God Grief this is Indulgent, A Year on Discworld: Book 13 — Small Gods
In a quest to escape the reality of 2020 and recapture my youth, I’ve set myself the goal of reading all 41 Discworld novels in one year. Join me on this voyage of discovery which definitely isn’t a complete waste of time. Mild spoilers, probably.
Since Wyrd Sisters, I’ve essentially stopped reading the blurbs to each new Discworld novel I’m taking on. It seems pointless. I have to read the entire books anyway and often, Pratchett likes to ramble for 50 pages or so before he gets to the meat of the plot meaning the blurb makes you expect the rush of the story while he is still buttering you up. As such, Small Gods, like Witches Abroad before it, had a surprising and enjoyable connection to what I’m going to generously describe as my scholarly life.
“The questions being asked are important because they’ve been asked, not because they have answers.”
But were Witches Abroad was a brief trip into my university career, Small Gods moved into my student accommodation and started beer-drenched arguments about the nature of the world in the kitchen. The plot follows a low-level priest named Brutha, living in a theocratic state. He has the religious experience of encountering his Great God, Om, who happens to be a small, disgruntled tortoise with very little omnipotence or omniscience. Almost none in fact. At its core, it’s a critique of organised religion, faith and philosophy.
It doesn’t fall strongly down on any one side of the debate but it doesn’t have to, that’s they great get out of philosophy. The questions being asked are important because they’ve been asked, not because they have answers.
“I didn’t want to admit I was old enough to be nostalgic for something that feels so recent.. That was a real punch to my morphic projection of myself.”
I don’t know if this is the best Discworld book I’ve read so far but I know I would have been obsessed with it had I read it at the right time, that time being, as an obnoxious teen atheist on his way to university to study Philosophy and the Theology of Religion. It so directly concerned with and focused on these subjects, I’m certain it would have become my bible. Small Gods, of the dozen Discworld novels I’ve read now, has the subject matter closest to my heart and feels like the one I would most suggest to people who aren’t “into” fantasy. It’s the one that feels like it has something to say.
Oddly, when I started this challenge, my goal was to recapture so nostalgic feeling I had for my early teen years exploring fantasy and sci-fi. I didn’t expect to think about my early twenties and life at uni for two reasons. The first is I didn’t want to admit I was old enough to be nostalgic for something that feels so recent.. That was a real punch to my morphic projection of myself.
“… truth has a certain subjective quality to it.”
The second reason is “nostalgia” isn’t the word I would normally associate with that period. As much as I had fun in those years, whenever I think about that era, rather than specific events, I realise how confused, depressed and angry I was. I chased bad relationships, wasted opportunities and I’ve no doubt I was a villain (both fairly and unfairly) in other peoples stories. Add to that having to study and question the nature of ethics and belief and what I’m left with I’m still very confused about.
But, the nostalgia I did feel was for the total freedom of enquiry and the youthful, passion with which I enjoy challenging ideas. Now as I’m older, calmer and slightly jaded, I’ve realised there is a certain level of untruth and the unknowable you have to accept in the world to function as a decent person. When I was younger, the absolute truth, the fundamental truth, was the only thing worthwhile. Now I know truth has a certain subjective quality to it.
“Heresy if often fascinating. Therein lies the danger.”
Still, the fire of righteous knowledge was rekindled for a while and it was nice to enter that arena of philosophical debate again as a bit of fun rather than a vital quest. It feels much more sporting if you don’t have to commit to the outcome.
The antagonist of the novel Vorbis, an ecclesiastical climber, head of the Inquisition and all-round bastard summed up my return to that nostalgic need to question everything with the brilliant quote, “Heresy if often fascinating. Therein lies the danger.” There a compelling and rebellious feeling of attacking falsehoods and rebuilding the world in truth, but nowadays, I prefer Didactylos, the blind Stoic/Cynic/Epicurean philosopher approach — “You can’t trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so let’s have a drink.”
