Thanks to the kids for borrowing this fabulous book from the library!
They talk about authors writing better as they age and there’s been discussion about Agatha Christie and how her writing became a little less great as she aged and probably acquired Alzheimers or some other form of dementia. They talk about writers’ becoming better writers due to writing more. What I’ve never heard about how some writers transcend all health problems and produce their best work yet.
Snuff is ostensibly about Commander Sam Vimes and his holiday. He didn’t want to go on holiday, he was very reluctant and only pretended to hand his badge over, arranged by his wife, Lady Sybil Ramkin, and Lord Vetinari, it’s hinted they did this as there were problems in the area where Vimes now owns land. Vimes very reluctantly drives down there and even more reluctantly tries to do the right thing and spend time with his family. While there he felt it incumbent on himself to try and find the missing blacksmith, the man who was supposed to meet him at midnight and give him some information, the fact that he’d been framed for murder might have something to do with it.
What this is really about is race relations and how some races look down on others as subhuman and therefore feel it’s okay to use them as slaves and work them until they die. This has happened so many times in the real world it’s impossible to count and it will continue to happen until the message gets through that we are all equal.
In this book Pratchett makes the point very clearly and I couldn’t help admiring how he did this. As many people know Pratchett has Alzheimers and that means his brain cells are deteriorating and his memory is going which logically means his writing will deteriorate as well. This doesn’t seem to be the case with Snuff. This book blew me away, I felt it was his best book ever and I want to go on record as saying this is Pratchett writing as if he’s come of age. Every other book before this now feels as if he was in his adolescence but this is adult writing and it’s superb!