Terry Pratchett's Discworld 12- Witches Abroad

Witches Abroad

Corgi Press

Terry Pratchett

1991

“Most witches don’t believe in gods. They know that the gods exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don’t believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman.”

Other Terry Pratchett Reviews- The Colour of Magic - The Light Fantastic - Equal Rites - Mort - Sourcery - Wyrd Sisters - Pyramids - Guards! Guards! - Eric - Moving Pictures - Reaper Man - Witches Abroad - Small Gods - Lords and Ladies - Men At Arms - Soul Music - Interesting Times - Maskerade - Feet of Clay - Hogfather - Raising Steam - A Blink of the Screen - Sky1 Adaptations- Dodger - The Long Earth (w Stephen Baxter)

 

I think it's pretty obvious that the routes of Terry Pratchett's success comes from the influence and adaptation of classical British comedy along the Monty Python to Douglas Adams' Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy route, but, to me, where he really stands out as a pioneer with the inevitable culmination of this sort of contradictory idiotic genius style is his wide eye for deconstruction; both of his own creations and of real-world culture and society in general. Since the Discworld is based entirely on magic, anything can happen, and somewhere along the line in the Discworld series Pratchett began to heavily develop (or maybe indulge) a kind of sardonic self-analysis that, in the ultimate circle of meta-fiction, used it to advance the plot.

It's apparent in earlier works such as Equal Rites (where Eskarina Smith has to inherit her wizardly powers) and Mort (who similarly has to play the part of hero and try to save the girl), and especially Moving Pictures, but it's with Witches Abroad that Pratchett delivered one of his most complicated and focused work of post-modern fantasy, and along the way wrote another classic in his seminal witches series, with the return of Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlic.

After saving the kingdom of Lancre in a comic-fantasy Shakespeare tribute, Pratchett again uses the witches to explore the notion of what he calls narrative causality, though this time with an altogether different genre of fiction; the classic children's fairy tale. It begins when Magrat, the least experienced and most fretful of the coven, inherits from another witch a fairy godmother's wand, instantly giving her the power to turn a just about anything into a pumpkin (she hasn't got the instruction manual). Magrat also inherits the fairy godmother's singular client list, a young lady named Emberella (yes) who's set to marry the Duke of Genua, but doesn't want to. Genua is rather a long way away from Lancre, so the three witches set out on the road, and on the way get an inclining of what's really going on.

In a purely literal sense, Witches Abroad involves a lot of characters, some detective work, an arch-nemesis, and a clever duel at the end. It's another tour-de-force for the character of Granny Weatherwax as the most unlikely badass in the world, as she takes on the familiar (to her) magical source of all the trouble; her very own sister. Pratchett uses Lily Weatherwax as another powerful and personal nemesis for Granny to face in mortal combat, but I think the plot of this one does somewhat take a back seat to Pratchett's fairy tale fun.

It's for this that I love Witches Abroad; reading Pratchett's versions of Red Riding Hood et al is very funny, perhaps an easy target for his satirical tone but a rewarding one never the less. In the hierarchy of Witches books (of which there are only really five, when you ignore the offshoots) I think each Witches book gets better and better (with one exception in the only-decent Maskerade), as Pratchett finds his groove with these characters who seem to be unique in literature, particularly with Granny Weatherwax. Pratchett would return to write the Witches even better in Lords and Ladies, but it's the groundwork of character development here that establishes perhaps the finest corner of his fictional universe.

Haruki Murakami- Sputnik Sweetheart

Sputnik Sweetheart

Vintage

Haruki Murakami

1999 (Japanese)/ 2001 (English)
Translated by Jay Rubin 

Other Murakami Reviews- A Wild Sheep Chase - Dance Dance Dance - Underground - Sputnik Sweetheart - after the quake - After Dark - Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - 1Q84- Books I & II - Book III - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage - Strange Library

"I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling." 

After posting two reviews of famous books that I didn't much care for (Fear and Trembling & Generation X) , it's a relief for me to get to something that I know I actually like, and that's another Haruki Murakami book (I think that he is good). I first read Sputnik Sweetheart about five or six years ago when I was an aspiring young student with half the cynicism, in the gloriously busy and compact university town of Aberystwyth, Wales. For some reason, even though there was both a three-floor main campus library and the massive National Library of Wales, I spent more time in the tiny town library. That's where I found Murakami, and this was the third book of his I read. It took me a long time to eventually buy it, but I'm slow at everything.

So, how to describe Sputnik Sweetheart (aside from commenting that it's a stupid title for a book)? Stylistically, it's most similar to Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, West of the Sun, which I suppose essentially means that it's kind of an existential romantic drama, immediately reminding me of the novels of Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, etc.). Kundera usually wrote about a love and sex between his main characters as they lived among strange and unsettling times in Eastern Europe, approaching his analytical philosophical ponderings through the experiences of his characters. Murakami and Sputnik Sweetheart take the same approach towards telling a story, but the author's voice is so strong and unique that this is definitely and distinctively the mind of Haruki Murakami.
 

There are three important characters in this novel, and they are locked into a kind of unrequited love triangle that ultimately takes the previously-normal human drama of the story and entwines fantasy and reality. The narrator is simply named 'K', but the story doesn't revolve around him, instead telling the story of his unrequited love, Sumire. Sumire falls in love in the most existential way with an older woman named Miu, divulging her thoughts to K who is, unlike the usual Murakami narrator, a strong and confident voice. Time goes by without K hearing from her, until he receives a letter from her telling him that she and Miu have been travelling in Europe. Later K gets a phone call from Miu, who tells him that, while staying on a Greek island, Sumire has simply vanished.

It's from this point that Murakami steers into somewhat familiar territory, returning to themes explored throughout his work in a typically post-modern style. I'm not sure if it's a spoiler (it probably is) to say that, like most of his novels (1Q84 & The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle come to mind in particular) there's certainly not a conclusive ending, but instead a meditative, philosophical and fantastically poetic closure. Like Milan Kundera, Murakami's way of portraying his image of obsessive and unexplainable love is spellbinding, and his build towards the metaphysical roller-coaster as K searches for Sumire is amazing.

I loved this book, more than I remember. It's thoughtful, beautiful, and mesmerizing. Call it post-modernism, magical realism, or simply a modern fairy tale, Murakami's style is uniquely brilliant.

Douglas Coupland- Generation X

Generation X

Abacus

Douglas Coupland

1991

“When someone tells you they’ve just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality. You can immediately assume so many things: that they’re locked into jobs they hate; that they’re broke; that they spend every night watching videos; that they’re fifteen pounds overweight; that they no longer listen to new ideas. It’s profoundly depressing.”

After a brief burst of creativity by my standards, where I wrote a whopping two posts that weren't actually book reviews, it's time to get back to normal. Okay, one of those posts was a single paragraph link to another site, but I think you people should stop judging me and pay attention to my ultra-serious book reviews. Last time I was here properly I slagged off a classic work of philosophy in Søren Kiekergaard's Fear and Trembling, and now I'm back to somewhat slag off an important work of late twentieth-century Western literature in Douglas Coupland's generation-defining Generation X.

Set at around the time of its release, Generation X follows the exploits of three twenty-something year old characters living in Southern California. Claire, Dag and Andy have quit their everyday meaningless jobs to move near the Mojave desert, where they live in hope of some sort of meaningful satisfaction and personal achievement. The resulting short novel became very well known as an iconic representation of a literal Generation X; young adults who grew up during the eighties and are living with the consequences. Now in the real world we can look back at that time period and see that all this really led to was the rise and rise of internationally-powerful superbrands, but I digress.

While the story follows the lives of these characters, switching through their viewpoints, the book gained its fame and notoriety for Coupland's cynical portrayal of then-modern society. Much of this is centralized on the state of California, but I think a lot of that went over my head, probably diluting my interest greatly as I read on. Other parts were very clear, particularly Coupland's page-footing definitions of terms he invented (such as the self-explanatory 'McJob'), all achieving the dubious feat of managing to be both depressing and amusing. It made me think a lot of Nineteen Eighty-Four, not just through the creation of now common phrases, but as a thinly-veiled fantasy version of the real world.

But I didn't enjoy it. The problems were simple, and perhaps totally subjective, but frankly I didn't care about the characters and found the authors style in frequently entertaining. I'm not sure if I was expecting some sort of Brave New World written by Hunter S. Thompson or something, but I had gotten my hopes up before reading. The setting was there but the drama and intrigue was not. It didn't make me stop to think, nor leave me contemplating it much upon conclusion. I'm sure there are many people that would be quick to try and explain what's so good about this book, but they probably don't read my blog, so I'm just going to give up now. 

A Quick Shout Out...

As the title suggests, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to another blog that, through the magic of blogger stats, I discovered linked to my stupid little site. If I had one of those link-column-things that runs down the side of the page listing my favourite blogs then I'd add it, but until I get around to that, everyone (all ten of you) go visit The Genteel Arsenal. It's a really good book blog, with reviews and thoughts and stuff, including plenty of Pratchett book reviews.

Trapped in L-Space...

Today I feel like writing stuff, but I couldn't be arsed with the concentrated attention (well, attempted) required for a proper book review, so instead here's what you might call a normal blog post, where I'm going to ramble on in a self-absorbed manner until I run out of steam. It's like an adventure, and we're all in it together. Anyway, I managed to catch up a little on my list of things to review, though there's always the danger of quickly adding to it by getting absorbed in a new book. It actually makes it easier to keep this blog updated when I'm labouring through something that I don't particularly enjoy but feel like I have to finish. I had that with A Feast for Crows and then John Updike's Marry Me, which is a pretty small book but took me ages. Here's a preview of my eventual review (it's third in the queue right now); I didn't like it. Right now I'm reading Haruki Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart, which won't take long to devour because I'm addicted to Murakami's writing; and running dangerously low on unread material.

The real problem is the to-read pile, which is more literally a to-read cabinet. I'm wary of looking over and counting the actual number because it's out of control now. Sometimes I do look at it, and each time I spot something I don't remember buying. It's giving me the nagging feeling that I've opened up a hole into L-Space. I think there's about forty paperbacks sat in the cabinet, plus four I haven't bothered putting in, plus Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files Vol. 10, plus my yet-to-be-delivered copy of The Absolute Sandman Vol. 3, which was kind of a Christmas present to myself, because I'm generous like that.

The thing is, as I've mentioned many times in my blog, I can't resist a second-hand book shop. While I occasionally get tempted by Amazon, almost every time I'm in town I check out one of the two shops I like, and usually they've got something for around £2.50 that I like the idea of reading at some point in the far future, so the pile keeps growing. Plus, the thing with charity book shops is that if you don't grab it when you see it then it won't be back in stock when it's gone.  There's even a few things that I've grown less fond of the idea of reading, like Cormac McCarthy's complete Border Trilogy. If I don't like the first one, they're all getting kicked out of the pile. Just not literally because it is actually a glass cabinet.

But as overgrown as it is, I do love having this ever-expanding personal library to pick from, and it's going to give me plenty of material for this blog, as long as I don't let the laziness slip in. I've got a review of Douglas Coupland's Generation X to do next, and I'm always tempted to get back to the Discworld, especially with the next installment being a Granny Weatherwax episode in Witches Abroad. Ah well, back to the real world...

Søren Kierkegaard- Fear and Trembling

Fear and Trembling

Penguin Classics

Søren Kierkegaard

1843

“If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?”

Oh dear, we're at that time again (and by 'we' I mean 'me'); time to write a review that I really don't feel like doing, about a book that I didn't take much out of. This is going to require every diversionary tactic I ever tried when writing an essay, in an attempt to make the reader think they're getting lots of intellectual stimulation out of something incredibly vapid, which, ironically, is the exact opposite of the relationship that I have with old Søren Kierkegaard. In short, the long-deceased Danish philosopher makes me feel guilty about not appreciating him.

Of course there are plenty of recognised literary classics that rub certain people the wrong way, and I doubt there's a single book lover out there, no matter how open-minded, who can't tell you about a particular book or a whole genre that they just don't like, or at the very least can't get in to. I don't really like Ernest Hemmingway, for example, though I have this sort of vague, itching notion that I probably should. My record with philosophy in the past is similarly spotty, having enjoyed some Plato and Nietzsche, but also having wrote the worst review of all time in my look at Descartes' Discourse on the Method.

Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (which I keep trying to type as 'Fear and Loathing' every damn time) is a work of philosophy, obviously, and it's very famous and hip. It's also very religious; essentially comprising of a drawn out, fully explored look at various ethical conflicts in metaphorical relation to the biblical old testament story of Abraham and Isaac; you know the one, where the lovely old Judeo-Christian god decided to mess with his old mate Abraham by demanding he sacrifice his son Isaac, in a sort of test of faith, only more psychopathic.

As you can tell by the fact you've already formed your opinion, there's plenty to think about regarding that old ethical conundrum (mainly about how big a bastard god is), and Kiekergaard goes all out with it, tackling issues of our supposed duty of god verses the power of the subjective will and all that. The trouble is I just found all of this ethics stuff more than a little bit dull. It's kind of like arguing over the shape of clouds. I finished it though, so now I can tell everyone I meet that I've read a copy of Fear and Trembling, then hope they never ask me anything about it. Now I'm going to finish this review, publish it, and feel both smug and guilty. 

Terry Pratchett's Discworld 11- Reaper Man

Reaper Man

Corgi

Terry Pratchett

1991

Other Terry Pratchett Reviews- The Colour of Magic - The Light Fantastic - Equal Rites - Mort - Sourcery - Wyrd Sisters - Pyramids - Guards! Guards! - Eric - Moving Pictures - Reaper Man - Witches Abroad - Small Gods - Lords and Ladies - Men At Arms - Soul Music - Interesting Times - Maskerade - Feet of Clay - Hogfather - Raising Steam - A Blink of the Screen - Sky1 Adaptations- Dodger - The Long Earth (w Stephen Baxter)

'It can't be intelligent, can it?' said the Bursar.
'All it's doing is moving around slowly and eating things,' said the Dean.
'Put a pointy hat on it and it'd be a faculty member,' said the Archchancellor.
 

Ah yes, the Discworld. About a fourth of the way in I took a break from the series to concentrate on catching up with all of the fancy new novels I'd raced ahead with. I still haven't caught up, but I felt like taking a break from that serious deadpan stuff and getting back to my favourite fictional world. I also watched the first part of Sky's adaptation of A Colour of Magic the other day, and I was given two of the four (!) new Pratchett books for Christmas (A Blink of the Screen and Dodger, with The Long Earth and The Compleat Ankh-Morpork currently missing). So let's jump backwards twenty years for a retrospective review of book eleven, Reaper Man.

Generally considered the second Death book, Reaper Man differs from its predecessor Mort by upgrading Death from the sort-of antagonist of the story to the co-lead character. It also introduces a set of antagonists of Death's very own, beginning a storyline that continues many books into the future, in the Auditors of Reality; a group of literally shadowy characters who seem to have an influence in all reality. They condemn the scythe-wielding anthropomorphic personification we all know and love for becoming too attached to his living subjects, banishing him to walk as one of them. In the meantime, the temporary absence of a human grim reaper causes a bit of a problem, with all manner of undead apparitions appearing, mostly confused. One of these is Death's co-star, Unseen University wizard Windle Poons, who turns from a dribbling, demented old man into an invigorated, youthful, albeit undead version of himself.

While Windle Poons tries to get used to being undead in Ankh-Morpork, Death is living a humble life on a farm in the middle of nowhere, further experiencing the surreality of life as a mortal. 'Bill Door', as he's known, has existential conversations with the farm owner and shows off his remarkable abilities with a scythe. Alas, it's only a temporary retreat for Death, as his replacement New Death fully forms, and his first call of duty is to escort Bill Door to the other side. Meanwhile, Windle Poons, his undead friends from the Fresh Start Club, and the wizards of Unseen University discover and must face in the middle of Ankh-Morpork the power of a multidimensional parasitic demon entity that's hooked itself to the Disc in all the chaos, and which looks suspiciously like a supermarket.

The diversion in pace and tone between Death and Windle Poons' segments gives a somewhat schizophrenic note to the proceedings, and that they don't interact until much later on further seperates things. It's an interesting choice by Pratchett, but I'm not entirely sure if it doesn't hamper the full development of either stories. I get the impression with the Death character (from here, Mort, and later books) that Pratchett doesn't feel as though he can carry a whole narrative by himself. That's probably true, as not only is Death somewhat limited in his emotional range, he works best as a thoughtful, meditative, softly-spoken character.

Like most of the Discworld books so far, the comedy and satirical philosophy gives way a little for a lot of running about and perilous danger towards the end, and the events of both tales come together more to solidify the procedures, but it doesn't quite offer great resolution to the proceedings. This is the last we'd see of the Windle Poons character, who Pratchett clearly wasn't happy enough with to keep (he's a little generic, like Victor of Moving Pictures), while Death would continue his own development, and finally gain a static supporting character in the future. All of which leaves me to feel that Reaper Man is only really a B- in terms of the authors own standards, which still makes it really really good.