Nation
by Sir Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett said he wanted to write this book so much he could taste it.
He rated it as possibly the best he had ever written.
In the end it was written as an alternative history, set in the heady days of the British Empire and shortly after Darwin’s seminal book, “On the Origin of Species”.
It has a strong story line of the convergence and conflicting of two very distinct cultures.
The book is a slow starter, necessary to enable the main characters, both young, to establish their separate cultural identity.
Ermintrude / Daphne had lots of pompous ideas planted by her Grandmother (Maintaining appearances).
Mau has all of the cultural baggage of a Pacific Island society with beliefs in Gods and related artefacts.
We start the book where Mau is undertaking a “coming of age” ritual.
It was felt that the youthfulness of the two constrained the ability of the author to fully develop the potential relationship, but this might have been deliberate on his part to enable the ending.
Hence Pratchett did not fall into the trap of making this a love story, and thereby left the focus on the values, behaviour and culture rather than on the relationships.
There is a lot of humour.
- The grandfather birds
- Spitting in the fermenting beer
- Daphne failing to shoot Mau
- Mau arguing with the VOICES IN HIS HEAD
- Pantaloons and trousermen
The action descriptions are very believable, milking the pigs, fighting Cox.
Major points made: Religion has a lot of cultural baggage, the nature of faith, what is the soul.
In the group, reactions to the book varied from disappointment that this was not a discworld novel, to gratitude for exactly the same point.
(Discworld = Marmite, I think not).
One reader was disappointed that the priest “got bumped off”, feeling that the author had become bored with him and just wanted to get rid.
One reader felt it was a bit like “The Borrowers for Grown-ups” and loved it.
Overall Terry Pratchett (Sir) had a lot of fun in writing this book, it enabled him to poke fun at religion, history, culture, science and the scientific establishment.
A good read.
4****
PC, 9th Feb 2019.
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