Sadly, ‘The Shepherd’s
Crown’ will be the last DiscWorld novel*. I had in my head drafted a response
to the critics who claimed that the impact of Terry’s illness can be traced in
the overall quality of this novel. The problem with that way of reading the
novel is that once you start to look for such connections you inevitably find
them. But why stop there – can you find the pages in Great Expectations where
Dickens had a heavy cold in 1861 (yes, I had to look that up), or the chapters
in Mrs Dalloway where Virginia Woolf was feeling particularly depressed that
day. The book is what it is. However, in a well meaning but ultimately unhelpful
postscript to this edition, Rob Wilkins, Terry’s assistant, wrote “The
Shepherd’s Crown has a beginning, a middle and an end, and all the bits
inbetween. Terry wrote all of those. But even so, it was, still, not quite as
finished as he would have liked when he died. If Terry has lived longer, he
would almost certainly have written more of this book”. Once you know that, you
can’t un-know it, and it influences the way you read the novel. You start to
look for weaker passages of descriptive writing, jokes that fall slightly
flatter than usual, plot lines that dwindle away. The fact that every DiscWorld
novel has similar features seems irrelevant. It devalues what would otherwise
have been a marvellous addition to the series – and which I stubbornly think it
still is.
The Tiffany
Aching series of DiscWorld novels was always positioned as Young Adult fiction.
I am not sure whether if you didn’t know that, it would affect your overall
enjoyment of the novel. This series is slightly less complex than the usual DW
affair, and the level of menace toned down. But not much – this novel still has
some seriously nasty elves who torture babies and dismember cuddly bunnies.
These scenes are balanced by the way the elves are easily dispatched by Tiffany
and her ragtag army of old men in sheds, part-time witches, and the glorious
Mac Nac Feegles.
I’ve made no
effort to avoid spoilers in this blog thus far, but I am going to make an
exception here. One of DiscWorld’s best loved characters dies in the opening
chapters of ‘The Shepherd’s Crown’, and if you don’t want to know who it is,
look away now.
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One of the reviews I read online in preparing this blog
entry very insightfully observed that in describing Granny Weatherwax’s death,
Pratchett was teaching us how to mourn. How right that is. These scenes are
some of the best in the whole canon. Granny had fought Death tooth and nail at
other points in the series, but here she accepts her fate with calm fortitude.
The characters who survive her mourn her and then carry on doing the work that
is in front of them, as we should.
Other things
that are wonderful about this novel and the overall series:
1.
The
highbrow jokes. Pratchett throws in casually some “English” jokes that might elude
international readers. There is an extended reference to ‘Dad’s Army’, and at
another point to Monty Python’s ‘Lumberjack’ sketch. Quotes from and allusions
to Shakespeare echo throughout the series, and I even spotted a reference to
Keats – one characters reference to someone looking with “wild surmise” which
is a quote from the sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”.
2.
Untypically
for this genre, DiscWorld has many well developed female characters. Almost all
of them are stronger in their own ways than the menfolk, and all are completely
believable and convincing. They are flawed and often full of self doubt, which
makes them all the more convincing.
3.
There’s
a lack of sentimentality about the novels. People die, back guys do bad things,
and while good always triumphs there is a price. ‘The Night Watch’ is a
wonderful example of this.
4.
The
novels fizz with ideas, some silly, some magnificent. In ‘The Shepherd’s Crown’
the world is changing, seeing the beginning of the Railway Age, and with it the
beginning of the end of the world of magic. What better time and place for
Terry to take his bow.
*Except of
course it won’t be. The DiscWorld is far too vibrant not to survive the death
of its author, and it will continue in fanfiction, incomplete work finished by
others, and other work licensed by his estate and publishers.
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