Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett

[sophia_sol]

A good book, since Terry Pratchett is a good writer*, but this was not one of the books that ever spoke to me most out of his oeuvre. Probably has something to do with the fact that I didn't actually grow up with Santa Claus as a thing, so this doesn't tap into my own childhood at all.

I do love Susan a lot though, and the wizardly academia jokes are so much more comprehensible to me as an adult, and I appreciate how Pratchett understands that children can be strange and alarming and bloodthirsty.

And of course there's the oft-quoted bit from near the end of the book where Death and Susan are talking about believing in things that aren't real, that believing in the Hogfather is practice for believing in justice and mercy and things like that. That's a really good bit.

*reading him as an adult is full of me going "HOW DOES HE DO THAT??". As a kid I just found him compulsively readable and funny.

Comments

[china_shop]

Thanks for the link to that quote. I may have read Hogfather once, looooong ago, but I don't remember that exchange.

♥

[bluemeridian]

I liked the book but that bit would make even a lesser book worth it for me, tbh. I didn't feel like it tapped into my childhood either, despite having grown up with Christmas, and I keep feeling like I should have loved it more than I did. Ultimately, though, I did find it thoroughly enjoyable and suspect it may be the sort of book that wears re-reads well.