avevale_intelligencer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
avevale_intelligencer) wrote2009-10-02 10:19 am
avevale_intelligencer) wrote2009-10-02 10:19 am
The new Pratchett
Unseen Academicals is out, and I have a copy.
I suppose it's inevitable that the news we had in late 2007 about Sir Terry was going to affect the way I read each new book as it comes out, in a subtle but ineluctable way, the sense of a timer counting down rather too soon and too fast. The magic is still fully there, though; not the simple laughter of the earliest books, but a more thoughtful kind of wit with a deep vein of seriousness running through it. The book is ostensibly about football, but--like football itself, apparently--not just about football.
I've just reached a very nice speech by Lord Vetinari, in which he says some of the things I have tried to say, not nearly as well, about the old canard that there has to be evil or we wouldn't appreciate good, that there has to be some kind of balance between the two. There is evil, Vetinari says. Everywhere, all the time, built in to the universe long before us. We look at the universe, at how it works, and evil is mostly what we see, if we look honestly. Of course, it's only evil because we are looking at it, because we are aware of the possibility of good and have the capacity for making judgments. We see death and suffering, unfairness and cruelty, and we call it evil, when in fact it's just what the universe does to keep going when we're not around to be revolted by it. And it does it all the time. There's beauty, of course, and wonder, and all that stuff, but the closer you look the more you see how the beauty and wonder are rooted in nastiness.
Good is a part of us. Evil is everything else. There's no question of balance. It's not like putting a chair over there to counter the sofa over here. There's no choice we can make to allow ourselves to be evil some of the time, no comfort to be derived from the idea that if we didn't do the evil the good wouldn't shine as brightly. Only a sentient being can be good, and therefore all sentient beings are obliged to be good, as hard and as long as we can, and still the balance will be tipped so far in the direction of evil that we'll scarcely even begin to shift the pan.
We can find ways to avoid the question. We can argue endlessly about what we mean by evil, what we mean by good, how our different tribes express those meanings and wrap them up in stupid and monolithic rules, and we can have so much fun doing it that the original question gets lost. We can say that distinctions within our minds don't exist, that good and evil are illusions and it's all just survival, or something. We can talk about (this is a phrase from somewhere else that is still boggling me) "the beautiful randomness of a godless cosmos," or pretend that if a god existed it would be god's responsibility to make the universe good, or at least fair, and because there isn't one then it isn't supposed to be, or because it isn't then there isn't one, or something. We can throw up huge webs of words and prevarications to avoid the fact that there is good and there is evil, that--theology and power games aside--we all have an idea of what those words mean and that idea is broadly the same wherever you go, and that we none of us live up to it as much as we could, or as much as we should.
We can't stop all the evil, without ending the universe. But we can be better. "If there is any kind of supreme being," Vetinari says at the end of his speech, "it is up to all of us to become his moral superior." It seems to me that until we put our hands to that wheel, with a whole heart and unshakable resolve, it is not surprising at all that we remain in darkness and uncertainty as to whether there is such a being or not. In the end, that doesn't matter. We are the only beings of which we have certain knowledge who possess any conception of good and evil. Why then is there the slightest ambivalence about which we should choose to be?
Oh well. Vetinari said it better. Also shorter.
Apart from that, there are characters new and old, there are some wonderful one-liners, there is tenderness and mordancy and all the usual routine brilliance you expect from this wonderful, wonderful writer. Don't hesitate. If you love Discworld, you will want this book. Even though it is about football.
I suppose it's inevitable that the news we had in late 2007 about Sir Terry was going to affect the way I read each new book as it comes out, in a subtle but ineluctable way, the sense of a timer counting down rather too soon and too fast. The magic is still fully there, though; not the simple laughter of the earliest books, but a more thoughtful kind of wit with a deep vein of seriousness running through it. The book is ostensibly about football, but--like football itself, apparently--not just about football.
I've just reached a very nice speech by Lord Vetinari, in which he says some of the things I have tried to say, not nearly as well, about the old canard that there has to be evil or we wouldn't appreciate good, that there has to be some kind of balance between the two. There is evil, Vetinari says. Everywhere, all the time, built in to the universe long before us. We look at the universe, at how it works, and evil is mostly what we see, if we look honestly. Of course, it's only evil because we are looking at it, because we are aware of the possibility of good and have the capacity for making judgments. We see death and suffering, unfairness and cruelty, and we call it evil, when in fact it's just what the universe does to keep going when we're not around to be revolted by it. And it does it all the time. There's beauty, of course, and wonder, and all that stuff, but the closer you look the more you see how the beauty and wonder are rooted in nastiness.
Good is a part of us. Evil is everything else. There's no question of balance. It's not like putting a chair over there to counter the sofa over here. There's no choice we can make to allow ourselves to be evil some of the time, no comfort to be derived from the idea that if we didn't do the evil the good wouldn't shine as brightly. Only a sentient being can be good, and therefore all sentient beings are obliged to be good, as hard and as long as we can, and still the balance will be tipped so far in the direction of evil that we'll scarcely even begin to shift the pan.
We can find ways to avoid the question. We can argue endlessly about what we mean by evil, what we mean by good, how our different tribes express those meanings and wrap them up in stupid and monolithic rules, and we can have so much fun doing it that the original question gets lost. We can say that distinctions within our minds don't exist, that good and evil are illusions and it's all just survival, or something. We can talk about (this is a phrase from somewhere else that is still boggling me) "the beautiful randomness of a godless cosmos," or pretend that if a god existed it would be god's responsibility to make the universe good, or at least fair, and because there isn't one then it isn't supposed to be, or because it isn't then there isn't one, or something. We can throw up huge webs of words and prevarications to avoid the fact that there is good and there is evil, that--theology and power games aside--we all have an idea of what those words mean and that idea is broadly the same wherever you go, and that we none of us live up to it as much as we could, or as much as we should.
We can't stop all the evil, without ending the universe. But we can be better. "If there is any kind of supreme being," Vetinari says at the end of his speech, "it is up to all of us to become his moral superior." It seems to me that until we put our hands to that wheel, with a whole heart and unshakable resolve, it is not surprising at all that we remain in darkness and uncertainty as to whether there is such a being or not. In the end, that doesn't matter. We are the only beings of which we have certain knowledge who possess any conception of good and evil. Why then is there the slightest ambivalence about which we should choose to be?
Oh well. Vetinari said it better. Also shorter.
Apart from that, there are characters new and old, there are some wonderful one-liners, there is tenderness and mordancy and all the usual routine brilliance you expect from this wonderful, wonderful writer. Don't hesitate. If you love Discworld, you will want this book. Even though it is about football.