Book review
Death takes on an apprentice
14 August 2012
Well, while I suggested that Equal Rites must have been Pratchett’s make or break book, I did not expect the brilliance of this book. After picking myself off the floor after laughing so much at some of the absolutely off the wall humour, I must say that, to put it bluntly, Terry Pratchett attempted to send the fantasy genre into a completely different direction, and succeeded.
Basically Death has become board, and lonely, with his job, and wants to find out what life is really all about and what it means to have fun. However, having a job such as he has does not give rise to free time. The problem is that Death pretty much has to be there every time somebody dies to guide them into the next life (whatever that next life might be for the individual) otherwise history will tear itself to shreds. So, Death decides that the best way to free up his time is to take on an apprentice, and to do that he chooses young Mort, the guy that no other person wants to apprentice.
I am going to do my best to not repeat any of the jokes in this book, and even though it is tempting to mention one or two (such as the wall, and the frog, and even Death’s attempts at having fun) I will not (and no, I have not told you what the jokes are, and if you know what I am talking about that means that you have already read the book and thus this disclaimer will mean absolutely nothing to you). I guess Pratchett was going to write a book about Death sooner or later, especially due to his appearances in the first few books, and I suspect that he was hankering to do such a thing the moment he created the character. Further, this isn’t the last of the books about Death, though I suspect that I have not read the other ones.
Anyway, as mentioned, Pratchett takes the fantasy genre and pretty much turns it on its head, and that is what I actually really like about these books. While Equal Rites does follow the standard quest narrative, as do the first two, we must remember that none of the characters in his books are ever destined to do anything. In fact, the characters in his books are unlikely heroes, and more so, that are pretty much the people that destiny not only forgets, but goes out of his way to completely ignore. Yet, these heroes end up standing tall and showing destiny how pathetic he (or she) really is.
Most fantasy novels involve a young person who discovers that there is a prophecy about them and that they must reluctantly set out on a quest across a mysterious world, which the quest gradually reveals to us, and then at the end comes to accept their place in the world and in turns destroys some great evil that they have always been destined to confront. Okay, the first two books, and Equal Rites do have the great evil rising up, however the heroes that confront this evil, as mentioned, are not the people we expect would do it. There is no prophecy, and there is no destiny, it just is. However, while there is a villain in this book, he is actually quite a minor character, whose death comes about quite by accident. Instead, we have characters coming to terms with who they are, and also trying to clean up the mess that they have left behind while bumbling about trying to discover themselves.
Rincewind makes an appearance in this book again, doing what Rincewind does best, and that is backing the wrong guy, and then, as everybody else seems to do in this book, trying to set things right and succeeding not through skill, but simply being who he is, a wizard that can’t even spell his name. I must admit though, after seeing the live-action version of Colour of Magic, I have that image of Rincewind stuck in my head, and in a way, it probably does fit the character really well.
- Goodreads rating – 4.24
- SUMMARY – David Sarkies