Pratchett, Terry - Small Gods

[oyceter]

It was rather neat reading this right after meeting my first Omnian priest in the form of Mightily Oats in Carpe Jugulum! I only wish I remembered more of what Mightily Oats quoted Brutha as saying, to compare with what Brutha actually says.

The country of Omnia is currently engaged in religious wars against a host of other countries, the most notable being Ephebe, the Discworld equivalent of Greece and/or Rome. Alas, even though millions of people are dying in his name, the god Om is weaker than ever, and he soon appears to his Chosen Prophet Brutha.

But since this is Discworld, Brutha wasn't so much his first choice so much as his only choice, and he seems to be stuck in the shape of a tortoise and prone to making commandments about the evils of moldy lettuce.

I can see why I saw people make a few comparisons between this book and Nation, as both are about attempting to rebuild something out of the ashes of another, and both are centered around a humanism that denies many religious creeds. I think Nation is more cynical about religion than Small Gods, part of which is due to the darker subject of the former.

I'm not sure why, but I didn't become convinced by the book until near the end. Possibly the comparisons with Nation had me expecting higher stakes or something darker, and though Vorbis is frightening, I knew things would not end well for him in Discworld. But I do like the ending, and I like that there's an acknowledgment that an institution as large as a widely-believed religion can't be changed overnight, that reform is difficult and flawed and messy but still worth doing, that sometimes even the enemy needs a hand. And I'm impressed by how much Brutha changes over the course of the book.

Comments

[octopedingenue]

Small Gods was the first Discworld book I read, as a ten-year-old, and it affected me deeply both in my love for Pterry and in the ways I think about religion, real and fictional. I love Om and Brutha a lot, especially for the ways they both change so much over the book. And I love their snarky symbiotic relationship, friends and allies religiously devoted to each other even at their most squabbly. I can get behind a very personal savior like that.

I am pretty amused that, from being the bloody conversion machine, Omnians become the Discworld equivalent of, oh, Jehovah's Witnesses, ready to Smite The Unbeliever With Cunning Explanatory Pamphlets. I can just picture Om's glee at discovering the concepts of (pyramid) mass-marketing, and Brutha going, ".....all right, but no one's allowed to get so much as a papercut, understand?"

And Kanzeon's off in Shangri-La somewhere laughing hir ass off.

[oyceter]

I can definitely see that! I suspect I would have been more taken with the ideas had I read them when younger. As such, Gaiman has already staked out the ground with things on gods and belief, heh.