brenticus reviewed Mort by Terry Pratchett (Discworld (4))
None
5 stars
There are few books that manage the careful balance of gradual character development, fast-paced events, careful thematic consideration, and a consistent, strong tone. Mort is one of them.
All of the characters, in spite of the absurdity they deal with (and live on) every day, manage a strange realism that gives them personality beyond what's on the page. When a character is in a new, wildly different situation, their actions are rarely surprising. When prompted to change, you can see the influence from all the other facets of their life feeding into their transition. When there's a joke, or a silly situation, or even just a mildly amusing turn of phrase, the characters are all capable of playing off of the comedy naturally to elevate it from funny to laugh-out-loud hilarious. And in the end, everyone ends up pretty much exactly where you know they should, even if you're not …
There are few books that manage the careful balance of gradual character development, fast-paced events, careful thematic consideration, and a consistent, strong tone. Mort is one of them.
All of the characters, in spite of the absurdity they deal with (and live on) every day, manage a strange realism that gives them personality beyond what's on the page. When a character is in a new, wildly different situation, their actions are rarely surprising. When prompted to change, you can see the influence from all the other facets of their life feeding into their transition. When there's a joke, or a silly situation, or even just a mildly amusing turn of phrase, the characters are all capable of playing off of the comedy naturally to elevate it from funny to laugh-out-loud hilarious. And in the end, everyone ends up pretty much exactly where you know they should, even if you're not sure how it's going to shake out as you get closer.
The plot is pretty simple: Mort's a klutz and his dad wants him to get a job to get him off the farm, and Death needs an apprentice and decides to be Mort's master. They're both sort of fuck-ups at these roles, but they piece it together pretty well over time and the influence of teacher and student on each other shines through in their development throughout the book. It's kind of remarkable watching a mentor relationship with both characters being fatally flawed, and both working through those flaws while still maintaining their distinct characters in the end. It's too often that we see mentors who are flawed only in their own minds and students who suck up every good trait from their mentors like a little pink ball.
The conflicts between Death and Mort come mostly from the nature of death itself. Death works much the same way as in reality: it's merciless, indiscriminate, inevitable. Unlike in reality, Death is a person, and his apprentice is a teenage boy who's really quite a nice fellow. Merciless is not how I'd describe him. Yet when asked to do Death's job, he (usually) does it. He talks with the recently and soon-to-be deceased about their deaths, his job, the whole situation. While Mort learns about the nature of death, so does the reader. No matter how things shake out, it's going to happen, and there's not a whole lot of reason to get too upset about it.
In spite of all of this talk about how great the writing is, Pratchett maintains a humorous, irreverent, satirical tone throughout the entire thing. There are only a couple of scenes where he drops this for a serious moment, but the whole thing feels like it's written as one big joke. And, I mean, the world is a disc sitting on the backs of four elephants sitting on the back of a turtle, so it probably is. Regardless, the way you can pull out some serious looks at the way this book is written and the way the themes are handled, and you can laugh at a few dirty jokes along the way, is fantastic.
Basically, either Pratchett is a genius and hit every nail perfectly on the head or his tongue is so far in his cheek that I can't tell what I'm reading anymore. Either way, this book is bloody fantastic.
