Great expectations

Something that has surprised many people before, not least a Danish bookseller who I once spent a very enjoyable conversation with while she successfully sold me some new reading material, is that I'm not a fan of Terry Pratchett. Considering my personality, tastes, love of reading, sense of humour, etc. it's something that inevitably is assumed I like. A lot of my friends love him. My Dad loves him. My girlfirend loves him. And I can't deny that the concept of them appeals to me – it's something that I personally feel I should like. And yet, having tried a couple before (admittedly not for some years), something just never connected for me.

So it was high time I tried again. The designated tome: Reaper Man. The subject matter: death and the afterlife, in a satrical style. Sounded promising. Yet while I didn't dislike it, it hasn't really done anything to convert me either. Firstly, I didn't find it particularly funny. For me it didn't work well either as a satire (which wasn't concentrated enough) or a comedy (which felt like it ws trying too hard). I could see what it was trying to do and there were some lines that amused me, but it never really made me laugh, either in the sense of sheer madcap silliness, or a dark chuckle about a well-made observation.

Perhaps more importantly was the fact that of the three separate strands to the tale, only one really captured my imagination. The parts featuring the character of Death were amusing and interesting. The other two strands just weren't, leaving me devoid of any connection to the characters (which is not necessarily a bad thing for me – a chacracter can still be a great character even if I have no connection them on a any personal level or they're an anti-hero or even a downright villain). More of an issue perhaps, given the subject matter, was the lack of any connection with humanity and the very subject matter that was being lampooned.

Overall I just felt that it lacked focus in too many things, trying to be all things to all men within it's own particular world view (which I can't deny it has and I certainly appreciate the intellignce and creativity that goes into the design and creation of a fictional world), yet ultimately it ended up by being not much to me. And somewhere out of all of this, I still can't help but feel that I'm just not seeing what an awful lot of other people do.

Book number: 18
Title: Reaper Man
Author: Terry Pratchett
Category: Charlotte's choice