I have a somewhat potted history with the Discworld series. I love them and even hosted a Terry Pratchett Reading Challenge back in 2010. They make me laugh and I think that Pratchett was just so clever with his observations on life and death, whether you are talking about the big things in life or just the inane. And yet, I have only read the first 9 books in the series, some more than once, plus a couple of other random books here and there, in particular the Industrial books. It's a good 7 years since I read a new Discworld book. And then there is Hogfather.
According to my spreadsheet which I started back in 2005 I first read Hogfather in 2007. In 2021, I listened to the audiobook in the lead up to Christmas, and then I have listened to it every year since. It's become part of my annual Christmas traditions!
Based on that it is probably a bit strange that I chose to listen to The Truth, especially seeing as I generally have a big aversion to reading series out of order, but I did have good reason. My read-on-a-theme bookclubs theme for our February meeting was 25. The Truth is both book 25 in the Discworld series, and was published in the year 2000, which makes it 25 years old! Perfect for the theme!
The Truth is about a man called William de Worde, who accidently becomes the editor of the first newspaper in Ankh-Morpork. He brings together a disparate group of people who become the staff of the newspaper. There are the dwarves who do the typesetting and printing, Sacharissa Cripslock, the woman reporter, Otto the vampire iconographer and more! William is determined that he will share the Truth, but soon the paper brings all kind of attention on him. He also does not want the paper to become just a vehicle for stories about funny shaped vegetables. When Lord Veterinari is accused of a terrible crime, William suddenly finds himself involved in the story rather than just reporting the story. The Watch aren't happy with him, the guilds aren't happy with him. In short, no one is really happy with him!
There are many familiar characters within these pages, from Foul Ole Ron and his friends, to CMOT Dibbler, the Watch and more. Then there are the new characters, in particular the bad guys Mr Pin and Mr Tulip. These are career criminals, and pretty violent ones at that, and yet even then Pratchett manages to give at least one of them some nuance. Mr Tulip is a thug and yet he has a strong appreciation for fine art!
Whilst I did enjoy the story and narration of this book, I must confess that I struggled a bit with getting into the audiobook. I think this is mainly because for the last 4 years I have listened to the audio of Hogfather which is narrated by Sian Clifford, and it took me a while to get used to Matthew Baynton's narration. Fortunately Bill Nighy was still there for the footnotes, and Peter Serafinowicz still made an appearance as DEATH, but he didn't come onto the page until around 75% of the way through the book. I also missed Susan.
My favourite part of the narration of this book was Otto the vampire iconographer. I loved the way that this character was performed, especially the parts where he was taking flash photography and that caused him to disintegrate, having to be revived with a drop of non human blood otherwise he would break his vow of abstinence as part of the black ribbon society (think Alcoholics Anonymous for vampires). It literally made me laugh out loud many times!
As usual, there are the cutting observations of life and death. There is one scene where Death is meeting a character and the character says something along the lines of is this where my life flashes before my eyes and Death responds with this is where how others saw your life flashes before your eyes. So clever.
When I think about all the social commentary in the Discworld books, I can't help wonder what Sir Terry might make of everything going on in the world right now.
My plan is to read or listen to another Discworld book in the next few months. Or if not, I will be very likely to be revisiting Hogfather come December for my next reread/listen.
March Magics is an annual event to celebrate both Diana Wynn-Jones and Terry Pratchett. It is now hosted by Calmgrove Books
