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The Truth
The Truth, which is Terry Pratchett's 25th entry into the hopefully never-ending discworld saga, features yet another Ankh-Morpork mystery. Only this time, there's a twist -- Instead of focusing on how The Watch again save the city, The Truth tells the tale from the perspective of William de Worde, founder, editor, and investigative reporter for the city's first newspaper. With the news that The Watch is investigating an attempted murder by the ruler of the city, William's fledgling newspaper quickly grows and just as quickly attracts the attention of many important city citizens.
For those who have yet to encounter Terry Pratchett's Discworld, here's the short version. The Discworld is a fantasy world which is most definitely flat. In fact, it rides on the backs of four giant elephants, who in turn stand atop a giant turtle. Pratchett's world parodies any and every element of our world that he can put his pen on, from movies to music, from fairy tales to opera. All along, Pratchett's razor sharp wit supplies innumerable references to pop culture, and he has a seemingly endless supply of puns.
When recommending any of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, I'm faced with the issue of continuity. You see, with 25 novels in the series so far, references to earlier novels in the series are practically inevitable, and The Truth is no different. However, thanks to the nature of the narrative, The Truth should be relatively accessible to new readers. Because William and his employees on the newspaper are all characters newly introduced to the Discworld, no prior knowledge is needed. However, the cast of characters with which William deals -- from Lord Vetinari to Commander Vimes to Gaspode the Wonder Dog -- might seem a little shallow if you don't have the background supplied by previous books in the series. Don't let that deter you, however, as there is still a lot in this book to find funny, even without the heaps of background that is assumed.
The entire telling of this tale is solid. From the subtle clues sprinkled throughout as to what is happening to the parodies of cameras and palm pilots, the narrative doesn't have a piece out of place.
The only major flaws in the book are the aforementioned Pratchett learning curve and the eclipsing of our hero, William, by the supporting characters in the novel. From a villain by the name of Mr. Tulip, whose wallet reads "Not a very nice person at all" and believes that a potato will save his soul, to Otto Von Chrek, the newspaper's photographer and a recovering vampire, who occasionally finds himself a pile of dust when his flash goes off, William simply doesn't stand out. William is just an ordinary guy who wants to know the truth about what is happening and wants to share that truth with anyone willing to read or be read to. William is very easy to relate to, and for that reason makes an excellent main character, but when push comes to shove, William is finds himself better suited as an observer than a saviour."
You can purchase this book at ThinkGeek.
Terry Pratchet is hard to pin down -- is this humor? Unadulterated absurdity? Clever satire? More real than real?
This statement really drives home the existence of Anglo-American divide to me. Pratchett's a funny writer, but "hard to pin down"? Come on.
Disclaimer: I'm ashamed to admit it, but it was a couple of weeks before I noticed the pun in the title of "The Fifth Elephant"...
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It's fun surveying the field of intelligent, post-modernist fantasy, which has a sense of humor that ranges from the low parody and groaner (Aspirin's Myth books), through Pratchett's prototypical British comedies, to the delicate sarcasm leavened with moments of slapstick that mark Stephen Brust's Phoenix Guards (light) and Taltos series (dark), to the truly dark and nihilist humor of authors like Jonathan Lethem.
All modern fantasies are necessarily referential; they harken back to our extended common history of myth, folk tale, and legend. And any reference is a potential source of humor. Even Tolkien's works contain jokes, though they happen to be of the extremely subtle linguistic and etymological variety. But Fritz Lieber's Swords of Lankhmar series is probably the first great series which combined a classic heroic style with many elements of humor, from the subtle to the surprisingly silly.
Fantasy is such a rich field for humor, in all its varieties, including Douglas Adams's absurdist works, and the modern American fabulists, like Tim Powers and James P. Blaylock (I just checked on Amazon, and surprise surprise! People who buy Blaylock buy Tim Powers), whose books point the way for fantasy to take place in the modern world, without descending into self-serious allegory or just relying on the tired "lonely grad student/librarian/RPG player/fantasy reader analogue finds a dimensional portal/gets caught in a spell/tornado/satanic plot and finds himself in a fantasy world in which he/she is a master wizard" trope.
Going out on a limb, some other unusual and brilliant fantastic authors and books include Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and Geoff Ryman's The Child Garden: or a Low Comedy, which really falls into the SF camp, but is a child of both the best fantasy and SF. But it's a very weird and complicated book; I don't know what my reaction to it would have been if I were younger. But anyone who thinks Douglas Adams is funny, and knows at least who Dante and Marx were, and what Europe went through during the World Wars, will probably find this book an entrancing tale. At its heart it's a classic story of adolescence and lost innocence.
For a more straightforward take on the same themes, Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" series is miles and miles better than the other currently popular young adult British schoolchild wizardry and adolescence series, starring a certain Hogwarts student. Please read these, as these are near-perfect moving, exciting, and deeply affecting books that can inspire the young and allow the old to remember what it was like to be young. I could be wrong, but I suspect this series is the kind which adults overestimate the minimum age to appreciate these books--kids who can read Potter and Dahl and Narnia and Tolkien can read these. Also, the only reason people think these are kid's books is that the author made his name as a children's author. These are no more and no less kids books than the Lord of the Rings or Discworld or the Foundation Series.
Finally, for Pullman meets Powers and Zelazny, check out Tom De Haven's Chronicles of the King's Tramp.
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Make mine methylphenidate.
I'm a big Pratchett fan (my summer trip to London finally let me complete my book collection), and eagerly awaiting the Thief of Time (April 2001). However, what worries me is concepts like cartoons and movies of DW.
OK, Pratchett's got the British humor and slapstick thing down pat, and he's really funny, but the "low humor" elements are NOT what make the writing. For me, the best part of Pratchett is his masterful command of the English lanugage, his clever wordplay and creative methods. All stuff that translates poorly into theatre and worse into a cartoon.
Pratchett is not just about things like "The Hedgehog can Never be Buggered at All." You can amek a cartoon with that, a cartoon with pahllus jokes, with all sorts of visual gags and one-liners. But that's not what his work is about. It's about ideas (Small Gods is brilliant), it's about society (Soul Music, The Truth, etc.), and it's about the writing. Espiecally intersting his ability to make his own unique style mimic, chameleon-style, a genre like the cop thriller or th travelogue.
Well, I had been working on a review of The Truth for my school online paper (silverchips.mbhs.edu), but other stuff had gotten in the way. I guess I'd bvetter get back to it.
PS. Quick review of non-DW books: Having read and enjoyed Niven's Ringworld, I found Pratchett's Strata to be quite fun. The Dark Side of the Sun is sort of a Foundation parody, and not as engaging as DW, but still fun. The Carpet People is VERY early Pratchett, and astute readers of his work will notice many prototype ideas and jokes. Finally, Good Omens (co-written with Neil Gaiman) is a very enjoyable book about the apocalypse. A bit more of the "low-humor" there, but that's not a bad thing. The former three are out of print in the US, but you never know....
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
The Truth is somewhat different than his earlier novels. He's getting more serious, and more pointed, in his satire. While previous novels, like Soul Music and Moving Pictures parodied the music industry and the motion picture industry, they did so in a very light, almost fluffy way.
The Truth is different. His wit has been sharpened, and he has far more to say about modern society in this novel than in previous ones.
He has grown from being merely a well- spoken humorist to a clever commentator on modern society. His background as a reporter for a newspaper has served him well in this book.
The truth shall make ye fret.Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. Or a juggernaut.
Whenever a writer establishes a long and successful history with a particular universe, there are always, always, fans who insist that the writer needs to write more books exactly like their first one or first few. Pratchett is one of the few "enterprise" writers who sticks to his existing universe, yet is always trying to come up with something new to do in it. He doesn't make it new every time -- he often returns to Ankh-Morpork, the three witches and Lancre, and of course Death -- but every few novels he's managed to produce something genuinely new from the nearly unlimited creative potential that is the Disc.
Feel free to post reviews, critiques, and opinions. But please don't take it upon yourself to tell him how to do his job.
exists in an improbably universe on the shores of the bell curve of reality. It it a largish disc, with a central mountain range, with the impossibly large 'Cori Celesti' mountain in the center. It rotates on this axis as it sits on the head of four elephants. (The fifth elephant is thought to have impacted the disc in a Yucatan-style asteroid impact, leaving massive seams of fat and ivory deep beneath the Uberwald Mountains) The elephants in turn sit on the back of the Great A'tuin, the 'world turtle', as often mentioned in asian mytholgy. There is obviously no such thing as cardinal directions on the disc. Instead, they have radial directions, Hubwards, Rimwards, Spinwise, and Widdershins. The disc has a high magical field due to the existence of vast amounts of 'octiron', a magical element, in the crust of disc. The counterwieght continent (inhabited by Asian peoples) is thought to consist largely of gold and octiron. Due to the high density of the magical field, the speed of light is much slower in the atmosphere of the disc. One can watch light fill a valley as if it was water. Pratchet's stories about the Discworld cross back and forth between fantasy and satire. 'The Colour of Magic' and 'Equal Rites' are both mostly fantasy adventure books while 'Small Gods', for example, is a look at religous persecution as carried out during the Spanish inquisition. 'Masquerade' was a parody/satire on modern opera. They're worth reading, but have gotten repetitive in the last five books or so.
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I really like Tolkien (note that this is the correct spelling) and I really like Pratchett too. Ranking one over the other is like trying to decide whether Linux is better than a Corvette. They ain't in the same category.
The Truth isn't the best of Pratchett's novels. Try Small Gods for a nasty take on authoritarian religion, classic Greece, and turtle soup.
I think it's safe to say that Tolkien would've hated computers along with all other embodiments of the "modern." He didn't like automobiles, for instance. "ash nazg" & all that.
For a real geek novel, read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. (I'm not saying I spelt his name right.
Slightly off-topic, but if you're new to Pratchett, there are a couple of things to know.
Pratchett has a couple of different subjects that he bases his books on. I break them up into 5 categories: Death, Witches, Rincewind, the Watch, and Miscellaneous.
Starting points for each category:
Death: "Mort" - The "Death" storylines tend to focus on Discworld's Death and his (adopted) grand-daughter, Susan. Death gets notions into his head regarding humans and wackiness ensues.
Witches: "Equal Rites" - The "Witches" storylines focus on a trio of small-town witches and their escapades. I consider these to be the least interesting.
Rincewind: "The Color of Magic" - Rincewind is the worst wizard in the world. He and whatever companions he can find go on, once again, wacky misadventures and tend to save the world. Rincewind is the definitive Pratchett character; he's a craven, cowardly wizard who keeps inadvertently doing the right thing while trying to save his own hide. Definitely my favorites.
Guards: "Guards! Guards!" - Commander Vimes and his watchmen solve the mysteries of Ankh-Morpork, the primary city of Pratchett's books. The character evolution in these books is incredible. I love all of these books.
Miscellaneous: I liked "Good Omens" (written with Neil Gaiman) a lot. There are lots of others, though.
Enjoy your Pratchett experience; I'm very happy that I accidentally discovered him in a used bookstore.
Tolkein is well and good, but Pratchett's Discworld is NOT un-rich or un-believable. Ankh-Morpork has an actual economy. There are people with actual jobs, making the city run. Golems, trolls, dwarfs, gnomes, vampires, werewolves, and witches all interact in a plausible network, doing valuable work with a sensible division of labor.
Hardly. The "Guards" stories, Feet of Clay being my favorite, are technically police-procedural mysteries, worthy of favorable comparison to Ed McBain's 87th Precinct books - but the stories would not work outside of a fantasy setting. The "Witches" story arc broke new ground in the genre with practically every book, deconstructing fantasy cliche after fantasy cliche, and giving new life to some very tired ideas. The fantastic elements of the stories are integral and necessary, not a "marketing gimmick".
Pratchett is unquestionably in the vanguard of fantasy authors, having inheirited that position from the late Avram Davidson. There's more to Fantasy than Tolkein (although, again, I am not dissing Tolkein - he produced great stuff, which is none the worse for its age). Great new works are still being produced, and should not be dismissed just because they are popular and funny.
-- Jeff Paulsen
Let's try doing this properly (minor SPOILERS ahead):