Tag Archives: Terry Pratchett

Book review

“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?“

Going Postal

In some ways A Life with Footnotes is really two books. The first few thousand words are based on autobiographical notes dictated by Sir Terry during the final years of his life, as a side project between the completion of his many other activities, principally the last few Discworld novels. This part of the book is a very traditional autobiography, with lots of focus on Sir Terry’s early years, his family, his adventures in reading which lead to his becoming the author of the wonderful Discworld series, and his early jobs in local newspapers, reporting on funny vegetables at village fetes etc.

The second part of the book is written in a somewhat different style and is more of a a memoir. While the whole book is by Rob Wilkins, this section is obviously him alone rather than him plus STP. Wilkins was Sir Terry’s long time assistant, amanuensis, and business manager and was the obvious person to choose to write this biography – Rob was beside him every step of the way throughout the last fifteen years of his life, probably his most productive period as an author, He cared for him following his diagnosis and was the co-author (with Pratchett’s daughter, Rhianna) of the extraordinary tweets that announced Sir Terry’s death, which can still bring a lump to my throat. He also became ‘keeper of the anecdotes’ as Terry’s memory began to falter, and read for him at public events. Few people can ever have had the privilege of being this close to such a successful author, and this book is a respectful and comprehensive account of their time together.

The one thing that you won’t find here is anything salacious or revealing. I doubt whether this is this kind of material in STP’s personal life exists anyway, but there’s no hint of any revelations – this is not that kind of book. Rob does reveal that STP was occasionally a bit grumpy if things didn’t go well – a badly arranged book reading for example – but that’s about it. His private life remains a closed book, and his long and happy marriage only provides a backdrop to his career as an author,

One of the many good things about this book is that it describes in some detail the books that influenced STP’s career – the books he loved and which stayed with him over the years. So it makes a great, slightly off-beat reading list, full of recommendations for science fiction and fantasy authors and books, some of which I had beard of but many which were entirely new to me.

I think I knew some of the background to STP’s career already, having been buying his books since the 80’s. For years he didn’t fully commit to his writing. He worked for the Central Electricity Generating Board in a media role long after The Colour of Magic was published, (1983). Becoming a full time author (which of course isn’t just about writing – it’s about book tours, conventions, merchandising, and all the rest, virtually a full-time business in itself) was something he held back from for a long time. It must have been obvious at some point that having administrative assistance – someone to open and reply to all the fan letters, requests for interviews etc – would allow him to focus on the actual job of writing, but it wasn’t until he heard the author Jilly Cooper talk about her invaluable PA that Pratchett was filled with ‘staff envy’ and hired Wilkins.

Inevitably the latter section of the text is dominated by what became know as ‘the embuggerance’, his diagnosis of a rare form of young-onset Alzheimer’s disease, posterior cortical atrophy. Over time he needed more and more assistance, and Rob was there every step of the way to step up and provide this support, at first just “tidying up” pages of text (was this just dealing with layouts and fonts?) to taking dictation and towards the end guiding him through his last explorations of Discworld.

Another well-known fact about STP is covered in additional detail here. He left clear instructions that there were to be no authorised further Discworld novels or books and that the hard drive from his computer containing all his work in progress be run over by a specific steam engine at the Great Dorset Steam Fair. (Whether this was backed up or not we may never know). Wilkins gives a painful glimpse of what was lost, including ideas for novels such as The Lost Incontinent; a police procedural based on the goblin characters in Raising Steam called The Feeney (leaving us groan-inducing puns to the last) and Cab’s Well – the story of the creature at the bottom of a well whose job it is to make wishes come true. What a loss.

The other painful element to this account is a personal one – all those years I was a STP fan, but I never once took the time to go to one of his readings, book-signings, or any of the conferences or other events he attended and spoke at. Why not? What a missed opportunity. It made me resolve not to make this mistake again, and to make sure I take the opportunity to go and listen to living authors while I still have the chance. There was a recent thread on twitter you may have seen where an author complained that no-one came to one of their book signings, and a whole host of extremely well know writers chimed in to say ‘me too’. Neil Gaiman kindly wrote: “Terry Pratchett and I did a signing in Manhattan for Good Omens that nobody came to at all… We were meant to have been there for 2 hours. After an hour of nobody in the store we told the store manager that we were going back to our hotel and that we would be in the bar, and if anyone came to get a book signed to send them there to us. Nobody came.” (Margaret Atwood had a similar experience, tweeting: “Join the club. I did a signing to which Nobody came, except a guy who wanted to buy some Scotch tape and thought I was the help.”) Let’s make sure no-one sits through that indignity again, even if they are a local author with a self-published vanity project and you really don’t want to buy their book!

I’ll end this post with a variation of the way I end all my posts on Terry Pratchett – read him, You won’t regret it.

Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins

Aside
Book review

The Fifth Elephant (Discworld 24), by Terry Pratchett, 1999

My lock down indulgence reread of the Discworld series continues with another novel featuring the great moral philosopher Duke, Commander and Blackboard Monitor Sam Vimes.

One aspect of Pratchett’s work which is under-appreciated in my opinion is his ability to craft detective stories. Because The Fifth Elephant is, among several other things, detective fiction. The Stone of Scone, an ancient dwarven artefact, is stolen from the Ankh-Morpork Dwarf Bread Museum. Which is suspicious, because the original Scone of Stone, under close guard far away in a mine in Uberwald, is central to the forthcoming coronation of new  Low King of the Dwarves. To further complicate matters the Patrician, Lord Vetenari, has decided to send Sam Vimes as his ambassador to the coronation, suggesting that while there he may wish to negotiate with the Low King on a trade agreement with Ankh-Morpork. Uberwald is rich in underground fat deposits, as a result of the untimely arrival of the titular fifth elephant of legend. Or as Sam puts it:

“Let me see if I’ve got this right,’ …. ‘Überwald is like this big suet pudding that everyone’s suddenly noticed, and now with this coronation as an excuse we’ve all got to rush there with knife, fork and spoon to shovel as much on our plates as possible?’

Überwald, the setting in part of the previous novel in the series (Carpe Jugulum), is a complex kingdom home to dwarves, werewolves, vampires and trolls. Vimes wanders into this maelstrom of political in-fighting rather unprepared. Pratchett tiptoes close to commenting on radical Islamism here – a traditionalist faction of dwarves insists on remaining below ground, and refuse to acknowledge the existence of female dwarves. This faction has allied with the werewolves to undermine the new Low King and secure a more radical successor. Vimes is framed for an attempt on the Low King’s life, and with his bodyguard missing and the clacks down (this is the first explanation of the arrival of the clacks, the telegraph system that is the basis of Going Postal (Discworld 33)) things are not looking good for him.

Back in Ankh-Morpork things are also Going Postal. Captain Carrot has resigned to look for his – well, I suppose the right term is girlfriend, but that really doesn’t cover the complexity of the relationship – Corporal Angua. Angua is a werewolf, and daughter of the ruling werewolves back in Uberwald. This leaves Sergeant Fred Colon as acting captain, which doesn’t work out well.

The usual things that make Pratchett’s novels a continuing joy are all to be found here. There’s the clever references that are so easy to miss. One I patted myself on the back for spotting was when Vimes is considering how clumsy and uneducated he feels in the company of Ankh-Morpork aristocracy “What chance had he got against a tie and a crest“, which is a line from the classic punk anthem Eton Rifles by The Jam. Later the werewolf philosophy of “Uberwald for the werewolves” is characterised as “joy through strength”, an inversion of the Nazi slogan, telling us all we need to know about the werewolves. There’s also plenty of the Vimes philosophy we have come to expect and treasure. It’s really hard to pick a favourite quote from a novel as stuffed-full with them as this is, but try:

“All he knew was that you couldn’t hope to try for the big stuff, like world peace and happiness, but you might just about be able to achieve some tiny deed that’d make the world, in a small way, a better place. Like shooting someone.”

I think this is the first novel where we really get to see Vimes and Lady Sybil as a married couple. The maturity of their relationship, full of compromises and kindness, is worth reading the book for alone:

“Sam Vimes could parallel process. Most husbands can. They learn to follow their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vital additional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrases, such as “and they can deliver it tomorrow” or “so I’ve invited them for dinner” or “they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply“

This is a great addition to the Watch series which sees a few more squares of the complex jigsaw that is Discworld pieced together, and introduces some new themes such as the coming of the clacks. Looking forward to The Truth (DW 25) already.

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Book review

Carpe Jugulum (Discworld 23) by Terry Pratchett, 1998

We have, it has to be admitted, been here before. Lancre, to be specific, the mountain home of Terry Pratchett’s wonderful witches, the awesome Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick, and Agnes Nitt. (And yes, that’s four witches, which is one too many, and a bit of a problem). Magrat, recently married to King Verence, has had a daughter, and people from far and wide have been invited to the christening. Unfortunately for all concerned, in an attempt to be progressive Verence has invited guests from Uberwald, a neighbouring kingdom inhabited by vampires. The vampires, once invited into the castle, begin to take over and snack on the locals. The witches are not standing for this of course, and battle begins.

Carpe Jugulum - Discworld Novels (Paperback)

If you have been paying attention, and why would you, bells will start ringing at this point. Isn’t this pretty much exactly the plot of Lords and Ladies (Discworld 14) published some six years earlier? Superficially charming but sinister and other-worldly villains are accidentally invited into Lancre, take over, and battle with the witches? Pretty much.

The good news is that all this doesn’t matter in the slightest. Shakespeare recycled plots freely and unapologetically, so why couldn’t Sir Terry? Any time spent with the profound moral philosopher that is Granny Weatherwax, Pratchett’s finest creation, is time well spent, even if we have been here before. And this is a very brave book – not many fantasy writers would go to the dark places that Granny visits when she is called out to a difficult home birth, and is faced with the choice of saving the mother’s life or the child’s. When Mrs Patternoster, the local midwife, suggests the choice of who to save should have been offered to the husband/father, Granny replies:

You don’t like him? You think he’s a bad man? ,,,Then what’s he done to me, that I should hurt him so?”

Granny takes the pain of the decision, both literally and psychologically, on her own shoulders, so that others might not have to. This is such a shockingly brave and moving scene, showing how hard and sometimes lonely the lives of the witches are.

Another fresh feature to this story is the character of Mightily Oats. or more specifically the Quite Reverend Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-Om Oats, an Omnian missionary priest called in to officiate at Magrat and Verence’s daughter’s naming ceremony in the absence of the local priest who has been injured in a fall from a donkey. Oats is one of the ordinary-man characters Pratchett writes so well. He is devout in his faith in Om, but questions some of the teachings of his schismatic church. He is determined to do the right thing, even confronting vampires, when his every instinct is to run away. This is Mightily’s coming of age story. He starts the novel as a callow, frightened priest amongst the heathen folk of Lancre, particularly (and rightly) scared of the local witches. By the end of the novel he has earned their grudging respect, and slowly come to terms with his religion.

“Even when he was small there’d been a part of him that thought the temple was a silly boring place, and tried to make him laugh when he was supposed to be listening to sermons. It had grown up with him. It was the Oats that read avidly and always remembered those passages which cast doubt on the literal truth of the Book of Om—and nudged him and said, if this isn’t true, what can you believe?

And the other half of him would say: there must be other kinds of truth.

And he’d reply: other kinds than the kind that is actually true, you mean?

And he’d say: define actually!”

Carpe Jugulum also features the first appearance of the wonderful wee free men, the Nac Mac Feegle. The Feegles are a force of nature, and another fantastic addition to the Discworld universe, who of course were to go on and feature in their own series of novels. Scrivens!

Carpe Jugulum also features an Igor. I am not sure if this is the first appearance of Igor’s in Discworld (I think it might be) who is the servant of the invading vampires, and a part-time plastic surgeon of considerable skill. He is a traditionalist who spends his spare time breeding spiders, making sure the doors creak eerily, and generally trying to keep the old ways alive. Igor’s ancestral home is Dontgonearthe Castle, which tells you as much as you need to know about some of Pratchett’s jokes.

By now Discworld is a richly featured landscape full of much-loved characters with extensive backstories. This makes immersing yourself into a novel like Carpe Jugulum a wonderfully comforting and entertaining experience.

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Book review

The Last Continent (Discworld 22) by Terry Pratchett, 1998

Discworld novels are often divided into a number of sub-categories – the Watch, Witches, Death, and so on. Of these by far the weakest group are those featuring Rincewind, the world’s worst wizzard, and within that group, I am sorry to say, The Last Continent is the least interesting and entertaining.

The novel can’t really be said to have a plot. It has two, and they are not very well integrated. In one, following shortly after the events of Interesting Times, Rincewind is magicked away to Xxxx, a thinly disguised Discworld version of Australia. He wanders around the outback for the rest of the novel encountering just about every representative feature of Australia you could mention – if it is a cliche about Oz, it’s there. There’s a certain relentlessness about Pratchett’s approach to this, almost as if he had to include every last possible thing he had ever read or heard about the continent. Weak lager, check, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, check, Waltzing Matilda, Ned Kelly, peach melba and the Sydney Opera House, to name just a very few of the dozens of archetypes packed in. Rincewind is so heavily protected by plot-armour at this stage that the chances of anything interesting happening to him are non-existent – instead everything happens around him, and he passes serenely through unaffected.

The Last Continent - Wikipedia

The parallel plot features the wizards of Unseen University. Their search for someone who can help cure the Librarian, suffering from a form of morphic instability in which he keeps transforming into random objects, leads them to try and track down Rincewind, once the Librarian’s assistant. In the rooms of the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography they find a window in space leading to a tropical island. They pile through but of course get trapped when Mrs Whitlow, the University’s head of Housekeeping and the nearest thing the UU has to a sex-symbol, closes the window leading back to the university.

This is no typical tropical island. Cigarette plants, chocolate coconuts and spoon bushes pass unquestioned, but the arrival of a dinosaur that evolves into a chicken and a boat made from a plant lead even the usually phlegmatic wizards to wonder what is going on. The resident god of evolution turns up. and it gradually becomes apparent that not only have the wizards travelled a long way in space, they have also travelled far back in time, to when the world was being designed and assembled. Their suggestions – for example for sexual reproduction, are enthusiastically adopted by the god and lead to the Discworld as it becomes.

This is a thin foundation for a novel. The Australian cliches pile up irritatingly, and you end up waiting for the next one to turn up (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, check, duck-billed platypus, check, the Dreaming, check). I felt Pratchett kept throwing new Xxxx items at the book to try and distract the reader from the underlying absence of anything approaching a plot. The fun with creation myths never really takes off – it’s mildly diverting, nothing more. Pratchett published two novels a year most years for almost twenty years, so a dud was always a possibility, but they are still a disappointment when they crop up, as they inevitably must. It’s not that I actively disliked The Last Continent, just that I didn’t love it. Some, perhaps much of that is down to Rincewind – he’s just not that entertaining a character, and he doesn’t have any relationship (except, I suppose, with the Luggage) to help carry the burden.

The Last Continent does however contain one of Pratchett’s greatest, if most cynical, quotes:

“We put all our politicians in prison as soon as they’re elected. Don’t you?”

“Why?”

“It saves time.”

Book review

The Proof of My Innocence, by Jonathan Coe, 2024

The Proof of My Innocence, by Jonathan Coe, 2024 In his summary of The Proof of My Innocence, Jonathan Coe tells us that ” I felt like writing something contemporary, ironic and harder-edged. I wanted to return, if possible, to the tone of What a Carve Up!, with some kind of metatextual crime story which would also…

Book review

The Blessing by Nancy Mitford, 1951

The Blessing by Nancy Mitford, 1951 England, 1939. Grace Allingham, a young, affluent Englishwoman is engaged to be married to Hughie. But when she meets Charles-Edouard de Valhubert, a French Air Force officer, she is swept off her feet, Hughie is dumped unceremoniously and Grace and Charles-Edouard quickly marry. After a brief honeymoon he returns…

Book review

No-one writes to the Colonel, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1958

No-one writes to the Colonel, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1958 No One Writes to the Colonel is a long short story or short novella, coming in at under 70 pages. Famously Marquez said that he had to write One Hundred Years of Solitude so that people would read No One Writes to the Colonel. Which is really a…

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Book review

‘Give a man a fire and he’s warm for a day, but set fire to him and he’s warm for the rest of his life.’

Jingo combines two of Sir Terry’s favourite topics – social commentary, in this case on

Jingo: (Discworld Novel 21) (Discworld Novels): Amazon.co.uk ...

The Corgi paperback cover – note how the weathervane symbols point Hubwards, Rimwards, Turnwise and Widdershins

nationalism, and the men, women and other species of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. It is silly to have favourites in these things, but if forced to choose I would probably have to opt for the Watch as my preferred set of books within the overall series.

Pratchett’s inspired idea here in order to explore the dangerous attraction of nationalism is that one day an island, Leshp, emerges from under the Circle Sea halfway between Ankh-Morpork and Klatch. Both countries see the island as a important strategical location, and lay claim to ownership of the territory. Chaos, almost inevitably, ensues. What complicates matters is that a Klatchian prince, Khufurah is visiting Ankh-Morpork to receive an honorary degree from the Unseen University. The timing is either an opportunity for some diplomatic discussions about the future of Leshp, or for mischief! Guess which is the more likely to occur? Someone – but this isn’t really a detective novel – tries to assassinate the Prince, and Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch, investigates. Is someone trying to provoke war between Ankh-Morpork and Klatch, or does the attempted assassination arise from an internal Klatchian power struggle?

Vimes, assisted by Captain Carrot and Corporal Angua, the Watch’s only werewolf, makes good progress, but relations between Ankh-Morpork and Klatch deteriorate even more quickly, and war is soon declared. Pratchett writes powerfully how petty nationalism (jingosim) can take hold and drive a country to war, and how poisonous an inflated sense of superiority can be. The ‘enemy’ is seen as weak and cowardly, likely to run away from the proud armies of Ankh-Morpork. Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, unexpectedly stands down, unable to prevent the rush to war but unprepared to sanction it, leaving the dangerous Lord Rust to take over. Rust mobilises the city’s nobility to create their own private regiments, an opportunity which Vimes, now dismissed as Watch Commander, decides to follow. 

From this point the novel divides into a series of parallel plot lines, all converging on the ominously inevitable battle in the deserts of Klatch. Vimes and his newly formed regiment pursue ’71-Hour Ahmed’, a suspect in the attempted assassination, back to Klatch, Nobby and Sergeant Colon travel with Vetinari and his mad-genius inventor, Leonard of Quirm, in Leonard’s “Going-Under-the-Water-Safely Device” to investigate Leshp, where they find out the island is only temporary, and will re-submerge in a matter of days. From here they push on to Klatch, assuming slightly farcical disguises in order to travel incognito. Will they be able to prevent war between the over-confident forces of Ankh-Morpork and the Klatchian desert tribes?

I have mentioned this novel revolves around a discussion of the dangers of nationalism. Please don’t assumes this means the novel is in any way worthy or preachy. The political points are made with a light touch, although there’s no ambiguity in Pratchett’s perspective. The seductive lure of nationalism is exposed, such as here where the Ankh-Morpork leaders discuss the rush to occupy Leshp:

‘Why are our people going out there?’ said Mr Boggis of the Thieves’ Guild.
‘Because they are showing a brisk pioneering spirit and seeking wealth and . . . additional wealth in a new land,’ said Lord Vetinari.
‘What’s in it for the Klatchians?’ said Lord Downey.
‘Oh, they’ve gone out there because they are a bunch of unprincipled opportunists always ready to grab something for nothing,’ said Lord Vetinari.

I am sure I have said this many times before, but I don’t think anyone reads Pratchett for the plots. The joy is in the language – at one point he describes “little crunchy brown bits” (in the context of Sybil’s cooking) as “the food group of the gods” which is just perfect, isn’t it? Elsewhere there is a touching demonstration of the ‘Trousers of Time’ theory first explained in Guards, Guards, where Vimes is able to hear how his life might have played out if he had made different decisions at a key point in the novel. STP’s genius shines through in many other ways, but one I don’t think I have mentioned before is his use of names. I love how he plays with the names of the various Watch stations in Ankh-Morpork for example – Pseudopolis Yard, Treacle Mine Road, Cable Street, and possibly my favourite, Dolly Sisters, each one just simply fun in their own right, irrespective of the wit and intelligence behind the names themselves.

If, 21 novels in, I haven’t won you round to the idea that your life would be richer with a little Discworld in it, I probably am not going to do so, but forgive me for not giving up. Jingo is possibly a shade too long and some of the jokes are laboured – Nobby dressing up as a profoundly unattractive Klatchian women was a bit ‘Carry-On’ at times – but every visit to Discworld is a pleasure, and this was no exception.

 

Jingo (Discworld 21) by Terry Pratchett, 1997

Aside
Book review

Hogfather (Discworld 20) by Terry Pratchett, 1996

In any long running series, especially where the author produces books with the regularity that Terry Pratchett achieved, one looks out for repetition – recycled material, sometimes ironically self-referential, sometimes disguised. So when I tell you that Hogfather features Death leaving his day job and assuming the role of the missing, presumed dead Hogfather, the Father Christmas of Discworld, it will ring some bells. Didn’t that happen before, in Reaper Man and before that in Mort? (It did). To be fair, that’s a minor quibble, because as I am sure I have said before, with Pratchett it is never about the plot.

Here, Death is not taking a holiday, but covering for the Hogfather, who despite being the titled character makes only the briefest of appearances. Death is driven to do this on the basis that the Hogfather is responsible for the sun rising each morning, and for this to happen children have to believe in him. It’s not as awkward and contrived as it sounds.

Having failed to force Death to retire in Reaper Man, the grim Auditors of Reality, “celestial bureaucrats”, hire an assassin from the Assassin’s Guild to kill the Hogfather, symbol of all that is creative and joyful in the Discworld. A particularly psychopathic assassin, Mr. Teatime, is assigned the job.

“Mister Teatime had a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvellous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken.”

He recruits a gang of Ankh-Morpork’s more unpleasant thugs (and that’s saying something) to capture the Tooth Fairy’s kingdom, steal all the collected teeth, and use them to control the children of Discworld, commanding them to no longer believe in the Hogfather. Again, still not awkward, contrived, or even twee. Honestly. Pratchett gets away with this because the narrative doesn’t give us this summary – the reader is left to work most of this out themselves, and the immediacy of the action – we are just shown what is happening in the moment – is realistically portrayed. There’s a darker element to the novel as well – when Mr Teatime kills people they stay killed.

Death, becoming aware (somehow) of the Hogfather’s absence, decides to fill in for him. Along the way he visits his granddaughter, Susan Sto Helit, tricking her into investigating the Hogfather’s disappearance. This is not the first time Susan has been called upon to help Death, although at least this time she is not collecting souls for him. She tracks a missing tooth fairy to the Hogfather’s Castle of Bones, on the way meeting Bilious, the “Oh God” of hangovers (one of Pratchett’s better throw away jokes). I am not going to spoil for you what happens there, but I bet you can work it out!

As well as spending time with Death and his assistants the Death of Rats and the ever-hopeful raven, exploring the Hogswatchnight traditions of Discworld and gently satirising the commercialism of Christmas along the way, we also follow the wizards of the Unseen University as they get ready for their great midnight feast, at the same time try to understand why new minor magical creatures keep popping into existence, such as the hair-loss fairy:

“No sense in being bashful about goin’ bald,” said Ridcully evenly. “Anyway, you know what they say about bald men, Dean.”

“Yes, they say, ‘Look at him, he’s got no hair,’” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

Susan and the Oh God try to work out what has happened to the missing tooth fairy, and why Death is substituting for the Hogfather, while Mr Teatime and his gang ransack the Tower of Bones. It’s all handled flawlessly by Pratchett, and the reader happily suspends disbelief for the duration, not least because all the characters themselves are constantly telling one another how unlikely everything is.

The Discworld version of Christmas is inevitably a much earthier version of our own Dickensian yuletide. The Hogfather’s sleigh is pulled by four fearsome wild boars, Gouger, Rooter, Tusker and Snouter. But even in Discworld traditions are being slowly sanitised. In earlier times the Hogfather gave households pork products, and naughty children a bag of bloody bones; now all the Hogfather brings is soldiers, dolls and noisy toys for that 4.30 am start.

Pratchett as ever is a great moral philosopher, with Death as his most articulate spokesperson:

“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

How’s that for poetry – “where the falling angel meets the rising ape”? I rarely feel the need to justify reading what some people (entirely wrongly) consider children’s books, but here Pratchett provides the answer himself in one elegant, poetic and profound phrase.

 

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Book review

Maskerade (Discworld 18) by Terry Pratchett, 1995

Regular readers of this blog (should there are any) will notice a pattern emerging in which I alternate between a classic/serious novel and the next book in the Discworld series. Today is a Discworld day, more specifically the wonderful Maskerade. And the good news is that this is one of the best, featuring the extraordinary witches of Lancre.Mask

The plot is a simple parody of the Phantom of the Opera. Agnes Nitt, destined to become a country witch leaves sleepy Lancre to seek fame and fortune at the Ankh-Morpork opera house. (It is perhaps surprising that a city as violent and lawless as Ankh-Morpork has its own opera house, but Discworld is anything but predictable). At the same time the wonderful Granny Weatherwax finds out that the equally wonderful Nanny Ogg has written a popular cookbook – but has not received any royalties from the publisher. They set out for Ankh-Morpork on a mission to collect what Nanny is owed, with an understanding that they will probably pop in and visit Agnes along the way, and if she agrees to join their coven in a firmly junior position that would all work out fine as well (“You needed at least three witches for a coven. Two witches was just an argument.”). There is nothing as definite as a plan here. 

The stage is set for what is a surprisingly tightly written mystery story – although I had read the book before I couldn’t easily work out whodunnit – as well as a wonderfully comic novel. While Pratchett always has a serious point in the back of his mind, here the seriousness never gets in the way of the fun – for example the scene where the senior witches stay in Madame Palm’s house for ladies of negotiable affection, and manage somehow to make it even more disreputable, is glorious!

Maskerade is fantastic. It features two of my favourite characters in the whole of fiction, Nanny Ogg here finally stepping out from the shadow of Esme Weatherwax with her own special brand of magic (in essence, being nice and talking to people), and of course Esme herself. The witches have been on a road trip before, (Witches Abroad) but here they can play uninhibitedly in Ankh-Morpork. Pratchett clearly had a huge amount of affection for these characters – they are immensely endearing and believable. (Re-reading what I have written there I can’t help notice the abundance of superlatives, but it’s a fair reflection of how I feel about the novel.)

Nanny Ogg is a complete nihilist –  her philosophy of life is summarised as “do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible.” She gets some great lines, such as:

“Can you identify yourself?
-Certainly. I’d know me anywhere.”
Is it me or is there a hint of the Marx brothers in that joke? This is after all a night at the opera?
There is no reverence whatsoever for the seriousness of the setting:
Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,”
said Nanny, who also had the true witch’s ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever.
“There’s your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like “Oh oh oh, I am dyin’, oh I am dyin’, oh oh oh, that’s what I’m doin'”, and there’s your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes “Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!”, although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That’s basically all of opera, reely.”
The quality of the jokes, is as ever, both terrible and wonderful at the same time – such as here when describing Nanny Ogg’s cookbook
“What about this one? Maids of honour?”
“Weeelll, they starts out as maids of honour…but they ends up tarts.”

:

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Book review

Interesting Times, (Discworld 17) by Terry Pratchett, 1994

Interesting Times, as well as being 17th in the Discworld series, is also the fifth novel to feature the world’s worst wizard, (or should that be wizzard?), Rincewind. So, cards on the table time – despite the enormous respect I have for all things Discworld, Rincewind is one of my least favourite characters. My heart sank a little when I read that this was another Rincewind novel (the fifth). I think there’s a good reason why after making several valiant attempts to resurrect him, Pratchett eventually allowed Rincewind to quietly fade into the background of Discworld.

‘May you live in interesting times’ is commonly thought to be an old curse (don’t we live in them right now?) usually attributed to the Chinese, although wrongly so according to my extensive research (Wikipedia). The phrase provides the inspiration for this adventure in which Rincewind travels to the Agatean Empire, the mysterious continent from which Twoflower, the naive but very rich tourist in The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, came. 

After Pratchett’s traditional framing introduction, the novel opens with the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork receiving a demand from the Agatean Empire to send them a great wizzard. The spelling mistake triggers the idea of sending them Rincewind. Of course this immediately leads to a series of disasters and mishaps from which he always emerges through sheer dumb luck.

The villain of Interesting Times is Lord Hong, a Machiavellian character who has read Twoflower’s book, What I did on my holiday which has inspired vague ambitions to conquer distant Ankh-Morpork. Pratchett’s record on villains is patchy, and Lord Hong doesn’t linger long in the memory – he is a bit of a cardboard-cutout psychopath. Cohen the Barbarian also makes a reappearance, accompanied by a Silver Horde of aging barbarian berserkers. Together with a new “Red Army” of young idealists and Rincewind’s trademark failures at magic, they capture the imperial palace, and with it the Empire. Lord Hong rallies the Empire’s armies, and the scene is set for an epic battle – six aging barbarians and an ex-teacher against 70,000 trained soldiers. What could possibly go wrong?

There are several fairly serious issues with Interesting Times. First, the jokes aren’t that funny. There’s always a high groan quotient in the Discworld novels, but the problem here is repetition. The Silver Horde are old, but really good at fighting. People who under-estimate them usually don’t live to regret it. If that joke is repeated once it is repeated a dozen or more times. Rincewind is a rubbish wizard and a coward, who will run away from danger at any opportunity, but is also a great survivor. Again, point made and repeated over and over again. The word intercourse is funny. Maybe once, but that’s enough.

And then there’s the rape ‘jokes’. The Silver Horde are barbarians, and rape women. Now they are old this is probably not going to happen, but it won’t stop them trying. I know the 1990’s were different times, but it was not funny then, and is certainly not funny now. Terry Pratchett was usually fairly progressive in his values (take for instance the ideas about religion in Small Gods), but this is a horrible mis-step. Am I being pious to find the opening scene – in which castaway Rincewind encounters several buxom Amazons who beg him to help them repopulate their race after a strange and highly specific plague has mysteriously wiped out all their menfolk – both boringly unoriginal and offensive? While I am being offended I may as well throw in the fact that much of the novel is culturally insensitive to the point of racism – Chinese/Asian people are portrayed as inherently funny – they speak strangely, eat weird food, misunderstand things, and are generally different to the citizens of old Ankh-Morpork.

About three quarters of the way through Interesting Times I was thoroughly fed-up – disappointed and un-entertained. And then something strange happened – I started to be engaged. I think I can pinpoint precisely the moment this happened – when it dawns on the Silver Horde that they may not win their battle (even though they quickly recover and offer surrender terms to the army) and begin to come to terms with their mortality – sooner or later all heroes die. There is a poignant scene where Cohen lists all his barbarian horde friends, and is told disbelievingly one by one that they have died, or worse retired into respectability. Old men don’t fear death, but they don’t welcome it either, especially not old heroes who have spent their life avoiding it. Pratchett doubles-down at this point by revealing the tragic back story to Twoflower’s loss of his wife, which is handled with dignity. Pratchett always was at his best when writing about Death.

So Interesting Times isn’t bad, but it hasn’t aged well, and could probably have been about half as long and not suffered. Rincewind fans will enjoy it, but there are few of the great quotable quotes that you can trip over elsewhere in the series. It’s not as thought-provoking or as funny as most other novels in the series, and Rincewind is as un-engaging as ever. Thank goodness the next novel in the series, Maskerade, sees the return of the wonderful witches!

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Book review

Small Gods (Discworld 13) by Terry Pratchett, 1992

It feels appropriate (if unplanned) to publish this review on the sad fourth anniversary of Sir Terry’s untimely death.

By this point in the Discworld saga, he was really hitting the peak of his powers. This was a writer who is really confident with his material, able to tackle large themes and ready to take risks. And for any writer religion is arguably the biggest risk – you are always going to upset someone. Small Gods is a fascinating discussion of the nature of divinity. That makes it sounds very serious, but that was the author’s genius – to write about serious themes in a very funny way.

The novel is set in Omnia, a kingdom in the continent of Klatch, new to Discworld at this point I believe, and bearing an uncanny resemblance to a medieval Catholic country in the grip of a frenzied search for any trace of heresy. Pratchett has given Om a far-eastern name, and mixes up his religious references freely, but the use of torture by the Quisition to enforce religious conformity and stamp out free thinking, has only one true origin. In Omnia religion has become a distorted version of itself, with torture and fear being its dominant characteristic. In these circumstances true belief in the God Om himself has begun to wither, so much so that the God Om finds himself reincarnated in the body of a tortoise. It seems he is destined to return to the world of once great but now Small Gods who exist on the borders of reality, desperate for believers from whom they derive their existence.

By a million to one chance, and therefore a literary certainty, Om in his tortoise form encounters the novice Brutha, the only remaining true believer in Omnia. Brutha’s idetic memory is used Vorbis, the head of the ExQuisition, to memorise the way through a labyrinth used to guard the library of Ephebe. Vorbis is one of Pratchett’s scariest monsters, a psychopath so controlled and uncaring that he is able to retain his position at the head of the Omnian church by fear alone. An underground movement, reminiscent of the early Christian church, survives in secret, passing its belief in the Disc-shape of the word through its slogan “The Turtle Moves”. The scene is set for a clash of beliefs in which someone is going to die. Guessing who isn’t a challenge, but the journey – in this case a physical journey through the desert – is where the transformation of Brutha from a menial drudge to a prophet occurs.

As always with Pratchett his wit and wisdom shines through. Here he is on religious repression, for example:

“Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.”

or here on the miracle of our existence:

“Humans! They lived in a world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose every day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues. And wine made out of water! A mere quantum-mechanistic tunnel effect, that’d happen anyway if you were prepared to wait zillions of years. As if the turning of sunlight into wine, by means of vines and grapes and time and enzymes, wasn’t a thousand times more impressive and happened all the time…”

Sir Terry’s death was such a loss, but he left us a wonderful collection of novels that are a fine legacy.

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Book review

Guards! Guards! (Discworld 8) by Terry Pratchett, 1989

“They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No one ever asks them if they want to. 
This book is dedicated to those fine men.” 

I was really looking forward to reaching Guards! Guards! in my Discworld reread. It is the novel in which Sam Vimes and the city’s night watch first appear, as well as featuring an extended role for the wonderful librarian.guards

A secret brotherhood, the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night, plot to overthrow the Patrician Havelock Vetenari by using a dragon summoned from wherever it is that all the dragons went.  As plans go this has some weaknesses, not least the dragon’s reluctance to return to its own realm once the people have been gulled into accepting a new puppet king. The fine men of the Night Watch, who at full strength are Captain Vimes, Sergeant Colon, Corporal Nobbs, and Lance Constable Carrot Ironfoundersson, set out restore order, aided by their new deputy, the Librarian.

Vimes is a drunk, fit only for the Watch, a small group of incompetents suited for bell ringing and running away. Newly appointed Constable Carrot is the exception to this rule. Brought up by a dwarf family (a great visual joke that Elf obviously borrowed) he is a strapping young man full of enthusiasm and youthful idealism for the rule of law – his first act on being sworn in is to arrest the head of the Thieves’ Guild.

Vimes begins investigating the dragon attacks, and in doing so meets Lady Sybil Ramkin, a magnificent swamp dragon breeder (That is, she is magnificent, not the swamp dragons, which are to royal dragons what chihuahuas are to great danes). She gives him a pet dragon, Errol, and offers help in the investigation. While the Brethren’s plan initially works and the Patriarch is deposed, the dragon returns unexpectedly during the coronation, eats the prospective king, and takes up residence in the palace. He seems to be able to control Vetinari’s chief minister Wones, clearly the Supreme Master of the brethren all along, through telepathy. A new order is imposed in which tributes are paid to the dragon in the form of gold, jewels, and a monthly human sacrifice.  I won’t give away the finale because I am getting soft in my old age, but suffice to say fans of Shrek won’t be taken by surprise.

A commonly asked question about Discworld is where to start? At the beginning is always the best place, of course, but I would accept that it takes quite a bit of determination to face the prospect of the 40 or so novels in the series. If you are not convinced you have the stamina for the long haul, and want to sample Sir Terry when he had really hit his stride, then Guards! Guards! is a great starting place. You don’t need to have read any of the preceding novels as a precondition to enjoying Guards! – it works well as a stand alone narrative. It also introduces you to a range of characters who you will grow to love, if you have a heart. I’ve written before and often about my love for this series, and I would still argue that Granny Weatherwax is one of the greatest female characters in all literature (yes, I am well aware that sounds preposterously overstated – I stand by every word.) But Sam Vimes is the character with the most interesting story arc – he starts this novel as a broken wreck of a man, and by the end of the series he – well, things get a lot better for him. It’s a story of redemption through public service, and that may sounds pompous but it’s true nonetheless.

Rereading these novels is a joy, in part because you know what is to come and can spot all the small moments of foreshadowing. Vimes and Lady Ramkin’s relationship is that rare thing, a believable romance between two characters past their prime. The other source of pleasure in the novels is the “spot the pop culture reference” game STP loves to play – the text refers playfully to Sherlock Holmes, (“There was also the curious incident of the orangutan in the night-time”) Casablanca, Evelyn Waugh, Dirty Harry, and the Hobbit, to name just a few.

Guards! is written with an obvious love for books, bookshops, and libraries. This shines through in the many references to the importance of these in our lives and the special place in hell reserved for people who don’t respect them.

“The truth is that even big collections of ordinary books distort space, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned secondhand bookshop, one that looks as though they were designed by M. Escher on a bad day and has more stairways than storeys and those rows of shelves which end in little doors that are surely too small for a full-sized human to enter. The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.” 

Creating the beloved librarian to protect the Unseen University’s library was a great gift.

Last but not least I can never read Pratchett without being reminded yet again of his awesome ability to turn a phrase, comedic, philosophical or otherwise. Here are just a few random examples:

“They felt, in fact, tremendously bucked-up, which was how Lady Ramkin would almost certainly have put it and which was definitely several letters of the alphabet away from how they normally felt.”

“Someone out there was about to find that their worst nightmare was a maddened Librarian. With a badge.”

“A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.”

“The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the last date shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.”

“… a metaphor … is like lying but more decorative.”

“His sister had been sent down to the village to ask Mistress Garlick the witch how you stopped spelling recommendation.”

Glorious.

 

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