Just bumping because I finished listening to the audio book version.
This is one book that truly does get much better with repeated readings. First reading I thought it was good. Second reading I thought it was great. This time it just comes off as one of Pterry's indisputable masterpieces. There's are just so many amazing, well conceived ideas about religion, politics, history, morality, philosophy and the meaning of life and that these ideas don't get in the way of a strong and compelling narrative really is a tribute to Pterry's development as a writer.
If you look at the period starting with Small Gods and ending with Hogfather, one common theme that runs through the best of these works is the nature and origin of belief and existence. Feet of Clay, Small Gods and Hogfather are probably the 'big three' that provide the most complex (and often perplexing) examination of these themes, but even Lords and Ladies and, to a lesser extent, Soul Music delve into explorations of the ancient rituals and beliefs that mutate into modern day illusions.
With the exception of Thief of Time, Pterry never really delves as deep into these kinds of multi-layered explorations after Hogfather. Most books from this point on deal more with discussions of cultural confrontations, political intriques, economics with supernatural beasties tossed in every now and then to make good villains. (He does return to some of these themes in Wee Free Men, Wintersmith and even more so in Nation, but never goes back to it in the 'adult' DW books.
Still plenty of masterpieces there, but they are a different kind of masterpiece.
This is a great, great book and really one-of-a-kind though as people have mentioned there are several Discworld books touching on some similar themes - still haven't read all of them but at the moment this one is right up there in my list of favourite DW books along with Hogfather, Night Watch and Going Postal.
I loved this book so much I decided (foolishly, in the best Discworld/Pratchett tradition) to adapt it and tell it as a story in our local church community. That all came to a conclusion last Saturday 25/2/12. I'm going to relate my experience below as I think it's helped me to see the book in a different way.
Our church is very non-dogmatic and open minded so there was no issue with the content. However where I hit problems was with boiling down the story to a form I could tell to a group of adults in two fourty minute sessions.
It really, really hurt to leave out so much as I love most of the additional characters. But I found that the central narrative with Om, Brutha and Vorbis (plus Brother Nhumrod thrown in with the melons) could stand on its own. It's still hugely funny, moving, philosophical and a "comedy" in the best sense of the word (that is, something that has a happy ending).
The really great moment in the abridged version of the story was the sentence that comes right after Om hits Vorbis in the forehead travelling at 3 metres per second - "It was a revelation." After that the rest is all a joyful wrap-up. The image is just such a perfect culmination of all the threads that have been building up - bad-guy-priest who no longer has any real connection to the whole purpose of his own religion is hit between the eyes literally by his own god who thereby also achieves his own purpose of getting his believers and his power back and also achieves Brutha's purpose of returning to Omnia to show them what Vorbis has done.
I included the introduction on the tortoise and the eagle, almost everything before the departure of the secret mission to Ephebe, a large chunk of Om, Brutha and Vorbis in the desert (including the scalbies and the underground temple), most of the stuff back in the temple up till the point Brutha decides to go to the beach to meet the invading fleets, Vorbis' death scene and Brutha's death scene.
Including the two death scenes was really important as I had always felt the very last lines of the book where Brutha and Vorbis set off across the desert together were the most wonderful and joyous and profound ending I had ever seen in a Pratchett book. And he does have more than a few good endings as you're probably aware (sometimes several endings in the same book!)
I added a small "bridging" passage to cover the period from the departure from Omnia until the scalby finds Om and Brutha on the beach at the edge of the desert.
So what did I leave out? A lot, as those of you who've read the book will probably realise - all of the stuff about Ephebe, ALL of the characters from Ephebe (including - with great reluctance - Didacytylos and Urn), the Queen of the Sea, Sgt Simony, St Ungulant, Lu Tze, the abbot and many beloved scenes including Death playing chess with the abbot, the Ephebian philosophers in the tavern, St Ungulant and Angus, the non-battle-scene on the beach in Om, Om heavying the gods in Cori Celeste, Fasta Benj and his fish, the newt god P'Tang and so on and on and on...
All of that was painful as there is something in me that wants to share the joy of all of these moments and characters with people. But that's just not possible and what I found was that, even boiled down like this - the story worked!
Which I think goes to show you - with a great piece of literature like this, even if a philistine like me chops it in pieces and then tries to reconstruct it the light can still shine through. A bit like resurrecting Koomi of Smale perhaps... He was one of the few non-core characters who still got a mention in my abridged version, by the way.
One other thing to mention... I found the scene in the underground temple where Brutha smashes the broken vase to be absolute gold - while I hardly remembered it from previous readings, I was amazed to discover how much was included in that scene and putting it next to the dialogue between Om and Brutha about Cori Celeste and the Nobs on Nob Hill made for a fantastic storytelling sequence that actually explained a lot and contributed a lot to the character and plot development.
It really is a remarkable book, isn't it? And it works for religious, agnostic and even atheist readers because it talks about the nature of belief and how belief can become distorted into something like habit - sometimes at the end of a sword.
I have heard of the book being used in church before, but not in the way you have adapted it. I'd very much like to know what your fellow church-goers thought of it.
I'm kind of surprised that, unlike the witches books, (as far as I know) it's never been adapted as a play. With imaginative backdrops and props, and perhaps puppetry (or ventriloquism), it could make for great, thought provoking theater. You get the broad comedy of the Brutha/Om relationship, the terror of Vorbis, and the great ending.
As to how it was received - generally much amusement at the pinpoint nature of his satire, joy at the wonderful humour that is always lightening things up, and amazement at how he slips such profound and moving insights in in such a way that you don't even notice what he's doing. His humour when on the subject of religion is just brilliant, he's obviously had a religious upbringing inflicted on him somewhere along the line. I wonder if he had a particularly devout grandmother in his family? Organising the roster to stone the adulteresses...
Our priest quoted Brutha's question to Om in the desert about needing to know what it is like to be human in her sermon the next day so there is no risk of my being summoned before the Quisition just yet...
Yes I was trying to find that BBC production to help prepare for the storytelling as the bits I could find of it on YouTube were much closer to a storytelling mode than the standard book reading available on ITunes. But as you say, no luck!
I did find that there was an amateur production done of Small Gods last year in a country far far away from the Last Continent where I live: http://www.durham21.co.uk/2011/02/ooook ... pratchett/. I guess they did the script themselves. The radio controlled stuffed tortoise sounds interesting...
'Small Gods' was my first Discworld book and first experience with Sir Terry Pratchett. I have seen people recommend different orders of reading to familiarize with the Discworld setting, but chance and dumb luck threw 'Small Gods' at me first. I have read almost every book authored or co-authored by Sir Pratchett now, and I have to say that 'Small Gods' is still my favorite. It is actually my favorite book from any author. It moved, reshaped and changed the way I look at the world in a way that no other book has come close to, and I'm no stranger to books. I ended up creating an indie band under the band name smalltortoise and I develop amateur indie games under the developer name smalltortoise games. When I say amateur, I am not just being humble. Not even Brutha could help me out there, but it's OK because it's fun.
There's a lot of things I do these days that some would have you believe should only be left to the pros. I've gotten into tinkering with DIY projects, electronics, programming, painting, poetry, other arts, and even tried my hand at being a stuntperson in an indie movie for a short film competition (entirely on a whim). I've been more outgoing over time, traveled the world more in the past years than in my whole life, met new people, and generally tried new things more than ever before. Largely, I've enjoyed celebrating other cultures and others' passions in religious and spiritual views even if I do not adopt them myself.
And I owe quite a bit of my new adventurous spirit to 'Small Gods.'
In reading and rereading the book, I introspected what each character and event reflected about myself. What I took away from the book was life-changing for me. I know that the bulk of the book has major religious tones, but that's not all I took from it. Religion's everywhere, so there were definitely great things to think about interpersonal intelligence related to religion and spirituality, and I enjoyed the references to various iterations of religion throughout history. However, I also took a lot from the book about living life more fully, when to put the garden tools down and go "carpe diem," the power of determination, the responsibilities associated with shared confidence, and compassion for others (even the intolerant and hateful).
Sir Pratchett opened me up to an entirely new world full of positive experiences with 'Small Gods.'
Welcome to the forum. Small Gods is near the top for me as well. Not one I'd recommend someone to start with as it is quite different in style and tone to the other books written around the same time but definitely a great read.
I’m surprised by the reactions “Small Gods”has on people. For my part, the first time I read I absolutely enjoyed it, and I can honestly say for me is the best stand-alone novel of Discworld and one of the most poignant and magnificently ideated.
On the other hand, when my mother read it for the first time, found it quite confusing (as some of you have also experienced). Nevertheless, these days we have both reread it and I have ended up telling her: “Didn’t I tell you?” She loved it and so did I!
Knowing how to deal with the thorny topic of religion and creating a master criticism out of it is very difficult, but I think only Pratchett could have done it so well. Moreover, as any other novel written by Sir Terry, it hides a lot more than it seems: I completely agree with you, James (when finishing the book my mother and I were crying with emotion).
This novel is full of pearls of wisdom, but these caught my eye over lots of other quotes:
“Fear is strange soil. Mainly it grows obedience like corn, which grows in rows and makes weeding easy. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.”
“Life in this world”, he said “is, as it were, a sojourn in a cave. What can we know of reality? For all we see of the true nature of existence is, shall we say, no more than bewildering and amusing shadows cast upon the inner wall of the cave by unseen blinding light of absolute truth, from which we may or may not deduce some glimmer of veracity, and we as troglodyte seekers of wisdom can only lift our voices to the unseen and say, humbly, ‘Go on, do Deformed Rabbit… it’s my favourite.’”
“Gods never need to be very bright when there are humans to be it for them.”
“Besides, the Ephebian garrison commander had declared somewhat nervously that slavery would henceforth be abolished, which infuriated slaves. What would be the point of saving up to become free if you couldn’t own slaves afterwards? Besides, how’d they eat?”
“‘Yes, lord,’ said Brutha. ‘But, lord, I cannot be a bishop, I cannot even…’
‘I assure you the job does not require much intelligence,’ said Vorbis. ‘If it did, bishops would not be able to do it.’”
“The central spire of Cori Celesti rises up from the mountains at the Hub, ten vertical miles of green ice and snow, topped by the turrets and domes of Dunmanifestin. There the Gods of the Discworld live. At the least, any god who is anybody. And it is strange that, although it takes years of effort and work scheming for a god to get there, once there they never seem to do a lot apart from drink too much and indulge in a little mild corruption. Many systems of government follow the same broad lines.”
Some great quotes from the book there, Mixa. I used to know someone who was very religious and Small Gods was their favourite Discworld book. They would even read passages from it to the congregation at church. It's not a book that says that gods are wrong, it's more a book that explains why people think they need them. And people needing them is important for a god, because, without believers, a god ceases to exist. When the Bible says:
The Bible said:
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him . . .
"By people believing in them," said Brutha. "Millions of people believe in you."
Om hesitated.
All right, all right. We are here and it is now. Sooner or later he'll find out for himself...
"They don't believe," said Om.
"But---"
"It's happened before," said the tortoise. "Dozens of times. D'you know Abraxas found the lost city of Ee? Very strange carvings, he says. Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure."
"I don't understand," said Brutha.
"Let me put it another way," said the tortoise. "I am your God, right?"
"Yes."
"And you'll obey me."
"Yes."
"Good. Now take a rock and go and kill Vorbis."
Brutha didn't move.
"I'm sure you heard me," said Om.
"But he'll... he's... the Quisition would---"
"Now you know what I mean," said the tortoise. "You're more afraid of him than you are of me. Abraxas says here: 'Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.'"
"That can't be true!"
"I think it is. Abraxas says there's a kind of shellfish that lives in the same way. It makes a bigger and bigger shell until it can't move around any more, and so it dies."
"But... but... that means... the whole Church..."
"Yes."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The inquisitor, whose name was Deacon Cusp, had got to where he was today, which was a place he wasn't sure right now that he wanted to be, because he liked hurting people. It was a simple desire, and one that was satisfied in abundance within the Quisition. And he was one of those who were terrified in a very particular way by Vorbis. Hurting people because you enjoyed it... that was understandable. Vorbis just hurt people because he'd decided that they should be hurt, without passion, even with a kind of hard love.
In Cusp's experience, people didn't make things up, ultimately, not in front of an exquisitor.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You call this philosophy?" roared Didactylos, waving his stick.
Urn cleaned pieces of the sand mould from the lever.
"Well... natural philosophy," he said.
The stick whanged down on the Moving Turtle's flanks.
"I never taught you this sort of thing!" shouted the philosopher. "Philosophy is supposed to make life better!"
"This will make it better for a lot of people," said Urn, calmly. "It will help overthrow a tyrant."
"And then?" said Didactylos.
"And then what?"
"And then you'll take it to bits, will you?" said the old man. "Smash ti up? Take the wheels off? Get rid of all those spikes? Burn the plans? Yes? When it's served its purpose, yes?"
"Well---" Urn began.
"Aha!"
"Aha what? What if we do keep it? It'll be a... a deterrent to other tyrants!"
"You think tyrants won't build 'em too?"
"Well... I can build bigger ones!" Urn shouted.
Didactylos sagged. "Yes," he said. "No doubt you can. So that's all right, then. My word. And to think I was worrying. And now... I think I'll go and have a rest somewhere..."
He looked hunched up, and suddenly old.
"Master?" said Urn.
"Don't 'master' me," said Didactylos, feeling his way along the barn walls to the door. "I can see you know every bloody thing there is to know about human nature now. Hah!"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Urn and Simony
discuss whether they should try to rescue Brutha from being roasted alive:
"They don't like it." Simony turned. "Look, Brutha's going to die anyway. But this way it'll mean something... We can make Brutha's death a symbol for people, don't you see?"
...
"You know," he (Urn -Ed.) said, turning to Simony. "Now I know Vorbis is evil... do you know what's special?... It's what he's done to you."
"What?"
"He turns other people into copies of himself."
Simony's grip was like a vice. "You're saying I'm like him?"
"Once you said you'd cut him down," said Urn. "Now you're thinking like him..."
"So we rush them, then?" said Simony. "I'm sure of - maybe four hundred on our side. So I give the signal and a few hundred of us attack thousands of them? And he dies anyway and we die too? What difference does that make?"
Urn's face was grey with horror now.
"You mean you don't know?" he said.
Some of the crowd looked around curiously at him.
"You don't know?" he said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As a fleet of Ephebians, Tsorteans, Djelibeybians and Klatchians approaches the coast to stamp out Omnia...
Simony clenched his fists in anger.
"Look... listen... We died for lies, for centuries we died for lies." he waved a hand towards the god. "Now we've got a truth to die for!"
"No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for."
Simony's mouth opened and shut soundlessly as he sought for words. Finally, he found some from the dawn of his education.
"I was told it was the finest thing to die for a god," he mumbled.
"Vorbis said that. And he was... stupid. You can die for your country or your people or your family, but for a god you should live fully and busily, every day of a long life."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I like the idea of democracy. You have to have someone everyone distrusts," said Brutha. "That way, everyone's happy."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm rereading it and finding some apparent contradictions. It's always a problem for me whether they are typos that the copy-editor missed or meaningful things we're supposed to figure out. Vorbis's eye color is grey at one point, which I think may have been a moment when greyness fit better than blackness (the steel-grey mind may be relevant there) and pTerry went for the emotional tone rather than strict consistency. On the other hand, I'm not sure, but I think there's a place where Brutha either makes a mistake or tells a lie, but either way it doesn't make any difference to the plot. On one page he counts the number of flashes of light, and a page or so later he tells Vorbis a different number. The two statements aren't far enough apart to be simple forgetting by pTerry, but I can't find any good justification for it in Brutha's character development either. At that point Brutha can't disobey, so why would he lie about something he didn't understand?
I really hope that the family can get a corrected edition produced, in which these little uncertainties are checked against the original typescripts/ computer files as created before the publishers and their editors and typesetters got hold of them.
