The last published Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett was always going to be a special book, in his readers' affection if nothing else. His contribution to fantasy literature has been enormous, ground-breaking, seminal, what you will. The pure pleasure he has given to so many has been immeasurable. He has also made a most significant (and enjoyable) contribution to children's/YA fantasy writing through the Tiffany Aching series (see my post from June '14). It is therefore a double delight that his last novel is also a continuation of Tiffany Aching's story. That it turns out to be a rather wonderful book in its own right is a considerable bonus. We would confidently have expected this from such a master wordsmith if it hadn't been for his encroaching illness. But we need say no more about that here. No apologia is needed. This book can more than stand up for itself - and will continue to do so for a considerable time to come.
The wonderful Tiffany Aching sequence, is built both structurally and thematically, around the growth from girlhood to early womanhood of its eponymous character. It recounts the key stages of Tiffany's development both as a witch and as a person, which ultimately amount to the same thing. The most charming, and in some ways the most entertaining, of the books are those which deal with the young Tiffany - not least because that is when we are first introduced to a certain little tribe that is one of Terry Pratchett's most entertaining creations, the clan Nac Mac Feegle. The fourth of the sequence, I Shall Wear Midnight, probably remains the most important and the most magical, because that is where Tiffany fully comes into her power as a witch and accepts the implications of who she truly is, even though this means sacrificing a more normal future with her 'young man', Preston. It will always be for me a very moving and special book.
Although not, to be honest, in quite the same exalted league, The Shepherd's Crown does provide a significant extension of Tiffany's personal journey. Now a young woman, it catalogues her personal struggles in taking on the mantle of the Discworld's leading witch, following the death of Granny Weatherwax.
Delightfully The Shepherd's Crown is suffused with the trademark humour of its author, humour which ranges from the sublimely witty to the joyfully silly. It also has quotable aphorisms aplenty. Terry Pratchett's erudite eclecticism still involves misquoting sources as dispirate as Dad's Army and Shakespeare. His effervescent and twinkly wicked invention still includes the coining of names like Becky Pardon, the creation of characters like the privy-using goat, and the mild scatalogy of witches' broom makers cutting a special notch in the staff to accommodate the 'comfort' of a male rider.
However it has to be said that, although the through line of Tiffany's development is clear, this book, does not have the strongest storyline of the Terry Pratchett oeuvre, or indeed of the Tiffany Aching sequence. Its narrative is particularly meandering and episodic. It is sometimes lyrical, more often anecdotal but, the final battles with the elves apart, it is rarely action-packed. As such it's is almost certainly not the best introduction to either Discworld or to Tiffany Aching. But then it is very much a conclusion, an ending, so it wouldn't be, would it?
Nevertheless, this book does contain a number of very wonderful and very important story elements.
As might perhaps be expected in a book from this author at this stage of his own life, it is very much about death and legacy. The whole long sequence about the death of Granny Weatherwax, which dominates much of the early part of the book, is quite superbly handled. He narrates beautifully Granny's simple acceptance of her own impending death, expressed through her very practical preparations for it. Yet, when it happens, he also skilfully expresses its resonance through so many dispirate lives across Discworld. Her conversation with Death is another Terry Pratchett classic, touching in its honesty. This is not a picturing of death that plumbs the depths of religious (or anti-religious) theorising, but it is nevertheless a profound and moving depiction of acceptance and reconciliation, of the proper and natural end of a long life well spent. It also, of course, sets up the context for what will be the principal developmental theme of the rest of the novel: whether Tiffany should take over 'wearing Granny's boots', whether she wants to, whether she can if she wants to, and if so how she should go about it if she does.
A second quite stunning and vitally important element of this final Tiffany Aching book is Terry Pratchett's bringing into being the brand new character, Geoffrey Swivel. Geoffrey is a reader, an animal lover and a vegetarian. He is a 'calm-bringer' not a fighter and he empathises readily with other human beings. In other words his interests and inclinations are those which some factions of our society still identify as 'girly'. To compound this, he wants to be a witch, a role hitherto exclusively filled by females. Yet he is portrayed as an enormously strong and influential character within the story. Indeed he not only contributes very significantly to the defeat of the elves but is the person eventually chosen by Tiffany for a particularly special role. One of the most telling passages of the book comes when Tiffany questions whether Geoffery really wants to become a witch rather than a wizard, reminding him that it is not considered a very manly calling: 'I've never thought of myself as a man, Mistress Tiffany. I don't think I'm anything. I'm just me,' He said quietly. In his portrayal of Geoffery Swivel Terry Pratchett makes the strongest possible case against gender stereotyping, and provides a supportive and sympathetic role model for boys of similar disposition, of which there are many. Good for him.
Of course at the centre of this book is Tiffany herself. Despite her magical abilities and her calling as a witch, Tiffany Aching is easily one of the most human, the most real of Terry Pratchett's creations. It would be unfair and inaccurate to say that Discworld is inhabited completely by two-dimensional characters, quite a few have significant depth, but Tiffany is more fully rounded, more complex and ambivalent in her makeup than most. This has been well established in the earlier books in her series, but it is certainly compounded here. Tiffany's full commitment to becoming a witch, made at the end of I Shall Wear Midnight turns out, realistically, not to be the end of the story. It is significant that her interpretation of this role in practice involves relatively little magic and much more caring for people - she is essentially a district nurse/midwife on a broomstick. Further, her big issue in deciding in whose shoes, or 'boots', she wants to live her adult life, is very real, one with which it is very easy to identify. When, at the end of the book, she realises that she can only be herself, not try to live like someone else, however significant that person's life might have been, Terry Pratchett is making his most important statement in this book, and perhaps in his entire oeuvre.
There is one more vital element in Tiffany's story, 'The Chalk', the place where she was born and brought up, as were all her family before her. Just as Tiffany has always been the most real of Terry Pratchett's characters, so The Chalk is the most real place in Discworld. Its landscape, its features and its very particular rural activities are really very close to those of a part of England. It is a little bit of England in the middle of Discworld. And it is Tiffany's bond to this place, the place where her family has always belonged, where she herself feels rooted, grounded, which ultimately motivates her. The Chalk helps Tiffany find herself. She needs to know not only who, but where she is, where she comes from. Tiffany finally sees her true heritage as being from her own grandmother, Granny Aching, the shepherd, and from The Chalk itself. It is the titular Shepherds Crown on a thong around her neck, and the spirits of her grandmother's sheep dogs which seem to be the source of her ultimate victory over the elves, and in the end she realises this..
Importantly, the Shepherd's Crown is not actually a magical,object, it is a relic and a symbol of The Chalk and its ancient past. Although she will continue as a witch, in her own way, Tiffany will in future be just as much a shepherd, as was her own grandmother. She is discovering a new 'magic '. At the very end of the book she moves into the little shepherd's hut which she herself has built, not using witch magic, but with her own hands, and: 'From the bed she could see out of a small window - see clear across the downs, right to the horizon. And she could see the sun rise, and set, and the moon dance through its guises - the magic of everyday that was no less magic for that.'
Discworld is changing too, perhaps also becoming less magical, or magical in a different way. Not only will Tiffany be a very different kind of 'Senior Witch', but the railways have arrived and are crisscrossing the landscape with the iron that will ultimately reduce the evil elves to storybook fairies. The goblins are being integrated into society. Industrialisation will change Discworld as it did our own. Fantasy will eventually meld back into reality. Not yet, but it is coming. It may not be the change that we want, but it will happen nonetheless. We and the inhabitants of Discworld will just have to accept it,
This is at heart a gentle book, but also a brave one and a wise one. The ideas which it embodies are essentially simple: that when a life draws to its proper end, death is to be accepted and not feared; that we need to move past gender stereotypes; that each of us has both a right and a duty to be our own person; that certain people are fortunate to belong to a particular place and take forward its legacy; that as time moves on the world must change; that peacemaking ('calm-bringing') is a wonderful thing, but that sometimes we just have to fight back when those we love are threatened.
Such thoughts are not particularly original. They have been said and heard often enough before. However they are profoundly truthful. They need to be said and heard again - and again. To fully understand this, to say the things that need to be said without trying to be fancy or smart arsed, and to say them with both wit and compassion, is the wisdom of age. Terry Pratchett 's writing is deeply humane. If we allow it to, then reading it will make us all a little more human. This is why his work and its crown, its Shepherd's Crown, are very special. Terry Pratchett's final book will be read by folk of many ages, but he chose to write it for the young. To quote the man himself: 'They are to deal with the future. And being young means they've got a lot of future.' He has left to them the accumulated wisdom, the simple truths of one whose actual life had very little future. It is a wonderful gift. And now he has a lot of future too.
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