Sourcery (A Discworld Novel)

This is my first attempt to read Terry Pratchett (though I may have tried before and forgot). People love the conceit of Discworld, with it’s high-concept absurd mythos and british humor. I wonder if, had I encountered these books near 1980 when I encountered and intensely loved Hitchhiker’s Guide, I would I would be part of the Pratchett Posse, but I guess I am too old and jaded to join that club. Yet I must say that in this novel Pratchett produces a steady stream of wit, and I must strongly proclaim, some really clever descriptive, even poetic, prose. For example:

“Spelter recognized Ovin Hakardly, a seventh-level wizard and a lecturer in Lore. He was red with anger, except where he was white with rage. When he spoke, his words seared through the air like so many knives, clipped as topiary, crisp as biscuits,”

or, “Silence poured from the heavy woodwork. But, unlike the silence that had the rest of the city under its thrall, this was a watchful, alert silence; it was the silence of a sleeping cat that had just opened one eye.”

or, “The truth isn’t easily pinned to a page. In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find…”

The book was such a dense thicket of bon mots that it saddens me that I could not reciprocate Pratchett’s prodigious prose with more love, however for this reader there was no character or depth of story that sunk in to my heart such that I felt compelled to know how the story would end.