Too Real To Be Funny
Jul. 9th, 2006 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvessel02 Jul 06
Thud! - Terry Pratchett - Doubleday, 2005
* * *
Of the Discworld books, those starring Samuel Grimes and the Ankh Morpork city watch are in general the ones I enjoy least. My main problem is with Grimes himself, who unlike other Pratchett protagonists is grim, cynical and largely humourless. His positive qualities - loyalty, tactical nous and an understanding of human nature - make for a good generic fantasy hero but do not readily lend themselves to the lead in a comic novel. Pratchett clearly understands this himself because the city watch books are noticeably different from the rest of the Discworld oeuvre, with more overt satirical mapping of real world issues and fewer laugh-out-loud one-liners. They are less silly but also less fun. Most of the Discworld books make me laugh out loud; the city watch novels, at best, raise the occasional smile.
Which is not to say that they are without merit. Having a protagonist who is recognisably an analogue to a real-world police chief allows Pratchett to examine weightier social issues than would be possible with magically-endowed protagonists such as Rincewind or Granny Weatherwax, and in Thud! he tackles the problems of violence caused by tension between ethnic groups. Similar ground to White Teeth, in fact, but from a totally different perspective.
The groups in question are dwarves and trolls, and the action is set in the tense few days leading up to the annual commemoration of Koom Valley, an epic battle in which the trolls ambushed the dwarves or the dwarves ambushed the trolls (no-one remembers which, which seems implausible but is sort-of explained eventually). Antipathies have been ratchetted up by the murder of a grag (dwarf leader) in a mine under Treacle Street and the discovery of a troll’s club nearby. Grimes has to solve the murder, keep the peace in the streets, handle the tensions in the watch caused by the addition of a vampire recruit, and make sure he gets home promptly by six each night to read “Where’s my Cow?” (with all the right noises) to his baby son (Pratchett being Pratchett, he has actually written Where’s my Cow? which is an amusing pastiche of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and other reading primers).
It is clear that this is another of Pratchett’s anti-religious novels - parallels with the annual marches in Northern Ireland are obvious and the grags are clearly intended to recall extremist imams and other religious leaders who advocate tribalism as a way of achieving personal identity (though interestingly he undercuts this by making the trolls’ leaders mafia types, who of course also espouse tribalism but for non-religious reasons). To be fair, Pratchett doesn’t overtly force this down our throats, but by giving us Grimes’ thoughts on the subject he is unusually heavy-handed in suggesting to us what to think. Grimes is evidently becoming Pratchett’s alter-ego, which perhaps goes some way to explaining why he has become so prevalent in the recent novels despite his unsuitability as a comic hero.
So what is Pratchett’s answer to the problem of tribalism? In summary, wise tribal leaders and a chess-like strategy game called Thud! which forces players to think like other races in order to win. This is an interesting solution, though mapping it back to the real world could be a problem. Coming up with a game that forces a Moslem to think like a Christian, or a Protestant to think like a Catholic, would be a challenge.
The main plot is clever and just about holds together - I liked the Da Vinci Code parody even though I haven’t and have no intention of reading the book, and the incorporation of the getting-home-in-time-to-read-to-young-Sam subplot worked reasonably well. The Thing In The Darkness was a slightly obtrusive and inconsistent element - it was unnecessary to give a supernatural explanation for the spreading of strife between races - but was at least lightly used.
The sub-plots are reasonably engaging but are not Pratchett’s best work. I have never had much time for Corporal Nobby and Sergeant Colon, who have not developed since Guards! Guards!, although I liked the all-female storyline with Angua, Sally (the vampire) and Nobby’s implausible girl-friend Tawnee. The hints of a Carrott-Angua romance, as usual, go nowhere.
One intriguing feature of the plot is the employment of a device that is oddly science-fictional in tone. It suggests that there is a hidden history to the Discworld, and possibly an overarching plot to the entire thirty-odd book series that might eventually come to a climax. If so, it would be a truly remarkable achievement. Though I don’t think that this one will be seen as the stand-out of the series.
Thud! - Terry Pratchett - Doubleday, 2005
* * *
Of the Discworld books, those starring Samuel Grimes and the Ankh Morpork city watch are in general the ones I enjoy least. My main problem is with Grimes himself, who unlike other Pratchett protagonists is grim, cynical and largely humourless. His positive qualities - loyalty, tactical nous and an understanding of human nature - make for a good generic fantasy hero but do not readily lend themselves to the lead in a comic novel. Pratchett clearly understands this himself because the city watch books are noticeably different from the rest of the Discworld oeuvre, with more overt satirical mapping of real world issues and fewer laugh-out-loud one-liners. They are less silly but also less fun. Most of the Discworld books make me laugh out loud; the city watch novels, at best, raise the occasional smile.
Which is not to say that they are without merit. Having a protagonist who is recognisably an analogue to a real-world police chief allows Pratchett to examine weightier social issues than would be possible with magically-endowed protagonists such as Rincewind or Granny Weatherwax, and in Thud! he tackles the problems of violence caused by tension between ethnic groups. Similar ground to White Teeth, in fact, but from a totally different perspective.
The groups in question are dwarves and trolls, and the action is set in the tense few days leading up to the annual commemoration of Koom Valley, an epic battle in which the trolls ambushed the dwarves or the dwarves ambushed the trolls (no-one remembers which, which seems implausible but is sort-of explained eventually). Antipathies have been ratchetted up by the murder of a grag (dwarf leader) in a mine under Treacle Street and the discovery of a troll’s club nearby. Grimes has to solve the murder, keep the peace in the streets, handle the tensions in the watch caused by the addition of a vampire recruit, and make sure he gets home promptly by six each night to read “Where’s my Cow?” (with all the right noises) to his baby son (Pratchett being Pratchett, he has actually written Where’s my Cow? which is an amusing pastiche of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and other reading primers).
It is clear that this is another of Pratchett’s anti-religious novels - parallels with the annual marches in Northern Ireland are obvious and the grags are clearly intended to recall extremist imams and other religious leaders who advocate tribalism as a way of achieving personal identity (though interestingly he undercuts this by making the trolls’ leaders mafia types, who of course also espouse tribalism but for non-religious reasons). To be fair, Pratchett doesn’t overtly force this down our throats, but by giving us Grimes’ thoughts on the subject he is unusually heavy-handed in suggesting to us what to think. Grimes is evidently becoming Pratchett’s alter-ego, which perhaps goes some way to explaining why he has become so prevalent in the recent novels despite his unsuitability as a comic hero.
So what is Pratchett’s answer to the problem of tribalism? In summary, wise tribal leaders and a chess-like strategy game called Thud! which forces players to think like other races in order to win. This is an interesting solution, though mapping it back to the real world could be a problem. Coming up with a game that forces a Moslem to think like a Christian, or a Protestant to think like a Catholic, would be a challenge.
The main plot is clever and just about holds together - I liked the Da Vinci Code parody even though I haven’t and have no intention of reading the book, and the incorporation of the getting-home-in-time-to-read-to-young-Sam subplot worked reasonably well. The Thing In The Darkness was a slightly obtrusive and inconsistent element - it was unnecessary to give a supernatural explanation for the spreading of strife between races - but was at least lightly used.
The sub-plots are reasonably engaging but are not Pratchett’s best work. I have never had much time for Corporal Nobby and Sergeant Colon, who have not developed since Guards! Guards!, although I liked the all-female storyline with Angua, Sally (the vampire) and Nobby’s implausible girl-friend Tawnee. The hints of a Carrott-Angua romance, as usual, go nowhere.
One intriguing feature of the plot is the employment of a device that is oddly science-fictional in tone. It suggests that there is a hidden history to the Discworld, and possibly an overarching plot to the entire thirty-odd book series that might eventually come to a climax. If so, it would be a truly remarkable achievement. Though I don’t think that this one will be seen as the stand-out of the series.
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ming up with a game that forces a Moslem to think like a Christian, or a Protestant to think like a
Date: 2006-07-10 06:01 pm (UTC)