5 x 5 Book Review: Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

1. So, once again this is part of the Summer Reading Program but is showing up here on Thark instead of Epicurus because, well, this is where it belongs (as I sort of made clear here.) Raising Steam is the last Discworld book published before author Terry Pratchett's death earlier this year; one more volume is due out later this month, but that will apparently be the end of the series, at least for contributions from its originator. The world that Pratchett created is so rich and detailed that I would be surprised if there weren't more books to come from other authors, perhaps even in some sort of shared-world deal.


2. The idea of other authors writing Pratchett's characters came up for me when I was reading Raising Steam, because honestly, it didn't have the same crackle and spark usually marks Pratchett's writing. His struggle with early-onset Alzheimer's was widely publicized, and it is sad to think that his last works might have been marred by the effects of the disease, or by Pratchett's need for collaboration from lesser lights. I guess we'll never know for sure under what conditions the book was written, and I'll definitely be curious about The Shepherd's Crown, the posthumous novel.

3. Much of the flatness of the story lies in the narrative. While the stakes are enormous - the plot centers on a coup within the dwarf nation by fundamentalist terrorists, a not-very-subtle allegory - the protagonists never seem to be at very much risk or to suffer any serious setback. In fact, in neither the political situation nor the technological challenge of bringing steam locomotion to Discworld does   failure ever seem to be a threat at all: terrorists, physical adversities, and railway accidents are all dealt with summarily and successfully, and the body count (except for Bad Guys) is really quite low, all things considered.

4. I think that Pratchett also fell victim to something I saw in the later films of Christopher Guest. I felt Guest started to like his characters too much: Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind are progressively less edgy and dark (although For Your Consideration get a lot of that juice back). Similarly, I think Pratchett grew a little too fond of Vetinari, Vimes, Moist, and the others; they shine a little too brightly and achieve a little too easily, their flaws plastered over. I liked the the Moist who was always a step away from cutting and running; he was someone not to be entirely trusted instead of a happily married hero, and that made him more interesting.

5. All that said, there is enough good stuff in the book to make it worth the read - and I still did laugh out loud while reading it. Reading even a lesser effort from Sir Terry is excellent way to pass the time.

Really magical

So, I just finished reading Terry Pratchett's Making Money, the further adventures of Moist von Lipwig, Ankh-Morpork's erstwhile Postmaster, as he becomes Director of the Mint. I was going to write a review, but it just boils down to this: it's a Discworld book, go read it.

However, after I read the book, I went to look up any current information on Pratchett, who in 2007 announced that he had been diagnosed with early-onset Altzheimer's. His disease is progressing, of course, but he has remained active up until quite recently. As I was reading, I stumbled across a quote from Pratchett in which he says the label magical realism is "a polite way of saying you write fantasy and is more acceptable to certain people."

Never having met a taxonomy I didn't like, I played with this idea for a bit.

Our friend the Wikipedia provides this: Magic realism or magical realism is a genre where magic elements are a natural part in an otherwise mundane, realistic environment.

A source at Princeton says Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements are blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to access a deeper understanding of reality. These magical elements are explained like normal occurrences that are presented in a straightforward manner which allows the "real" and the "fantastic" to be accepted in the same stream of thought.

Emory University describes magical realism thus: A literary mode rather than a distinguishable genre, magical realism is characterized by two conflicting perspectives, one based on a so-called rational view of reality and the other on the acceptance of the supernatural as prosaic reality. Magical realism differs from pure fantasy primarily because it is set in a normal, modern world with authentic descriptions of humans and society.

My literary colleague, Super Sissy, agreed in principle, although she approached it by saying that fantasy stories were set in created worlds and magical realism was set in this world. This is one way to interpret "mundane, realistic" and "normal, modern," I suppose.

The upshot of all of it is that magical realism is somehow literature while fantasy is just plain fiction, and Pratchett writes fiction.

The funny thing is, Pratchett's stories may be set in an imaginary, faux-medieval world, but it is a mundane, realistic, normal and deceptively modern one; the quotidian and the banal walk side by side with the supernatural. The Discworld stories usually do provide tweaked but authentic descriptions of humans and society and often access a deeper understanding of reality or at least punctuate the hidden meaning of mundane realities.

But Pratchett doesn't get to be in the magic realism club with Borges and Marquez because he made up Ankh-Morpork and didn't set his stories in Columbus, Ohio.

On the other hand, Ron Goulart's Please Stand By, a short story about an ad man who turns into a small grey elephant on national holidays, is certainly based on the acceptance of the supernatural as prosaic reality, but I don't think anyone would call it magical realism. (It is a pretty funny story, though.)

I guess it matters little. Most lists of fantasy sub-genres include Magical Realism as a divison on the same tier as High Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, Ghost Story, and Weird Western, so maybe it's not so high and mighty a literary mode as all that. It just seems that some labeling seeks to impart status rather than to describe characteristics. I recall all the times that Vonnegut and Bradbury were declared by the literati to be writing fiction instead of science-fiction, because their stuff was good, so obviously it couldn't be sci-fi. (Even Bradbury was subject to this ideological hegemony at the end and railed against being called a sci-fi writer.)

Whatever. Read good books, however they are categorized, and Making Money is one of them.

I'll put revising the genre taxonomy on my do-list and let you know when I'm finished.