Book Review: Thud!

What is there to say, but "Read this book and resist bigotry and hatred"? This is one of my favorite Discworlds - I mean, yes, there are so many that I like but this one makes you want to stand up and cheer. And also beg the universe to manifest the upright, plain-dealing Vimes in this reality to please get our world back on track.

Thud, like many a Discworld book, has a lot of threads and themes. Part of what makes it so good is that all those themes hang together really well. (Compare Reaper Man, which I also love, but whose themes are a little more, shall we say, random.) We've got the Where's-My-Cow theme, the identity theme, and the darkness/guarding theme.

Where's My Cow: Vimes reads this book to his son, every night at 6 o'clock. No matter what. In a certain vernacular, we'd say "come hell or high water." We would pointedly not say "God willing and the creek don't rise," because no god or natural disaster is going to stop Vimes from reading to his son.

"Would a minute have mattered? No, probably not, although his young son appeared to have a very accurate internal clock. Possibly even two minutes would be okay. Three minutes, even. You could go to five minutes, perhaps. But that was just it. If you could go for five minutes, then you'd go to ten, then half an hour, a couple of hours...and not see your son all evening. So that was that. Six o'clock, prompt. Every day. Read to young Sam. No excuses. He'd promised himself that. No excuses. No excuses at all. Once you had a good excuse, you opened the door to bad excuses."

Some things matter. And doing the things that matter make us who we are. Drawing a line in the sand, saying this far but no further. "You can't say 'We're the good guys," and do bad-guy things." That's part of what makes Vimes powerful, he recognizes the importance of not just saying, but doing.

I also love this theme for the glimpses of domestic tranquility it provides us. Many stories are about the action, the passion, the heartbreak, the grief. And Discworld has plenty of that - Vimes has plenty of that. But I love seeing Vimes as a father, cuddling and reading to his son, sitting with his wife at home while she darns socks and he reads the paper. These things matter, they are important and valuable.

It is central to Vimes' identity that he read to his son. It means he is a man who loves his family and keeps his promises. It means he has integrity. We also learn what it means to be a dwarf in Thud!, or rather, what being a dwarf isn't. Dwarfishness is not:

1. Being short--Carrot is a very tall dwarf
2. Carrying an axe--Bashfullson says the axe is more in your head
3. Hating trolls--Bashfullson again, saying, "I need no axe to be a dwarf. Nor do I need to hate trolls. What kind of creature defines itself by hatred?"
4. Living underground--city dwarves live quite happily in Ankh-Morpork
5. Being male--Cheery is an out lady dwarf

So what is it, then? What makes a dwarf a dwarf? (What makes a troll a troll, or a human a human?) Well, for dwarves it is knowing and respecting the words, (probably) speaking some dwarvish, and keeping the true traditions. Much like real life, really. How do you become part of a group? Speak their language, do what they do, value what they value.

And when the truth is obscured, they have a way of dealing with it: Mine signs. The most important one in Thud! is the Summoning Dark, a sigil with a vengeance. Scrawled on the walls of mines where things have gone bad, it brings the anger of the beserker: He has wronged me and I will kill him. No need for trial or justice or jury of your peers, only death to the unworthy. The Summoning Dark comes from a place of madness, when things are so bad - truth so obscured - that only death and mayhem can possibly shake things up enough to let the truth out.

And the Summoning Dark tries to get Vimes. Tries to make him its tool. But Vimes is not a tool, Vimes is a man of integrity who reads to his son at 6 o'clock, no excuses. The Summoning Dark fails, brought to heel by Vimes' inner "Guarding Dark," the dark that keeps the others under control. Justice wins the day, Vimes doesn't wholesale slaughter a bunch of dwarven priests, and the truth still comes to light.

Other quotes that are great but I don't know how to fit them into my review:

- Regarding the truth-quelling, Summoning-Dark-bringing, bigoted dwarves and the people who didn't stand up to them: "Or did you say, 'Well, I don't agree with him of course, but he's got a point'? Did you say, 'Oh he goes too far, but it's about time somebody said it'?"

- Regarding accents: "You could barely understand the man, he was that posh. It was not so much speech as modulated yawning."

- Vetinari and Vimes' relationship summed up: What would you do if I asked you an outright questions, Vimes? I would downright lie, sir.

- Regarding the truth: And supposing what it has to say is dreadful? Then we listen!


xo,

Devo