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Book Review: Witches Abroad July 2, 2009
In this twelfth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, the author sets his satire scopes on fairy tales and storytelling in general, which results in some pretty great meta humor. As you might guess from the title it features the witches cast of characters, including Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick. When Magrat inherits a magic wand and the job of Fairy Godmother to a young Cinderella knockoff in a kingdom far away, the trio find themselves on the road and twisted up in the machinations of the opposing evil godmother.
Or so they think. Pratchett has a lot of fun with the concept of stories and the fate of people who find themselves playing the part of their characters. There's clever stuff in there about the power of stories and how things are always going to turn out to suit them and the best you can do is ride along like a leaf in the rapids. To illustrate this concept Pratchett yanks threads from all kinds of stories featuring witches or magic in order to put Granny, Nanny, and Magrat through perils, including Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, the Wizard of Oz (that part was particularly hilarious, by the way, with an exchange between Magrat and some dwarfs who inexplicably want to drink things out of Nanny Ogg's red slippers), Little Red Riding Hood, Dracula, and others. But the stoic and generally imperturbable Granny Weatherwax does her best to change the course of the rapids to her own liking.
So I liked it quite a bit. It's funny, because when Granny Weatherwax first appeared in Equal Rites I didn't like her as a character at all. She just didn't have any zing and seemed like a one-joke character. But by the time of Witches Abroad it's apparent that Pratchett has not only improved as a writer, but he's figured out how to make Granny work (short version: she's a crabby old lady who does nice things in not nice ways) and by placing her in a trio with contrasting characters that provide lots of opportunities for them to play off each other. And along those lines, Magrat and Nanny have also started to flesh out as characters as well. I'm now looking forward to seeing more of them.
Some of my favorite quotes:
Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because -- what with trolls and dwarfs and so on -- speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.
Asking someone to repeat a phrase you'd not only heard very clearly but were also exceedingly angry about was around Defcon II in the lexicon of squabble.
The only way housework could be done in this place was with a shovel or, for preference, a match.
Bad spelling can be lethal. For example, the greedy Seriph of Al-Yabi was cursed by a badly-educated deity and for some days everything he touched turned to Glod, which happened to be the name of a small dwarf from a mountain community hundreds of miles away who found himself magically dragged to the kingdom and relentlessly duplicated. Some two thousand Glods later the spell wore off. These days, the people of Al-Yabi are renowned for being remarkably short and bad-tempered.
-"Can you dance as well?" [Nanny Ogg] said wearily.
-"Oh yes. How about a date?"
-"How old do you think I am?" said Nanny.
-Casanunda considered. "All right, then. How about a prune?"-"But all the rest of 'em are six foot tall and you're -- of the shorter persuasion."
-"I lied abuot my height, Mrs. Ogg. I'm a world-famous liar."
-"Is that true?"
-"No."
-"What about your being the world's greatest lover?"
-There was silence for a while. "Well, maybe I'm only No. 2," said Casanunda. "But I try harder."
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Tags: Discworld, Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad
