Re-read reviews: Discworld, by Terry Pratchett, part 5 - Death (and family)

Discworld overview here. 

            Discworld’s Death is in many respects exactly what one would expect from an anthropormorphic personification of that process: A tall skeleton in a black robe who carries a scythe, rides a white horse, and TALKS LIKE THIS. But he is a great deal more than that, too. You see, Death is a people person. Or, at least, he’s curious about people. He sees a lot of them, even though not for very long, and has an urge to imitate them in order to understand them better. He has a dressing table with combs on it, in a house that is bigger on the inside than the outside. He creates a garden, though he hasn’t quite got the hang of colors. His pale horse is named ‘Binky’. He is fond of cats¹. And then he adopts a daughter…

 

1. Probably because they can see him while they are alive and aren’t afraid of him. Also, he gets to meet them 9 times (as we see in ‘The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents’).

 

Death-focused books:  In chronological order, all briefly discussed below: 'Mort', 'Reaper Man', 'Soul Music', 'Hogfather', and 'Thief of Time'. 

 

Mort Book List

Mortimer – Mort – is having bad luck at an apprenticeship fair. But at midnight he is approached by someone that his father doesn’t seem to be able to see properly:

“What was your job again?” said Lezek, talking to a black-robed skeleton without showing even a flicker of surprise. I USHER SOULS INTO THE NEXT WORLD, said Death… “Good. Good. Never really thought of it as a job for Mort, you know, but it’s good work…always very reliable…Where did you say your business was?” ... NO FURTHER THAN THE THICKNESS OF A SHADOW, said Death. WHERE THE FIRST PRIMAL CELL WAS, THERE WAS I ALSO. WHERE MAN IS, THERE AM I. WHEN THE LAST LIFE CRAWLS UNDER FREEZING STARS, THERE WILL I BE. “Ah,” said Lezek, “You get about a bit, then.”

            In Death’s country, Mort meets his new employer’s daughter, Ysabell², and his servant, former wizard Albert. They are a bit puzzled as to why Death thinks he needs an apprentice at all. Ysabell figures her dad is trying to cure her loneliness by finding her a boyfriend. But Death also seems to be working through some things of his own. He goes fly fishing, tries gambling and getting drunk, and does the conga while trying to get one of the dancers to explain "fun" to him:

I AM AFRAID I DO NOT GET OUT AS MUCH AS I WOULD LIKE TO. PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS. DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH SEX? “Not unless we pull up sharp, old boy, if you know what I mean?”…I DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN... “You do it for fun.”…WE ARE HAVING FUN? “I thought I was,” said his lordship uncertainly. The voice by his ear was vaguely worrying him; it appeared to be arriving directly into his brain.

Meanwhile, Mort is sent out on the souls round. This mostly goes OK until he gets to the Princess Keli. In a misguided bit of romanticism, Mort decides to rescue her from being assassinated. The universe does not take kindly to this.

            I’m not sure if I like the sort-of love triangle between Mort, Ysabell, and Princess Keli (or quadrangle, if you include the young wizard Cutwell). The humorous bits are good, such as this exchange between Mort and Ysabell:

“At least I don’t look like I’ve been eating doughnuts in a wardrobe for years,”…”At least I walk as if my legs only had one knee each,” she said. “My eyes aren’t two juugly poached eggs.” Ysabell nodded. “On the other hand, my ears don’t look like something growing on a dead tree. What does juugly mean?” “You know, eggs like Albert does them.”… “A good word,” she conceded thoughtfully.”

Or this between Cutwell and Princess Keli:

“What made you decide to become a princess?” After a thoughtful silence she said, “It was decided for me, you know.” “Sorry, I-” “…I expect it’s the same with magic; no doubt your father was a wizard?” Cutwell gritted his teeth. “Um. No,” he said, “not really. Absolutely not, in fact.” He knew what she would say next, and here it came, reliable as the sunset… “Oh? Is it really true that wizards aren’t allowed to- ”³

But the actual romance is fairly unconvincing, so I rather wish there was less of it.

         Overall the story is entertaining enough, but it doesn’t have as much in the way of deeper messages compared to many Discworld books, and I tend to think of it more as the backstory for Susan, Death’s granddaughter (see ‘Soul Music’ below). Although Mort does get to have a pretty cool duel with Death toward the end…

 

2. “She had silver hair, and eyes with a pearly sheen to them, and the kind of interesting but impractical long dress that tends to be worn by tragic heroines who clasp single roses to their bosom while gazing soulfully at the moon… ‘Pre-Raphaelite’…would have been almost the right description. However such girls tend to be on the translucent, consumptive side, whereas this one had a slight suggestion of too many chocolates.”

3. Discworld rules for witches vs. wizards were clearly inspired by Earthsea: Wizards get trained in the fancy school and are celibate, witches train each other and generally do what they like.

 

Reaper Man Book List

WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?

            Death finds himself suddenly mortal in this tale because the auditors of the universe (a collective of empty gray robes who would really prefer it if everything were just rocks moving in curves) disapprove of personality, especially in essential functions. This causes a lot of disruptions.130-year-old wizard Windle Poons had been looking forward to reincarnating:

“I’m thinking of coming back as a woman,” he said conversationally. The Bursar opened and shut his mouth a few times… “Isn’t there rather a lot of…washing things? And making beds and cookery and all that kind of thing?” “Not in the kind of, mm, life I have in mind,” said Windle firmly.

But Death doesn’t keep his appointment, and Windle’s soul, not knowing what else to do, finds its way back into his body. While the very annoyed zombie meets up with Reg Shoe⁴ and his undead support group, other souls are piling up on life’s doorstep such that mediums like Mrs. Cake can’t hear themselves think. Stray life force energy from everything else is causing lamps to unscrew themselves from the ceiling and trousers to go running down the street on their own. We also get to see the origin of Death of Rats – a tiny little skeleton in a robe who goes SQUEAK - who will be a re-occurring character!

            Meanwhile, Death finds himself a farmhand job under the name ‘Bill Door’. He already knows how to use a scythe after all, though he does it a bit oddly:

“It’s good. You’ve got the swing and everything.” THANK YOU MISS FLITWORTH. “But why only one blade of grass at a time?”

He enjoys some parts of being mortal, but not the actual mortality bit. He can’t ignore the hissing of his life-timer, or the ticking of clocks. Then he gets into a John Henry-style contest with a combine harvester before facing down his prospective replacement, who does not respect the harvest. Miss Flitwick asks what his last words would be, and I have to wonder if his response inspired this Doctor Who moment.

            There are quite a lot of other good bits. There’s the creature that sucks cities dry – inspired, I suspect, by Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’, except in this case the undead are the heroes. We learn more about Mrs. Cake, her werewolf daughter⁵, and how she met some of her undead lodgers (all mentioned by Angua in ‘Men at Arms’). There’s a boogeyman who literally comes out of the closet at a very helpful moment. Oh, and if you’ve read ‘Good Omens’⁶, you might have noticed that Death in that story comes off as a slightly darker and scarier version of the Discworld Death. Well, in this story we learn that Discworld Death is a subsidiary, of sorts, of Azrael (the name Good Omens Death uses at the airfield showdown) - so that’s a fun little easter egg!

 

4. See the Nights Watch stories. Here he’s in his undead activist role: “Spooks of the world Arise, You have Nothing to lose but your Chains!”

5. Unlike Angua, Ludmilla turns into a wolf-woman rather than a full wolf. Her boyfriend Lupine is wolf-shaped most of the time, so they meet in the middle at the full moon.

6. Published one year earlier.

 

Soul Music Book List

            Young bard Imp y Celyn has moved to Ankh Morepork to make a name for himself. He meets some prospective band mates, a dwarf and a troll:

“I can blow anything,” said Glod. “Realllly?” said Imp. He sought for some polite comment. “That must make you very popular.” The troll heaved a big leather sack off the floor. “Dis is what I play,” he said…”Music made from rocks?”

Imp’s harp accidentally gets smashed, and they can’t pay the Guild of Musicians fees, but then Imp finds a strange-looking guitar in an old shop that seems almost alive. We are also introduced to Susan Sto Helit, resident of the Quirm college for young ladies, and also Death’s granddaughter. Her parents had tried to shield her from the more occult parts of her heritage, even going so far as to name her Susan. But she has  white hair with a black streak that rearranges itself, a talent for any sport that involves swinging a stick, and the ability to make herself invisible. When Death, depressed by having had to ‘collect’ Susan’s parents a few years earlier, Susan gets pulled into the job.

            Susan is expecting to have to collect Imp and doesn’t like it. She is about to save him, when:

Whaaauum. Imp stood like a discus thrower as the chord filled across the noisy room…This was music that had not only escaped but had robbed a bank on the way out…It was music that went down to the feet by way of the pelvis without paying a call on Mr. Brain…Susan looked down at the hourglass marked Imp y Celyn. The top bulb was now quite empty of sand, but something blue flickered in there…The Death of Rats looked down at the glass. SQUEAK, it said, quietly. Susan wasn’t good on Rat but she thought she knew “uh-oh” when she heard it.

The music is infectious, as Archchancellor Ridcully of Unseen University discovers when his faculty start behaving very oddly: the Dean makes himself a leather jacket, the Lecturer in Recent Runes is drumming on the tureen covers, and the orangutan Librarian runs off to play with The Band. And the music has a price…

This book plays around with all sorts of rock and roll references, of course. “Imp y Celyn” translates to “bud of the holly”, for instance. It also introduces a lot of characters who turn up in later stories. Besides Susan, and the Death of Rat’s translator/sidekick (a raven), we get a first glimpse at Hex, a computer run on ant power being developed by the younger wizards in the High Energy Magic Building: “We think it might be able to do quite complicated math. If we can get enough bugs in it.” The attempt at romance is even weaker in this book than in the first one – Susan and Imp/Buddy barely get to talk – so I’m kind of glad the hint that they might get together isn’t followed up on. Besides that very minor point, it is a fun musical romp.

           

Hogfather Book List

Death, pillow slipping gently under his red robe, stood in the middle of the nursery carpet…Susan was crimson with anger. “I mean why?...This is Hogswatch! It’s supposed to be jolly, with mistletoe and holly and-and other things ending in olly!...if it’s for business reasons, I will add, then that outfit is in extremely poor taste”

            Reading this book has become something of a holiday tradition in my family. You see, the Hogfather is Discworld’s version of Father Christmas, a plump figure in a red robe who rides around distributing presents..though he is more explicitly connected to winter realities such as the need to preserve meat: his sleigh is drawn by pigs, and children set out pork pies and sherry for him instead of milk and cookies. But a young assassin has accepted a contract on the Hogfather placed by the Auditors (see ‘Reaper Man’). In an homage to ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ Death ends up stepping in to fill the role until Susan can find out what is draining belief away from the old winter god. Otherwise, he tells her, the sun won’t come up in the morning.

            I love the way this book plays around with Christmas/solstice/yule traditions and stories, from how store owners would feel if the mall Santa was actually giving away free toys, to why King Wenceslas’ charity maybe wasn’t such a kind thing, to ‘The Little Match Girl”:

“It makes them feel happy and grateful for what they’ve got, see…But, look, it’s all right, anyway, because she wakes up and it’s all bright and…there’s angels, master.” Death stopped. AH. THEY TURN UP AT THE LAST MINUTE WITH WARM CLOTHES AND A HOT DRINK?... “More sort of just after the last minute.” Albert coughed nervously…WHY NOT TURN UP BEFORE? AN ANGEL HAS QUITE A LARGE CARRYING CAPACITY.

I like the way the plan to kill the Hogfather ends up involving two other beings that children believe in, and why that means Susan, rather than Death, is the right one to fix it. The story illustrates nicely the Discworld rule of gods running on belief, as well as what happens when there is a bunch of extra belief sloshing around⁷. And, of course, we get new and better interactions between Susan, Death of Rats, and the Raven (who is ever hopeful that snack bowls might include some eyeballs), plus the return of a maybe-sentient Hex, and a minor role for the Oh God of hangovers. And for all that Pratchett was an atheist, it has quite an inspiring message about belief:

TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER…THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY…YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE COULD THEY BECOME?

 

7. What happens includes the wizards having to deal with a verruca gnome, the Eater of Socks, and a depressed Cheerful Fairy.

 

Thief of Time Book List

Death does appear in this book but, as the title suggests, it centers more on Time. Jeremy Clockson is a talented but very intense young artisan violently obsessed with accurate timekeeping: “I have medicine now,” said Jeremy stiffly, “The guild was very kind.” He is contracted by Myria LeJean, an Auditor in human clothing, to build the perfect clock; she even provides him with an Igor to assist him. The trouble is, if the clock works it will stop time. Lobsang (originally Newgate) Ludd is a thief with a natural talent for bending time⁸ who joins the Monks of History. In fact, he is so good at it that the master of novices doesn’t quite know what to do with him, and so apprentices him to Lu-Tze – the legendary, but rather odd, History Monk who also features in ‘Night Watch’. Rebuilding history after the last time someone tried to build a Glass Clock had been the order's hardest task, so when anomalies start to suggest that someone is building another one Lobsang and Lu-Tze⁹ head to Ankh Morepork to try and stop it.

Susan, of course, plays an important role in this story – she has Death’s ability to manipulate time, but is human enough to be a free agent. Her primary job now is as a schoolteacher, using her “Scary Poppins” talents to take her students on unauthorized fieldtrips and introduce them to interesting people:

‘A man with all bones came to talk to us he was not scarey at all, he had a big white hors. He had a sighyve. He told us interesting things and to be careful when crossing the road.’

Much as she is annoyed to get pulled into further supernatural shenanigans, she is intrigued by Death’s claim that Time had a son – someone like her, caught between the human and the inhuman. This story ends up being supported by Nanny Ogg, who served as the midwife to the child.

            The worldbuilding around the Monks of History is terrific. The abbey exists in a bubble of one perfect day. The abbot reincarnates, but remembers his past lives, so is able to hold an adult conversation with Lu-Tze while simultaneously being a toddler screaming “wanna bikkit!” There is a hall of prayer-wheel-like Procrastinators that move time from where it is wasted to where it is needed – but if they go off kilter and start dumping time they can reduce a man to dust by aging him several hundred years, or turn a bird back into an egg. The gadgets-master (named Qu, of course) has figured out how to turn a procrastinator into a backpack as a personal time source. Lu-Tze is simultaneously a tricky old fraud and a genuine badass, and he cultivates bonsai mountains as a hobby. And so on.

            Ideas of choice and identity and the nature of humanity run all through this story, too. While it is Myria’s job to help Jeremy build the clock that will freeze the world in place, she finds herself confused, grossed out, pleased, and awed all at once by the experience of being human:

How could she even begin to describe the blueness of blue? Or how much thinking the brain did all by itself? It was terrifying. Half the time her thoughts did not seem to be her own.

She starts to sabotage the plan, wanting more time to understand. Death declares it is his duty to gather the other Horsemen (the usual four, plus Chaos) and ride out at the end of the world…but that doesn’t go quite how anyone expects. Susan believes firmly in logic – if only because someone has to:

“You mean you need cool, calculating bastards to save the world, do you?” said Lobsang. “The cool calculation does help, I must admit,” said Susan. “Now, shall we go and look at this clock?”

But there is much about humanity that is illogical, and sometimes that’s a good thing – pure logic gets you the Auditors, who are mad in their own way. And there are good things, like love, that aren’t logical but can still make sense. While the Discworld series doesn’t give us closure on Susan’s story, this book suggests she may have found a boyfriend whose nature actually fits hers.

 

8. Falling off a roof, he unconsciously performed The Stance of the Coyote, in which he slowed time enough to hang in mid-air (like Wiley Coyote, you see…).

9. Who is eight hundred years old (having mastered ‘circular aging’) and was there the last time Time broke.

 

Overall recommendation:  If you like creepy/gothy but ultimately good characters like Crowley or Jack Skelington (‘Nightmare Before Christmas’), you will probably very much like Death, Susan, and their whole entourage.