Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Source of book: Audiobook borrowed from my brother

Ah yes, time for another Discworld audiobook to make the miles go by quickly. Unseen Academicals is the 37th Discworld novel, and the last in the Rincewind/wizards series. However, I think that it stands alone reasonably well as long as the reader knows some basic Discworld realities, and is familiar with the Unseen University denizens. We previously read or listened to the first four Rincewind novels, so it was no problem to pick up the story. 

The basic setup of the plot is this: it comes to the attention of the indolent and incompetent faculty of Unseen University that a rather large bequest (which enables their indolent lifestyle and lavish feasting) is contingent on the university fielding a football (soccer, for Americans…) team. This is problematic both because of the general lack of athleticism of the faculty and students, and because football in Ankh-Morpork is mob football, an often fatal and always violent enterprise. 

To solve this conundrum, the wizards join forces with Lord Vetinari (the Machiavellian ideal of a dictator - and I mean that in a good way...mostly), who wishes to regulate and civilize the sport. In order to do this, new rules need to be invented, and then promulgated in a way that will be accepted by the mob football traditionalists. The Archchancellor, Mustrum Ridcully, who is pretty much incompetent at everything, nominates Ponder Stibbons to figure things out. 

Stibbons is an interesting character in the series. He is arguably the only truly competent faculty member other than the Librarian, and has created a rudimentary artificial intelligence, HEX, using ants and rats and other things. Over the years, he has accumulated a plethora of titles, until he basically runs the university. An interesting side note here is that Stibbons cannot grow a beard, and looks - in the illustrations - more than a bit like...Harry Potter. Since the Discworld books - including the illustrations - came out years before Potter, any “borrowing” must have been done by J. K. Rowling. And Ponder, Potter, hmm…

Draw your own conclusions...

Since this is Terry Pratchett, it is easy to guess that hilarity will ensue. And it definitely does. Much of the book is a parody of football culture, from its mob days to its modern English Premier League incarnation. Pratchett also pokes fun at university sports culture, ludicrous ancient rituals at said colleges, and sports interview cliches. But that isn’t all. At its core, the book is about belonging - inclusion and exclusion. Along with that comes a pointed look at the generational trauma of slavery and colonialism, the dynamics of bullying, prejudice, and more. Oh, and then you have the parodies of Romeo and Juliet, the fashion industry, and psychology. Whew! It’s quite a ride, and there are so very many pithy quotes. 

So how did it get there from football? Well, a university doesn’t run on magic alone. It takes a large staff to keep the candles lit, the wizards fed, and the place reasonably clean. The basement servants’ quarters are full of people too, including some of Pratchett’s best characters. The genius (Lord Vetinari’s words) of the kitchen is Glenda Sugarbean, a kindhearted if a bit daunting woman, who rules all things culinary in the university. She fiercely looks out for Juliet, a gorgeous but not particularly bright young woman entrusted to her care. (Juliet’s parents are more interested in drinking away her earnings.) Also downstairs are Trevor Likely, in love with Juliet, and brilliant footballer; and Mr. Nutt, an odd character of mysterious background. Ah yes, Mr. Nutt. He is a savant, highly educated, and looks kind of like a goblin. He is obsessed with “attaining worth,” and thus works exceedingly hard. It is he who ends up with the job of coaching the football team. It turns out that Nutt spent his formative years chained to an anvil, before being freed and educated by Lady Margolatta. Also, he is an orc, which he has to discover through psychoanalysis. 

Orcs, as any fantasy fan would know, are not goblins, although they can be similar. While goblins occur in nature, orcs were created to be fighting machines. In the Discworld universe, they were created by the eagles to supply a sentient weapon for the armies back in the days of the Evil Empire. But they were not made from goblins. As Lady Margolotta (who has protected the few remaining orcs after they were slaughtered for being an inconvenient reminder of the past) puts it, “But the Orcs were made from men, you know, not goblins.” Vetinari replies, “No. However, now that you tell me it, it’s patently obvious. Goblins would not have been nearly ferocious enough.” 

The book thus centers around two sets of characters. The wizards try to figure out how to field a football team and keep their feasts going. Oh, and feud with a neighboring university. At the same time, Glenda, Juliet, Trevor, and Nutt have their own challenges and adventures. They overlap and combine, of course, with football at the core. 

Juliet becomes a model for Dwarf fashions (that’s as amusing as it sounds), Trevor is torn between his promise to his late Mum that he would never play football and his obvious skills, Nutt seeks to understand himself and become worthy, and Glenda has to be the mastermind keeping the rest out of trouble. 

Here are the quotes I liked the best, starting with this exchange between Lord Vetinari and his secretary: 

“The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord."

Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. "Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one.”

By this point in the series, Vetinari has become one of the best characters, with shrewd powers of observation, and a knack for soft politics that seems missing in our own time. He is the first to identify Glenda as the brilliant person she is, and his handling of a very volatile situation surrounding football is politics at its best. 

Near the end, he finally lets down his guard for a second, in a rather interesting scene. Lady Margolotta is pretty shrewd herself, but she also has the blindness of one who is used to being the benevolent benefactor. With her inherited wealth and title, she doesn’t see underlings as equals, so she is condescending to Nutt, even as she does him immense good. She totally underestimates Glenda. Vetinari finds this amusing, because while he may or may not have the book learning Margolotta does, he has years of avoiding assassination, and thus reads people extremely well. At the end of the book, she asks Nutt if he is willing to go meet others of his kind and raise them up from the degradation they have suffered. 

“Many bad things were done under the Evil Empire" she said. "The best we can do now is undo them. Will you assist in this endeavor?"

"In every way that I can" said Nutt.

"I would like you to teach them civilized behavior," said Ladyship coldly.

He appeared to consider this. "Yes, of course, I think, that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?"

There was a brief outburst of laughter from Vetinari, who immediately cupped his hand over his mouth. "Oh I do beg your pardon," he said.” 

There is more than a little of the charity woman in this portrayal. You know, the missionary spirit: go “civilize” the “savages” in the third world. The great white savior complex, so to speak - memorably portrayed by Harrison Ford in the somewhat obscure movie Mosquito Coast. Like Nutt, I often ask myself who will come teach Americans how to be decent, moral, Christian people. Because we sure need it. On a related note:

“Juliet's version of cleanliness was next to godliness, which was to say it was erratic, past all understanding and was seldom seen.”

I’ve spent much of my life around that kind of “godliness.” For that matter, how about this bit from Vetinari, perhaps channelling Darwin? 

“The Patrician took a sip of his beer. “I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect I never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I’m sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature’s wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining on mother and children. And that’s when I first learned about evil. It is built into the nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.” 

Something to think about, in any case, whatever your belief about the Divine. 

Oh, and here is another Vetinari gem:

“Peace?' said Vetinari. 'Ah, yes, defined as a period of time to allow for preparation for the next war.”

On a rather lighter note, how about this one? 

“It is considered in the Sto Plains that only scoundrels know the second verse of their national anthem, since anyone spending time memorizing that would be up to no good purpose.”

Of course, it is our third verse of the national anthem that is quite problematic - the one talking about how the slaves who sought refuge with the British would be slaughtered. Not good. But the quote is quite amusing. And probably true. 

'Oh, you know the sort of thing if you read the papers a lot,' said Ponder. 'I seriously think they think that it is their job to calm people down by first of all explaining why they should be overexcited and very worried.’

A good bit to that one too. 

Poetry fans (or haters) will appreciate this one:

“Nutt was technically an expert on love poetry throughout the ages and had discussed it at length with Miss Healstether, the castle librarian. He had also tried to discuss it with Ladyship, but she had laughed and said it was frivolity, although quite helpful as a tutorial on the use of vocabulary, scansion, rhythm and affect as a means to an end, to wit getting a young lady to take all her clothes off. At that particular point, Nutt had not really understood what she meant. It sounded like some sort of conjuring trick.”

As usual, Pratchett is brilliant when discussing prejudice. All the things that “everybody knows” but also are not true. Things like “orcs eat people” or pretty much anything that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth about non-whites. It is when we fool ourselves into believing these untrue things - and acting on them - that we cause great damage to the world. 

“Sometimes people fool themselves into believing things that aren't true. Sometimes that can be quite dangerous for the person. They see the world in a wrong way. They won't let themselves see that what they believe is wrong. But often there is a part of the mind that does know, and the right words can let it out.” 

There are so many more great moments. The ludicrous German titles of Discworld psychology books. The many references to literature where famous lines are warped into parodies. The naughty references which go completely over Juliet’s head. Oh, and Pepe. I can’t forget him - the street urchin re-made as a flamboyant pseudo-French assistant to the Dwarf fashionista. 

I could go on and on. But anyway, this is a hilarious book, full of “Easter Eggs” for the literary sorts, and moral and empathetic to its core. We love Terry Pratchett around here, and I only regret that I didn’t discover him until I was in my late thirties. 

This audiobook was narrated by the delightful Stephen Briggs. We also like Nigel Planer, who is more likely to be on the earlier books than the later ones. I wouldn’t start with this book if you are new to Discworld, but definitely come back and read it after getting your bearings. 

***

The Discworld Wiki is a good source for understanding the references and the world itself. 

For information about reading order and how things connect, this page is helpful.

***

The Terry Pratchett list:

Rincewind:

The Colour of Magic

The Light Fantastic

Sourcery

Faust Eric

Tiffany Aching:

The Wee Free Men

A Hat Full of Sky

Wintersmith

I Shall Wear Midnight

Witches:

Equal Rites

Watch:

Guards! Guards! (Stupid abridged edition, which is an abomination.)

Non-Discworld:

The Carpet People

Dodger

Dragons at Crumbling Castle

Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)

Good Omens (Amazon Prime and BBC Series)

As regular readers know, I am more of a book than TV show sort, and only rarely blog about movies or television. 

I am making an exception in this case to talk about Good Omens. Four years ago, we listened to the audiobook of the Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman original, and enjoyed it. (It also got us interested in Gaiman, who has now become my second daughter’s favorite author.) 

I tend to approach screen adaptations of books with trepidation, as very few have made the transition well. Usually, the stories get changed (for the worse) by the need to cater to Hollywood conventions, characters are reduced to stereotypes, and the limits on length mean that important stuff gets omitted altogether. There are exceptions. The BBC/A&E version of Pride and Prejudice is perhaps the pinnacle of the genre. I reviewed The Barchester Chronicles here. While not completely faithful, the classic Canadian version of Anne of Green Gables was a favorite of mine growing up. I haven’t seen the Harry Potter movies - I have only read the first two books, so I am sticking with my “books first” principles. 

[Note: there is a theme here. The good adaptations tend to be British or Canadian, NOT American. Seriously, USA, up your game!] 

Despite my worries, I was determined to watch Good Omens. Not least because the casting of David Tennant and Michael Sheen looked so incredibly perfect in the previews. I mean, just look. Here is the original illustration from the book:

And here are Tennant and Sheen:

And the mannerisms seem perfect too. Unsurprisingly, now that I have seen the whole series, it turns out that it was indeed perfect casting, and that the relationship of Crowley and Aziraphale is the best part of the whole thing. 

The best way to approach the series - as with any screen adaptation - is to view the movie and the book as two separate works of art. They are related, but they cannot be exactly the same, simply because written words and motion pictures are different media. A sculpture and a painting are different, even if they portray the exact same scene. 

In the case of Good Omens, I think the adaptation was excellent, and the artistic decisions quite defensible. The ending is slightly different. The scenes where Crowley and Aziraphale are put on trial for treason by their respective bosses is not in the book - although it is kind of funny. 

My biggest disappointment with the series was entirely predictable. While I am pretty sure all the important parts of the plot made it into the show, there were a number of hilarious scenes which either were cut altogether, or ended up as super fast allusions. For example, the scene with the Four Horsemen meeting the biker gang ("You're Hells Angels, then? What chapter are you from?" “REVELATIONS, CHAPTER SIX.”) is missing. Ditto for the spoof of televangelists. 

Likewise, the scene after Adam inadvertently converts a nuclear reactor into a lemon drop, when the terminally stupid reporter asks the nuclear energy chief if terrorists were involved is reduced to a little clip playing on the radio in the background. And while R. P. Tyler is still in a few scenes, the line about him is missing. (“R. P. Tyler was not, however, satisfied simply with being vouchsafed the difference between right and wrong. He felt it his bounden duty to tell the world.”)

But, this is what happens when you try to fit a book that takes ten hours on audiobook into a six episode series. A few things get cut. This is a minor quibble, given how good the rest was. 

Other things I liked: the opening credits, done in the Monty Python style, and the sly use of cultural references throughout. (The book did this too, although the series updates some of them for 2019.) The sets and details were delightful too. I really want to live in Aziraphale’s bookshop, honestly. 

The rest of the cast was excellent as well, even if Tennant and Sheen were clearly the stars of the show. Jon Hamm as the archangel Gabriel is delightfully smug. Honestly, I just wanted to punch him, which is also true to the book. Anna Maxwell Martin as Beelzebub and Ned Dennehy as Hastur were memorable as the two most featured demons. Sam Taylor Buck was unexpectedly convincing as Adam (the antichrist). With his combination of childlike innocence and charisma, he nailed it. He bears watching in the future. Screen veterans Miranda Richardson, Jack Whitehall, and Michael McKean were predictably excellent in bit roles as Madam Tracy, Newton Pulsifer, and Witchfinder Shadwell respectively. I know I am a sucker for brainy brunettes, but I think I have a crush on Anathema Device, played by Puerto Rican actress Adria Arjona. Again, excellent job on casting and acting - I can’t think of a character that didn’t work. 

The moment near the end where Satan himself appears, with the intent of destroying Adam if he refuses to cooperate in destroying the world, was excellent. Adam, with his vulnerability in plain view, faces down Satan and informs him that he is not and will never be Satan’s son. “You can’t just show up 11 years later and expect to be a father!” Adam realizes that his true father is the man who did the work. His human father, who is a good-hearted, occasionally bumbling, and loveable mensch. And that is what matters. 

I must say, I do recommend reading the book. But the series was quite enjoyable, and I can recommend it without reservation. (And yes, the kids really loved it too.)

***

This review would not be complete without a look at the obvious connection between Good Omens and the worst of religious fundamentalism which gave rise to the book in the first place. 

Predictably, certain Fundies got their panties in an absolute wad over the series, and tried to get it cancelled. Except, in what has to be one of the funniest fails of recent time, they sent their protest to Netflix. (The series was created by the BBC and AMAZON, not Netflix…) 

Some of the criticism is entirely predictable, of course. A few others, though, are silly even from a Fundie point of view. I figured it might be worth mentioning some of them. And poking fun.

First, this is further proof that, unlike the truly admirable religious sorts of past and present, Fundies have no sense of humor whatsoever. People who are secure in their own faith, charitable toward others, and focused on loving their neighbor do not get all hot and bothered over a little satire. I mean, what kind of faith do you have if you can’t poke fun at it yourself from time to time? 

The wisest pastor I ever had, the late Jack Stiles, summed up true Christianity in a way that I still think is the best I have heard: “Love God. Love your neighbor. Don’t take yourself too seriously.” 

And that is what is going on with Good Omens. It is satire of a phenomenon that is so very ripe for mockery. 

That leads me to this:

The whole End Times™ thing is a modern invention.

I was raised in this craziness. In the circles I was in, the Rapture, the Antichrist, the Four Horsemen, the whole thing - was all the rage. Eventually, we ended up with the Left Behind series. A laughably bad, horribly written, mean spirited, and eminently mockable pile of shit that so many of my former faith tradition treat as gospel truth. (I highly recommend the takedown that Fred Clark of Slacktivist did of the series.) 

But the thing is, the whole edifice dates merely to the 1900s and one John Nelson Darby. I’m not kidding. In line with the trend of treating scripture like a scientific text that was all the rage back then (and still poisons the Evangelical understanding of the Bible), he tried to take three disparate texts - Matthew 24, I Thessalonians 4-5, and the Revelation (formerly the Apocalypse of St. John) - and make them into a literal and detailed prophesy of what would occur in the future. In essence, Darby took passages about different things, and tried to tease out a literal script for the future. 

That no serious and responsible biblical scholar would have justified such an approach, or that Evangelicals themselves would never have accepted such hermeneutics about literally ANY OTHER TOPIC is indisputable. But the appeal of a script whereby most of humanity (except for those with perfectly correct theology) would be slaughtered while the faithful look on with glee had too much appeal to Evangelicals, alas. The revenge fantasy won out over the historical teachings of the church, responsible interpretation of the apocalyptic genre, or even hermeneutical consistency. 

So, Gaiman and Pratchett had a lot of material to work with. They put it to good use, and came up with what I consider the best book on the topic of eschatology I have ever read. 

I am going to quote Pastor Stiles again here. When asked what he believed about the end times, he said, “I’m a pan-tribulationalist and pan-millennialist. I believe that with God in charge, it will all pan out in the end.” Which is a so much more productive approach to the topic than wasting thousands of hours building up a detailed fantasy. 

So, with that in mind, let me poke fun at some specific objections. 

#1: Good Omens is “another step to make satanism appear normal, light and acceptable.”

These are the same people who thought that AC/DC actually worshipped Satan. See my point above about no sense of humor. They can’t see satire when they trip over it.

Also, anyone who thinks there are more than a handful of people who actually believe Satan exists and worship him is delusional. The Church of Satan is quite explicit about that. For the most part, “satanists” are just countercultural sorts who are atheistic or agnostic in belief, and humanist (in a rather good way, actually) in philosophy. They have far more in common with, say, Erasmus, Thomas More, and Soren Kierkegaard than with anything truly occult.  

And I would add that anyone who thinks that watching Good Omens leads to satanism hasn’t actually watched it. Satan is an asshole in the movie. And so are most of the demons. So...that’s a stretch.

#2: “This type of video makes light of Truth, Error, Good and Evil.”

No, actually it doesn’t. It makes light of YOUR SPECIFIC DOCTRINES about truth, error, good, and evil. Big, big difference. 

Anyone who thinks that Good Omens is immoral or agnostic about truth needs to pay closer attention. I have read quite a bit of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman since discovering them a few years back. Both are highly moral and ethical writers and thinkers. Which is exactly why they reject many aspects of Fundamentalism. For the same reason I did: Fundamentalism is morally bankrupt and incapable of ethical thought or behavior. (That’s one reason that Christ’s ire was reserved for the fundamentalists of his day.) 

What Good Omens does do is question just which side is the good side. And which is the evil. And who is actually telling the truth. 

The central event in the book is, after all, the End of the World. Which is, in the Fundie revenge fantasy, exactly what Good Omens portrays it as: a cosmically epic dick measuring contest between the forces of “good” and the forces of “evil.” They get to finally show who is greater - and so what if most of humanity becomes the collateral damage. 

This is, to put it mildly, thoroughly unethical. And Crowley and Aziraphale come to that realization - because they actually like and love human beings, unlike the Fundie versions of God and Satan, each of whom burn with hate and rage against humanity. 

So yeah, if that is “making light” of morality, bring it on. It is high time the nastiness of Fundie doctrine is exposed for the evil it is. They make God out to be as nasty, vicious, cruel, and hateful as themselves. 

Now for the more amusing complaints:

#3: “The Antichrist is portrayed as an ordinary kid.”

Um, yeah. What else would he be? Okay, it is more likely that he would be a spoiled trust fund baby raised to be a narcissist. But Donald Trump is so beloved by Fundies and Evangelicals…

(Actually, it is amusing in a very dark way that Trump fits most of the Evangelical beliefs about The Antichrist™ and everybody can see that...except Evangelicals.)

But think of this: Jesus Christ himself was mostly an unremarkable human child. He shows up at age 12 with an unusual interest in and knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures - so he was a nerd, I guess. But then disappears for another 18 years. Thoroughly ordinary - to the point where people from his hometown laugh at the idea he is a prophet. That’s actually kind of the point: Christ was joe-average-human - the God who became fully human to suffer and die alongside us. 

So why would the antichrist be any different? It’s not like he would just drop from the skies. 

Also to the point is the scripture itself doesn’t tell of an antichrist. Saint John actually mentions multiple antichrists - and more importantly, the SPIRIT of antichrist. The key theological point here is that antichrist is a spirit of opposition to the spirit of God. It is opposition to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. That there have been (and will be) MANY “antichrists” is predicted by the Bible. The grand idea of a single Antichrist™ is part of the whole misinterpretation of the other writings of Saint John - the apocalyptic literature, which was a known fantastical genre in the ancient world, intended to give comfort to the suffering, and NOT to be considered a literal prediction of the future. 

I might also add in here that I see nothing odd about the idea that a human might have the choice to be or not be an antichrist. The most obvious antichrist figure of the last century, Hitler, could have made different choices, and the world would have been different. (Also, some good parallels: ordinary kid, appeal to hatred against outsiders, wildly popular with the Christians of Germany, policies to dehumanize and persecute minorities...sound familiar? The spirit of antichrist lives - and it has possessed white Evangelicals in our time.) 

#4: “God is voiced by a woman”

This one makes me laugh every time. In orthodox and historical Christian doctrine, God is not male or female. God is spirit. Both men and women are equally created in the image of God. Thus, to the extent that God has any gender characteristics, God has the characteristics of both male and female. This is not theologically controversial. 

Or wasn’t, until the rise of Christian Patriarchy. Now, in order to justify the subordination of women, all kinds of genuine heresies have been embraced. And Fundies are so very, very pissed when it is suggested that God isn’t 100% completely male, and NOT in any way female. 

But if God isn’t either, why would their voice sound only like a man? Couldn’t their voice also sound like a woman? I mean, nothing against Morgan Freeman, but why not Frances McDormand too? 

#5: “The Four Riders of the Apocalypse shouldn’t be riding motorcycles.”

Whaaat? This one is so laughable. Because Saint John wrote before the invention of the internal combustion engine, we have to stick with literal horses? That is beyond silly. 

Leaving aside the fact that Death, Famine, Pestilence, and War are METAPHORS, if they were real in our day and time, they would totally ride motorcycles. PuhLEEZE. 

Besides:

"You're Hells Angels, then? What chapter are you from?" 

“REVELATIONS, CHAPTER SIX.”

 The Four Horsemen of the Tiki Apocalypse, by my artist friend Craig Fraser

 

Other things I’m surprised they didn’t complain about:

And I’m sure the reason they didn’t is that they only watched the previews, not the actual show. And haven’t read the book either, because these are all in the book.

[Spoiler] Anathema and Newton HAVE SEX. And it is really good sex too. And, like the couple in The House of Seven Gables, in doing so, they bring unity and closure to a centuries-long feud. 

Sexual jokes! “They'd come here to spoon and, on one memorable occasion, fork.”

There is music by gay people! Namely, by Freddy Mercury of Queen. Readers of the book will understand why:

“Crowley was currently doing 110 mph somewhere east of Slough. Nothing about him looked particularly demonic, at least by classical standards. No horns, no wings. Admittedly he was listening to a Best of Queen tape, but no conclusions should be drawn from this because all tapes left in a car for more than a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums.”

And, throughout the book, every time Crowley or Aziraphale try to play something else, it comes out as Queen. If you want to read more about all that, here you go. 

Feminism! Pepper, speaking to War: “My mum says war is just masculine imperialism executed on a global stage.” 

Also: Pepper is...not white. Horrors. (Amma Ris is great in the role, though. I wouldn’t mess with her.) 

Language: Fuck, shit, bitch, and more. Get used to it. (And for god’s sake, don’t ever read Chaucer…) 

-F-a-u-s-t- Eric by Terry Pratchett

Source of book: Audiobook borrowed from my brother.

This book is the fourth in the Rincewind series. Previous installments:

The Colour of Magic

The Light Fantastic

Sourcery

See the end of this post for other Terry Pratchett books we have experienced.

***

Faust Eric is a bit different than the other Pratchett books we have listened to. For one thing, it is shorter. And yes, I checked, we did get the unabridged edition, narrated by the delightful Stephen Briggs. The short length isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though, because it is dictated by the story itself, which isn’t as episodic as some of the other books, and has a well defined arc. The other difference relates to this. While the Discworld is in general a parody of the Fantasy genre that also mocks such things as modern bureaucracy and human foibles, this book is a more specific parody: it is a sendup of the Faust legends, the Trojan war and The Odyssey, and Dante’s Inferno. If you, like me, enjoyed the originals, you will find the parody hilarious. My teen daughters had to read Homer for their freshman English class, so they got a bunch of the jokes there. Nobody has read Divine Comedy yet, though, so I suspect those went over their heads. But the book was still funny - even my 8 year old laughed.

So, here is the basic plot. As you may (or not) recall, the world’s most incompetent wizard, Rincewind, managed to get himself stuck in the Dungeon Dimensions at the end of Sourcery. His faithful servant and hatchet...well, chest… The Luggage, has followed him there. But how to get back?

[Side note here: in Diskworld cosmology, the Dungeon Dimensions are essentially the Underworld, more or less. Hell is part of the Dungeon Dimensions, but exists solely because some people believe they deserve to go there. So they do.]

As usual, Rincewind doesn’t make things happen; they just tend to happen to him.

Enter Eric Thursley, a 13 year old self-absorbed demonologist (imagine Trump’s ego married to Dr. Frankenstein’s hubris, and add some pimples…) who is trying to follow his grandfather’s footsteps and summon a demon from the underworld. Things go wrong, however, because Eric ends up summoning Rincewind instead.

Rincewind may not be good at magic, but he has a great self-preservation instinct. He sees through Eric’s disguise (as an old man) and tries to explain. The problem is, for some reason, Rincewind turns out to have provisional powers related to the laws of the universe that allowed him to be summoned.

Eric, being both a selfish and egotistical ass and having studied up a bit too much on the usual stuff to do when you summon a powerful supernatural being, demands that Rincewind grant him three wishes. (No points for guessing…) These are, naturally, (1) to be ruler of the world, (2) to meet the most beautiful woman in all history, and (3) to live forever. As everyone from Faust on down has discovered: be careful what you wish for - you might get it.

Rincewind protests, of course, that he cannot grant wishes by snapping his fingers - except that when he does, things happen. Eric gets his three wishes, and these form the three major episodes of the book.

First, he gets to be ruler of the world. Except, well, he experiences this through finding himself captured by a tribal society modeled more or less on the Aztecs. The problem is, their approach to the Ruler of the World(™) is kind of like the general approach to the gods in Discworld, where the gods are not so much worshipped, as blamed. So, when Eric is recognized as the Ruler, his fate is to be sacrificed to their god as punishment for basically fucking the world up badly. The god, Quezovercoatl, is a parody of Quetzalcoatl - look closely at the name for the bad pun… This goes awry, though, because the demon who is Quezovercoatl actually makes an appearance, and turns out to be all of six inches tall. (Which is why he has better success appearing to his followers in visions.) The Luggage accidentally squashes Quezovercoatl, which sets the Tezumen on the path to rejection of religion. I must say, this was a freaking hilarious sendup of religion - particularly the “The Gods Demand the Sacrifice of Someone Other Than Me” variety.

The second wish is, naturally, fulfilled when Eric gets to meet the Discworld equivalent of Helen of Troy. This is, of course, a central part of the Faust legend, and has been dealt with in interesting ways by other authors. Marlowe, for example, paraphrases Lucian with the immortal lines, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" This is, of course, ambiguous. Is Faust marveling at Helen’s beauty? Or disillusioned at how it has faded? Goethe makes the whole thing into a complex allegory of the meeting of classical idea and modernity. Perhaps one of the most intriguing - to me at least - is a fragment by C. S. Lewis, entitled After Ten Years. This was apparently a novel in progress that he died before finishing - and I wonder if it would have been an incredible remix of a classical legend along the lines of Till We Have Faces. (You can find this fragment in the collection The Dark Tower and Other Stories.) From what we have, it appears that Lewis envisioned Menelaus having to choose between the real-life Helen, her beauty faded after ten years - she is now middle aged - and a magical simulacrum created by the magicians. It is an interesting choice, to say the least.

Pratchett takes the same basic approach as Lewis, but, naturally, plays things for satire rather than philosophy. Eric gets to meet Helen - but she has decided to make the best of a bad situation, and has had several kids with Paris, is decidedly middle aged and chubby, and has the hint of a mustache. In addition to this idea, the best parts of this section include the utter failure of the Trojan Horse (except The Luggage saves history, so to speak…) and the scenes with the Discworld version of Odysseus, named “Lavaeolus,” that is, “rinser of winds” and thus a likely ancestor of Rincewind.

The third episode finds Rincewind and Eric at the dawn of time, where they meet The Creator (a parody of Pratchett himself), who is the subcontractor working on fabricating the Discworld. It dawns on Rincewind before it dawns on Eric: to “live forever” means to exist for all of the space-time continuum for Discworld. So Eric will need to wait for billions of years before life even comes into existence. It’s a lonely wait, particularly if you forgot to bring a book…

At this point, Rincewind convinces Eric to reverse the spell and send them both back to hell. Where a modern reformer has decided to put into practice the truth that even eternal torment is better than eternal boredom. The jokes in this section are funnier if you are familiar with Inferno, but are still pretty dang funny if you aren’t. (By the way, I could get a job in Pratchett’s hell easily - I’d be the guy showing the endless vacation photos…)

That’s your basic plot, and an overview of the fun. Except my version isn’t half as good as the original. You really should read it. Some have complained about this book as being boring. I found it to be the opposite - it really was funny. But then again, I rather enjoy Homer and Dante, so your mileage may vary.

***

The Terry Pratchett list:

Rincewind:

The Colour of Magic

The Light Fantastic

Sourcery

Tiffany Aching:

The Wee Free Men

A Hat Full of Sky

Wintersmith

I Shall Wear Midnight

Witches:

Equal Rites

Watch:

Guards! Guards! (Stupid abridged edition, which is an abomination.)

Non-Discworld:

The Carpet People

Dodger

Dragons at Crumbling Castle

Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

Source of book: Audiobook borrowed from my brother.

This book is the third Diskworld novel, and the first in the “Witches” series. We have previously experienced the first three in the “Rincewind” series, and the first four in the “Tiffany Aching” series. The less said about the abridged edition of Guards, Guards, the better. If you want to read my thoughts on the other Terry Pratchett books we have read, here is the list:

Rincewind:

The Colour of Magic

The Light Fantastic

Sourcery

Tiffany Aching:

The Wee Free Men

A Hat Full of Sky

Wintersmith

I Shall Wear Midnight

Watch:

Guards! Guards! (Stupid abridged edition, which is an abomination.)

Non-Discworld:

The Carpet People

Dodger

Dragons at Crumbling Castle

Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)

***

Equal Rites features a character, Eskarina Smith, who disappears from the series until reappearing as a rather unearthly character in I Shall Wear Midnight. I’m not sure quite why, but it is what it is. It does seem, however, that Tiffany Aching is in some ways what Eskarina might have become as she grew older.

Eskarina is an anomaly in the Diskworld: a female wizard. In the Diskworld universe, the number eight has magical properties. And, by the laws of magic, the eighth son of an eighth son will be a wizard. An elderly wizard named Drum Billet knows he is approaching death. (Like witches, most wizards know when they will die.) He finds what he believes to be the eighth son of an eight son, and passes his powers to the infant, leaving his staff behind. The only problem is, he forgot to check the sex of the baby, and the he turns out to be a she.

As she grows, Eskarina turns out to have wizard magic she cannot control, and this concerns the local witch, Granny Weatherwax (who would become a recurring character.) Granny decides to take Eskarina to Unseen University (where the wizards are trained), to learn how to use her powers. The journey takes up a good bit of the book - and it is obvious that an 8 year old girl with an attitude and unpredictable magical powers will be a tough assignment for Granny, who hasn’t left the village much before. Eventually, the story takes a turn to the Dungeon Dimensions, where Eskarina and a young wizard, Simon, have to figure out how to get back to the “real” world. I won’t spoil it more than that.

One of the things that struck me about this book is just how much Granny Weatherwax changes in the 20ish years between this book and The Wee Free Men. In this book, she is a rather ordinary village witch. She is wise, but illiterate and very provincial. She lacks the confidence and calm of the later books. Oddly, she also seems...older somehow. Clearly, she expands as a character as the series goes on, eventually becoming the unofficial head witch, with experience and knowledge extending far beyond her village. Perhaps this epic trip to Ankh-Morpork is the beginning of the expansion of her world and the start of her personal growth. It remains to be seen, I guess.

This audiobook was different from all the others we have listened to in that it has a female narrator: Celia Imrie. I had no idea who she is, but apparently she was a regular on British television and stage. Whatever the case, I thought she did a fine job. Considering the delightful Nigel Planer and Stephen Briggs are the gold standard for Pratchett, this was a tough gig. Particularly good, in my opinion, was the way she voiced the various wizards. They were different from each other, but shared a certain reedy stuffiness which was quite fine. She also gave Granny Weatherwax a more stereotypical witch voice than Briggs does in the later books - but the books themselves dictate a different tone. It was definitely an interesting set of choices that I thought was well done.

(On a not entirely unrelated note: Yes, this was the unabridged version of the book. I checked. Don’t settle for less.)

There are so many fabulous quotes in this book. I’ll share just a few.

‘If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly,’ said Granny, fleeing into aphorisms, the last refuge of an adult under siege.

That one made me laugh out loud. It is way too true, and my kids presumably know it.

‘They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.’

One of my all-time favorite Pratchett quotes. It has been discouraging to see knowledge and expertise so disrespected in our times.

As I noted, Granny Weatherwax is fairly inexperienced in things outside of her village in this book. Here is one exchange that shows the typical Pratchett turn of phrase.

‘You said there was some sort of teaching place?’ he hazarded.

‘The Unseen University, yes. It’s for training wizards.’

‘And you know where it is?’

‘Yes,’ lied Granny, whose grasp of geography was slightly worse than her knowledge of subatomic physics.

Likewise, while she can read and (sort of) write, she limits herself to the Almanac, rather than books. Until later in the story at least.

For the first time in her life Granny wondered whether there might be something important in all these books people were setting such store by these days, although she was opposed to books on strict moral grounds, since she had heard that many of them were written by dead people and therefore it stood to reason reading them would be as bad as necromancy.

And then, there is this scene where Esk wanders into a disreputable pub:

The landlord, whose name was Skiller, found himself looking directly down at a small child who seemed to be squinting.

‘What?’ he said.

‘Milk,’ said the child, still focusing furiously.  ‘You get it out of goats.  You know?’

Skiller sold only beer, which his customers claimed he got out of cats.

Or this gem, which is all too true, particularly here in California where people pay to get tans despite the fact that we have an abundance of sunshine.

He had the kind of real deep tan that rich people spend ages trying to achieve with expensive holidays and bits of tinfoil, when really all you need to do to obtain one is work your arse off in the open air every day.

Pratchett, even in his early work, is clearly a feminist. There are zingers throughout this book about the Patriarchy and those who support it.

If you were a boy I’d say are you going to seek your fortune?’

‘Can’t girls seek their fortune?’

‘I think they’re supposed to seek a boy with a fortune.’

Social commentary abounds, as in this depiction of the tribes which dominate the river trade, and have designated persons to do their negotiating.

Zoon tribes are very proud of their Liars. Other races get very annoyed about all this.  They feel that the Zoon ought to have adopted more suitable titles, like ‘diplomat’ or ‘public relations officer’.  They feel they are poking fun at the whole thing.

Religion doesn’t escape Pratchett’s teasing either, although he wasn’t completely hostile to it. Having had a bit too much experience with toxic and hateful religion myself, I think he is right about this one:

[G]ods were always demanding that their followers acted other than according to their true natures, and the human fallout this caused made plenty of work for witches.

And one final one, which I really wish I had thought of.

It is well known that stone can think, because the whole of electronics is based on that fact...

I am, of quartz, writing this on my computer, which is indeed a quite gneiss example...sorry. Couldn’t resist.

Equal Rites isn’t quite as funny as the Rincewind books, or as philosophically deep as Pratchett’s later books. However, still very enjoyable both as a story and as social commentary.