2011 Book Review #13: I Shall Wear Midnight

[jethrien]

Title: I Shall Wear Midnight
Author: Terry Prachett
Genre: Last of a small series inside a large series of satirical fantasy
Thingummies: 4

Synopsis: Tiffany Aching has come home from training to take up her position as witch on the Chalk. She's quite a good witch in her own right, and having a tribe of helpful (ferocious, obscene, thieving, drunken) tiny blue men at her beck and call doesn't hurt. But for all the good she does, something is stirring up ancient hatred of witches, even in the people she has known the longest. And that something is coming for her.

Thoughts:I've always loved Terry Pratchett. Over the years, his books (which have always been funny) have become increasingly wise as well. He understands human nature and reflects it back in a brutally fond manner that I could never hope to duplicate. I think somewhere around Night Watch, he stopped really writing for the laugh at all and started writing more for Truth than anything else. (Which isn't to say that he isn't still hilarious.)

Unfortunately, he's dying of Alzheimer's. I remember reading a study once of an author (I think it was Agatha Christie), in which they discovered you could basically chart her descent into senility at the end of her life by charting the reading level of her books. They never got bad, per se, but the words grew simpler, sentence structure less complex, and the number of pronouns instead of specific nouns increased dramatically.

I certainly didn't check on the exact vocabulary in this book, and the Tiffany Aching books have always been written in a simpler, more childlike tone. I didn't get a sense of serious degredation. What I did get a sense of was rushing. It feels a bit like Prachett knows he has a limited amount of working time left and he's writing as fast as he can to wrap up all the loose ends in his (quite extensive) universe. There are several cameos that are entirely unnecessary for the plot that you sense he wanted to include just to have a few of the older characters appear one last time.

That doesn't mean it's not still a lovely book. For all that the cameos are unnecessary, they are still fun. Tiffany gets a well-deserved conclusion to her little arc. The Nac Mac Feegle get to jump around beating people up and yelling, "Crivens!" a lot, which is endlessly entertaining. If you haven't read a Prachett book before, this isn't the one to start on. (Also, what's wrong with you? Go get Men at Arms, right now.) But for long time fans, it's the beginning of a wave goodbye.

Comments

[firynze.livejournal.com]

I just spotted this on the YA shelves at the tiny local bookstore yesterday. I almost bought it, but then decided that I don't have room for another hardcover fiction novel. Library time.

I think you're right; Night Watch really redefined how pTerry writes and approaches writing about life. In a wonderful, sometimes painfully raw way.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I remembered being startled and completely sucked in by Night Watch--I don't know whether he had slowly been maturing as a writer and it snuck up on me, or he had something happen in his personal life. But suddenly, his writing deepened from light satire to something much more profound.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

The Watchmen have just gotten deeper, and deeper, and Vimes in particular has just matured so much as a character it's unbelievable. I remember being very, very impressed by the transition between even Night Watch and Thud! - the gut-punch diminished slightly, but not the overall impact, if that makes sense.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

The part in Thud! where he's struggling through the mines screaming "That. Is. Not. My. COW!" is both hilarious and heartbreaking.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

Exactly the scene I was thinking about.

[shnayder.livejournal.com]

Up until I read Night Watch, I thought of Pratchett as a "very fun, but doesn't really make me think" kind of author. But Night Watch is much better than that.