structure of the story is a bit thin, spending a long time on setup, and not really making it's main character as memorable or quirky as she would be, especialy compared to other young witch characters Pratchett comes up with later in the series like tifany aching.
with equal rites I got the impression that after two big bombastic stories, Pratchett wanted to try and think about what your average country village in diskworld was like, and contrast domestic small town life and what most women traditionally concerned themselves with, with the hole disk shattering disaster plotlines
Unfortunately, like the first two books Equal Rites is still rough around the edges and doesn't tackele this theme as well as later books such as weird sisters, or pretty much all of the books starring the witches or Tifany.
I'd class it about middle of the road Diskworld wise, not one of the absolute greats, but not a clunker either.
On the plus side after equal rites you have Mort, the first book about death, and that's where old Sir Terry really starts to hit his stride, imho.
Not a lot to report t this end either, though my lady and I have started rereading pet sematary by stephen King which I'll report on in the stephen King thread as and when we've read it, good so far.
The stupid government is being hassled about when they'll lift the lockdown, and though vaccination is apparently going well (very gladd my lady's had hers), how anyone expects them to give definitive times is beyond me, then again, given the attitudes of some of the conservatives over here, I get the impression they don't mind if people get corona so long as everyone goes back to the pub, and starts getting drunk and spending money .
With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)