Comments for Hogfather

Hogfather: 06/15/14

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett is the 20th Discworld book, and the 4th of the DEATH series. It's nearly Hogswatchnight, the Discworld equivalent to Christmas, Winter Solstice, and New Year's all wrapped into one long celebration. The head of all of this is the Hogfather, a pig headed (literally, not figuratively) man in a Santa suit. And now he's gone missing on the eve of the big event.

DEATH who like the Hogfather is an anthropomorphic projection of an idea, knows that a missing Hogfather will have consequences. BIG ONES. BAD ONES. He also knows that the only way to keep him alive long enough to be found is to keep the idea of him alive. The only way to do that is to take on the role himself. HO HO HO.

So while DEATH is off learning about the Hogswatchnight spirit, his grand-daughter, Susan, is wrangled away from her duties as a governess to fix things. She just wants things to be normal but being around DEATH has given her certain inherited skills that unfortunately make her life anything but normal.

Hogfather explores themes that the Tiffany Aching books will flesh out later, namely the power of words and stories on the human experience. Everything is made up of stories and knowing the rules of storytelling can give one power over the world.

I read this book after having seen the made for TV movie about a dozen times. As with most of the Discworld books, it is lacking in proper chapter breaks and it tends to meander from scene to scene. Those jumps from character and scene with no warning can be confusing and distracting.

Four stars

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