Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I haven’t read a lot of Pratchett — I think this is only my second one — but I do enjoy reading him for the color and the metaphor. The way he turns a figure of speech on the lathe will frequently leave you just sitting there in your chair with a table leg in your hand, and your wife says, “Hey, what’s with the table leg.” And I say, “I’m reading.”
Doug,
You must read more Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Their novel, Good Omens is the best send-up of “end times” novels I’ve ever seen. Gaiman’s Neverwhere is absolutely haunting.
I particularly liked how Famine is characterized in Good Omens: a celebrity diet guru who gets girls to starve themselves and adulate him for the privilege.
I find Pratchett’s novels quite interesting – I’m surprised Doug didn’t have more to say about the economy and political structure of Going Postal. It’s designed as an explicitly statist, anti-Atlas Shrugged story.
That being said, Pratchett is probably the closest voice in recent times to Wodehouse, though he’s not quite as excellent.
Haven’t read much of him either but that’s a good analogy.
Hogfather is an all time favorite of mine. You should read that one around Christmas time.
Be sure to check out Carpe Jugulum it has a fascinating (and largely sympathetic) portate of a liberal cleric who longs for the certainties of the “old religion”. Similar themes are also present in his Bromeliad Trilogy (far more dangerous to the faith of young children then Philp Pullman but a very good read for more mature teens).
The problem I find with Pratchett and religion is that he’s so genial and generally sympathetic (not to mention a fine writer) that it’s easy to get caught up in a well done character study, or a scathing but hilarious social critique, and miss the worship of man (either as a species, individual, or state).