Snuff by Terry Pratchett

[lightreads]

Snuff by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Yeah, so I’m always excited to get a new Discworld, and particularly a new Vimes. But…



So it’s about Vimes going on vacation, which for him means foiling a goblin trafficking ring. And I think I like Pratchett better when he’s making fun of systems and institutions – the Death books, Making Money etc. Because sometimes he winds up and he pitches at some great evil, and I have to cover my eyes for a little bit. I had a lot of problems with this one, most of which boil down to how the book wasn’t actually all that sure that the people being enslaved deserved consideration and compassion. It thought it was sure, and Vimes carried the banner pretty damn well. But the shape of it, the rhetorical flourishes . . . like, just one thing, we had to have a goblin musical prodigy, you see, because if a goblin can play the most complex of human classical music, well then, goblins might actually be people. And the book sort of knew it was playing with the ways we define who gets – let’s call them sentient rights – and who doesn’t. There’s this great scene at the end where Vimes and Vetinari talk at each other about trafficking, one from a natural law stance and one from a positivist stance, and it’s painful and sharp, because Vetinari is saying ‘no, no it was not a crime, and it can’t be until we pass this law making it a crime,’ and Vimes is saying helplessly, ‘no, but, it’s just wrong.’ But there are many many big and small ways that this book was . . . participating in the rhetorical game playing over who goes into what category, and how, and why. It didn't own its own shit, not nearly enough. And it was uncomfortable.



Anyway. Still a really good book, and Sam Vimes still basically owns me. And his kid is awesome. But. Uncomfortable.





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