50 Book Challenge: book 48
Monstrous Regiment – Terry Pratchett
This is Terry Pratchett’s 28th Discworld novel – and the 28th that I have read. So I was very pleased to realise, about a third of the way through, that after all this time together he’s still able to surprise me. This is quite unlike most of the Discworld canon. It’s got a cold and very focused anger running through it, in the manner of Small Gods and possibly also Jingo. In those books the sources for that anger were war and religion. Come to think of it, they’re exactly the same here.
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It uses a technique first aired very successfully in The Truth – using one of the major, defining series characters as a bit-part player. Then, as now, it’s Sam Vimes (I’ll stick to plain old Sam – I’m sure he hates all his titles to be taken in vain.) Presumably this allows Pratchett to continue working in the series structure (that most of the novels are based around one of the following: Unseen University wizards, Lancre witches, the City Watch or Death and his extended family) while introducing new and fresh characters. William de Worde, from The Truth, and Polly Perks, from this book, both being excellent examples. One of the book’s major delights is the incredible ear for speech and idiom that Pratchett possesses and his ability to both render it in writing and add to it himself. We expect Discworld books to be laugh-out-loud funny and this does not disappoint but when the jokes are made in such clearly-defined and distinctive voices as these, it’s also worth pausing to appreciate the skill that makes them function.
If I have any criticisms it’s that the central conceit of the plot feels mightily overused by the time we’ve marched a few miles down the road with this straggly band of new recruits. Also, the social background that sees women abused and discriminated against, and which clearly makes Pratchett very annoyed, is a bit sketchy and not very original. It seems to be made up of a few brief motifs and never really fleshed out properly. But these are minor matters. Pratchett, after what I thought was maybe a bit of a hiatus round about the end of the 1990s, has got himself so far back on form it’s untrue. And, best of all, he’s not resting on his, er, laurels but continuing to develop in skill and significance as a writer. So let’s hope he doesn’t get bored with Discworld any time soon. He’s been sneaking large helpings of political and social commentary under the wire for a couple of decades now and this is clearly becoming a more important aspect of his writing. Probably a reflection of the times we live in – but a welcome development too, I think.
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