Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett
Synopsis: When a young witch is given wizard powers, she and her grandmother must find a way to get the all-male wizard university to acknowledge and accept her.
Book Review: This is one of Pratchett’s early works, and it’s interesting watching someone you know will become a grandmaster slowly coming into his powers.
The story is entertaining, but it was thematically confusing for me. The girl-witch doesn’t really do a whole lot, and her grandmother, while being absolutely awesome and someone I’d love to know, its rather inconsistent. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this book until I went to the bookclub and someone dropped a revelation on me – the protagonist of this book isn’t really the girl, she’s just the inciting incident. The protagonist is the grandmother!
After that it all made sense. The grandmother starts out very cynical and jaded. She practices “headology,” which is mostly psychology and the use of ritual and expectation to help guide people’s lives and actions. She is obviously very aware of how powerful ritual and expectations are, but she’s also extremely cynical about it, mostly viewing other people as befuddled fools who need to be lead through life because they’re too dumb for their own good.
She grows, though. The grandmother’s character arc is of someone who comes to see that ritual can be overemphasized and sometimes needs to be jettisoned when human interests are at stake… and that some humans are actually kinda alright.
Now, I say Pratchett hasn’t quite come into his own yet in this book, because that’s not the clear focus of the story, and it’s a bit inconsistent. Also, he doesn’t engage my emotions at the anger level when showing the witches’ fight for equal rights. The wizards seem more befuddled and incompetent than actually unlikable. There was only one moment when I felt any animus towards them, and it passed quickly. It made the whole “sexism” thing seem like not a big deal, just a misunderstanding, and kinda gave a lie to the title. It’s certainly nothing like the rousing political statements and declarations of his later works, which have you on your feet cheering for human rights and swearing to strike down any tyranny and corruption you see.
Likewise, neither his humor nor his socio-political statements really flowed with the story. It seemed like story, humor, and political stuff always had to stop for each other and interject, rather weaving seamlessly into a majestic single melody like his later books.
But still, his prose is eminently readable! When you read Pratchett it always feels like he’s a mischievous uncle sitting in the room and telling you this story himself, weaving this epic yarn with a twinkle in his eye. He’s snappy and funny and doesn’t belabor anything.
And honestly, it feels a bit churlish to say this work doesn’t measure up to his later works, after he’s had thousands of hours more experience. Is it really fair to compare someone to their refined, future self?
So, all in all, a fun read. Pratchett in general is a Strong Recommended. I would recommend his later works first. But if you’ve already gone through those, this one is pretty good too.
Book Club Review: You can’t go wrong with Pratchett for a book club, y’all already know this. Plenty to talk about, even moreso if people are well-read in his universe. Obviously recommended, with the same caveat of “later works first” as above.
