Snuff (by Terry Pratchett)

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It’s been quite a long journey, re-reading the ‘Discworld’ series by the late Terry Pratchett. I’m nearing the end now, as I’ve just finished reading ‘Snuff’, 39th in the series (including those for teenagers). I read this book in 2014, and had entirely forgotten the story nearly a decade later. 

The book mainly features Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch in Ankh Morpork. I didn’t like the ‘Watch’ books when I first starting reading Discworld books, but Vimes is a well-developed and ultimately likeable person with a great deal of integrity as well as some acknowledged faults. So I’ve come to appreciate this sub-series of the books. I particularly like the later ones when Sam is Sir Samuel, married to the voluptuous and delightful dragon-breeding Lady Sybil, with a small son, known as Young Sam. 

In this book, Sybil persuades Sam that he needs a holiday. So they travel into one of her family mansions in the countryside. Sam Senior is not at all sure what he will do. He appreciates time spent with his son but isn’t too sure about Young Sam’s obsessions with the ‘poo’ produced by different animals…

Then Vimes discovers that the countryside isn’t so quiet and peaceful as he had thought. He gets into a fight with the local blacksmith, who later disappears. And he learns that the folk in the area where he’s staying consider the goblin population to be ‘vermin’ rather than sapient beings. There have been brief mentions of goblins in previous books but in this they’re shown to be a race of people who have a very poor opinion of themselves. And yet they have extensive talents, including making special boxes, and - in some cases - composing and playing music.

There’s more than one storyline, as is common with Pratchett’s writing. Sam is determined to catch a cold-blooded villain; he’s also eager to see goblins recognised in the law. In Ankh-Morpork there are many different races: people, dwarfs, trolls, golems, vampires… and more, mostly living alongside each other in reasonable harmony. Or, at least, acceptance. Out in the countryside, people are more traditional, and very good at turning a blind eye to some terrible crimes. 

There are classical allusions, of course, and one or two asides that made me smile, but mostly it’s quite a serious, thought-provoking story of good vs evil, on the broad topic of racism. I’m also currently reading the biography of someone brought up in the racist southern part of the United States in the middle of last century, and some of the attitudes are strikingly similar. 

It took me a couple of weeks to finish this book; I see, looking at my review from 2014, it took me even longer the first time around. I read the last hundred pages or so almost at one sitting, but it was a bit slow to get going and didn’t grab me at the start. Still, overall I liked it. I’d recommend this if you like the ‘Watch’ series in the Discworld, or as part of the series as a whole. But it wouldn’t make a good introduction to Pratchett, as there are so many references to events and people from previous books. 

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