It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where I first became aware of Terry Pratchett – sorry, SIR Terry these days. The truth is it was with my brother’s copy of Only You Can Save Mankind, and him chuckling over the captain having no choice but to say ‘You are severely reprimanded’; I remember at age 8 or so not understanding at all what he found so amusing. I read the book, but ‘Terry Pratchett’ was just a name, and I still knew nothing of Discworld. When I was ten, I was going through a period of loving Marvel Comics, and in an attempt to steer me back towards the literary, as well as her own favourites, Mum bought me a graphic novel of The Hobbit – which was bundled with the excellent comic adaptation of Mort. This fired the imagination, and I borrowed my first Discworld novel – Men at Arms – and proceeded to devour every single Pratchett book ever written, including the more obscure – and often terrible – books: Strata; The Unadulterated Cat and Eric, for example. Well…except for the maps and plays.
Pratchett remains a favourite author, and of course my heart goes out to him whenever I hear about his Alzheimer’s. Some of his books I can reread again and again and always love. On the other hand, I’ve not been particularly enamoured of any Discworld book: Monstrous Regiment was an entire rather dull book for the sake of one joke obvious from the start; the Lipwig books, about introducing familiar institutions from our world into that of the Disc, satisfy but feel like formulaic rehashes of books like Guards! Guards! and Moving Pictures; Thud! ultimately meandered without a strong plot or ending, and even the Tiffany Aching books don’t quite live up to their promise.
So I wasn’t expecting much of Unseen Academicals, in which football takes centre-stage. From the looks of the cover it would be another Rincewind book, with the staff of the Unseen University bumbling about and probably foiling some contrived magical disaster. So it was quite pleasing to discover that I was completely wrong about that. Because while football is a large chunk of this book, it is only one piece, and the much large slice of the, uh, pie is taken by Glenda, probably my favourite Discworld character to be introduced since Otto – and far less silly.
The UU discovers that it is required by ancient statute to play a game of football, which is a rather terrifying and anarchic game. So they set about reforming it into something playable. Hopelessly out-of-touch with the working people, though, they need help, and those roped into doing so end up being the workers of the night kitchen, including Trevor Likely, the son of a famed old-style footballer who has vowed never to play, headstrong everywoman Glenda and her beautiful but thick best friend Julia, plus the rather peculiar Mr. Nutt, who looks like a big goblin but speaks like an orator.
Nutt is the key character to the piece, his innate abilities facilitating much of the action and also saying a few things about prejudice. Trev and Jules provide the romance, cheesy uplifting moments and more or less for the sole purpose of some Posh and Becks references, allow for a fun side-plot about fashion and celebrity that also introduces some great new characters. But Glenda is the real protagonist of the story, a plain and dumpy girl who isn’t too smart but nonetheless has great insight and determination and generally can sort out the world just by seeing the way it truly works. She’s a character it’s very easy to sympathise with, and it’s very hard not to be on her side.
I was fully prepared to think that Unseen Academicals was where Pterry jumped the shark. But in fact, even though there is no great crisis, nor any evil to overcome, the novel turns out to be perhaps the most mature and intelligent of recent months. Well worth reading!
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