The Utopia of Science
Jan. 30th, 2011 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselJun 2010
Nation - Terry Pratchett - Corgi, 2009
* * * * *
This is a very unusual book from Mr Pratchett. It is his first in many years that is not set in the Discworld. Despite being ostensibly a young adult novel, it is also notably more brutal, based as it is on the grim notion of an entire island society being wiped out by a tsunami and clearly inspired by the events of Boxing Day 2004. But it is also a book where Pratchett's philosophical preoccupations are unusually to the fore, and one of the few in which they are properly worked out.
The main characters are Mau, a native islander who returns from his test of manhood to discover that his nation has been wiped out, and Daphne (real name Ermintrude), a western girl who is the sole survivor of a ship that is flung onto the island by a wave. Both have skills which are necessary for their survival, but must learn something of each other's language and culture in order to work together. Mau is tormented by the voices of the ancestors in his head telling him to worship the gods in the old ways and to restore the Nation to its former state. Daphne must overcome the mores of her pseudo-Victorian upbringing to be able to help the other survivors who gradually appear. Both must also deal with the trauma brought about by the awful events that they have witnessed while they construct and defend a new society.
None of this sounds very amusing and indeed this is a laugh-lite book. There is humour to be drawn from Mau's and Daphne's cultural mismatch and from some of the minor characters, notably a ship's parrot, but for the most part the text is concerned with the serious practicalities of survival and the development of new social structures that reflect the insights of both Mau's and Daphne's cultures while not copying either. Mau's development is particularly interesting and will annoy religionists with his contemptuous rejection of traditional ways of worship when the gods have proved unworthy. While not being in any way a scientist, Mau takes the scientists' view that if the deductions of a theory are contradicted by observed facts, the theory must be wrong, and that this applies just as much to religious ideas as it does to scientific ones. Of course, Mau is also a young man who is going through the throes of adolescence and without labouring the point, Pratchett draws a parallel with the rebellion against parental authority. Just as the latter is a necessary part of growing up, so, he implies, rebellion against traditionalist religion and culture is a necessary part of personal and social maturity. By contrast, Daphne's development, which reflects the other main theme of cultural accommodation, is rather less believable. She simply does the practical things that are necessary and jettisons the unhelpful parts of her upbringing with relative ease.
[Warning: Discussion of the end of the book follows. Stop here if you don’t want spoilers.]
So what kind of nation do Mau and Daphne create? This we learn in a touching coda that takes place many years after the main events, and I suspect, reflects Pratchett's own view of how he would like the world to be. It is, in short, a utopia of science. The observational, questioning mode is ascendant, and while traditions are not entirely abandoned, they are only retained to the extent that they give insights on the world as it is or fulfil necessary human needs. This also allows for a vision of cultures reconciled in mutual respect - western scientists (Richard Dawkins, Patrick Moore and others are name-checked in the text, but Arthur C. Clarke should have got a look-in) learn from the wisdom and stories of Mau's people, which turn out to have more truth in them than had previously been supposed. It is an inspiring and hopeful view, and arising as it does out of the pages that precede it, makes this Pratchett's most worked-through and deepest book in years. Like all utopias, it is unconvincing, but it is one that I would really like to exist.
Nation - Terry Pratchett - Corgi, 2009
* * * * *
This is a very unusual book from Mr Pratchett. It is his first in many years that is not set in the Discworld. Despite being ostensibly a young adult novel, it is also notably more brutal, based as it is on the grim notion of an entire island society being wiped out by a tsunami and clearly inspired by the events of Boxing Day 2004. But it is also a book where Pratchett's philosophical preoccupations are unusually to the fore, and one of the few in which they are properly worked out.
The main characters are Mau, a native islander who returns from his test of manhood to discover that his nation has been wiped out, and Daphne (real name Ermintrude), a western girl who is the sole survivor of a ship that is flung onto the island by a wave. Both have skills which are necessary for their survival, but must learn something of each other's language and culture in order to work together. Mau is tormented by the voices of the ancestors in his head telling him to worship the gods in the old ways and to restore the Nation to its former state. Daphne must overcome the mores of her pseudo-Victorian upbringing to be able to help the other survivors who gradually appear. Both must also deal with the trauma brought about by the awful events that they have witnessed while they construct and defend a new society.
None of this sounds very amusing and indeed this is a laugh-lite book. There is humour to be drawn from Mau's and Daphne's cultural mismatch and from some of the minor characters, notably a ship's parrot, but for the most part the text is concerned with the serious practicalities of survival and the development of new social structures that reflect the insights of both Mau's and Daphne's cultures while not copying either. Mau's development is particularly interesting and will annoy religionists with his contemptuous rejection of traditional ways of worship when the gods have proved unworthy. While not being in any way a scientist, Mau takes the scientists' view that if the deductions of a theory are contradicted by observed facts, the theory must be wrong, and that this applies just as much to religious ideas as it does to scientific ones. Of course, Mau is also a young man who is going through the throes of adolescence and without labouring the point, Pratchett draws a parallel with the rebellion against parental authority. Just as the latter is a necessary part of growing up, so, he implies, rebellion against traditionalist religion and culture is a necessary part of personal and social maturity. By contrast, Daphne's development, which reflects the other main theme of cultural accommodation, is rather less believable. She simply does the practical things that are necessary and jettisons the unhelpful parts of her upbringing with relative ease.
[Warning: Discussion of the end of the book follows. Stop here if you don’t want spoilers.]
So what kind of nation do Mau and Daphne create? This we learn in a touching coda that takes place many years after the main events, and I suspect, reflects Pratchett's own view of how he would like the world to be. It is, in short, a utopia of science. The observational, questioning mode is ascendant, and while traditions are not entirely abandoned, they are only retained to the extent that they give insights on the world as it is or fulfil necessary human needs. This also allows for a vision of cultures reconciled in mutual respect - western scientists (Richard Dawkins, Patrick Moore and others are name-checked in the text, but Arthur C. Clarke should have got a look-in) learn from the wisdom and stories of Mau's people, which turn out to have more truth in them than had previously been supposed. It is an inspiring and hopeful view, and arising as it does out of the pages that precede it, makes this Pratchett's most worked-through and deepest book in years. Like all utopias, it is unconvincing, but it is one that I would really like to exist.