🎃Halloween-ish review of "Feet of Clay" by Terry Pratchett
+ My spooky book/film picks
This edition is in 3 parts:
The Review
The Technique Highlights
My Spooky Season Book & Film Recommendations
1. The Review
I said to a friend once, “I’ve tried to analyze a book of Terry Pratchett’s, and I can’t. I enjoy it too much, and then I forget what it was I’d been trying to analyze.”
It’s been I think about 2 or 3 years since I made that comment – and yes, Pratchett is still tough to analyze – but also, I do look at books differently now as I study more about writing craft.
The thing about Terry’s writing that really stands out the most from any other writer I’ve seen is the way he starts out so playfully in his work, and then after you’ve been lulled into chuckling along with his jokes and the extreme absurdity of the world to the point of happily not taking anything too seriously…then 💥WHAM!
He unleashes these profound nuggets of truth about life that just hit you. Suddenly, you have to pause and reconsider, “Wait, I thought he was talking about this, but he was really talking about [insert any big heavy topic debated in the world]. I never thought of it that way before.”
The experience of reading Terry Pratchett is like standing in front of one of those Magic Eye pictures (autostereograms) … the image that appears to be a two-dimensional, flat, chaotic kaleidoscope of colors…until you cross your eyes a bit and relax your gaze. Boom. When you know how to look at it, the whole thing becomes a living 3D image, and suddenly you understand how every part of it was important.
For example, here’s one of my favorite Terry-truth-isms from “Feet of Clay”:
He said to people: you're free. And they said hooray, and then he showed them what freedom costs and they called him a tyrant and, as soon as he'd been betrayed, they milled around a bit like barn-bred chickens who've seen the big world outside for the first time, and then they went back into the warm and shut the door-
People start out reading Terry because they want a laugh, and they leave the book with a new perspective on one of the world’s hot topics or dilemmas. Not to mention, he writes in such a way that even if the big statement about life flew over a reader’s head, they’ll still enjoy the book. That’s incredibly difficult to pull off! You could say that Terry writes comedy, but it’s so much more than that. He writes treatises on humanity in a way that you can laugh about life instead of crying about it so much … that’s what he really does.
Thus it was that Feet of Clay presents itself as a murder mystery comedy about golems, when it’s actually much more.
A golem is derived from the old Hebrew for “shapeless mass,” lumps of clay sculpted into figures and brought to life with magic or letters forming a sacred word. Some say the earliest reference to golems was around the 4th to 5th century B.C. according to the worldview of the creator of all that exists being a Master Potter.
(This is a 1915 - 1916 German painting of one of the golems.)
In this story, these tall, strong, and powerful clay creatures with glowing red eyes are being investigated for mysterious murders taking place across the city. Tracking down the murderer and finding out who’s trying to kill the ruler of the city form most of the plot, but that’s only the surface level of the story.
The tale actually includes commentaries on:
Creating AI robots
Gender expression across different cultures
The ethics of factory labor
Responsibilities of freedom and what true freedom means
Various debates about the monarchy system and what constitutes true rulership
By the end, a golem receives total autonomy from its master, which upsets the priests and townspeople who want to destroy the golem since it’s very strong and works without stopping:
pg. 284:
“We want it smashed!”
“Blasphemy!”
“People won't stand for it!”
Ridcully looked around at the other priests. “I'm talking,” he said.
He turned back to Vimes. “This comes under the heading of gross profanity and the worship of idols.”
“I don't worship him. I'm just employing him,” said Vimes, beginning to enjoy himself. “And he's far from idle.” He took a deep breath. “And if it's gross profanity you're looking for…”
“Excuse Me,” said Dorfl. [the golem]
“We're not listening to you! You're not even really alive!” said a priest.
Dorfl nodded. “This Is Fundamentally True,” he said.
“See? He admits it!”
“I Suggest You Take Me And Smash Me And Grind The Bits Into Fragments And Pound The Fragments Into Powder And Mill Them Again To The Finest Dust There Can Be, And I Believe You Will Not Find A Single Atom Of Life.”
“True! Let's do it!”
“However, In Order To Test This Fully, One Of You Must Volunteer To Undergo The Same Process.”
There was silence.
"That's not fair,” said a priest, after a while. “All anyone has to do is bake up your dust again and you'll be alive.”
There was more silence.
Ridcully said, “Is it only me, or are we on tricky theological ground here?”
There was more silence.
I won’t give away everything because this book is a great one to read! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
But I will say that in this book I found the sneakiest way to kill a vampire. 😂😈💀
The Technique: One Pun to Rule Them All
Terry is a master of puns. Some he’ll point out to you; others he just slips in like an experiment to see who’ll catch them. Now whether or not Terry intended this pun to be made with the title of this book, I’m going to make it anyway:
He answers the thematic question of “Who’s fit to rule?” with…
Someone who has “both feet on the ground” = with “Feet of Clay.” 👣
The literal “feet of clay” are those of the golems like Dorfl, who ends up walking in the footsteps of Captain Carrot by the end.
The metaphorical feet of clay appear as:
Captain Carrot is our most practical character who always keeps his feet on the ground and sees things things as they are without getting afraid of or shaken by anything, nor having any big dreams. He’s in many ways referred to as the unofficial “king” of the city, if they’d all had to vote on one.
Commander Vimes too prefers to wear old shoes with soles thin enough to feel the cobbles beneath your feet that told you which street you were on. Throughout the novel, this concept of being grounded and close to people is praised and proves to be a kind of superpower that unravels all the mysteries, conquering evil at large.
The more I pondered on it, the more I felt that the whole story is an argument about rulership and who’s got the strongest “feet of clay” to lead others, to rule, if rulership was even essential. Each character represents an argument on the topic of Kingship and rulership.
For example:
The Dragon King vampire insists that Kings protect the lineage and uphold tradition. He has been tracking the lineages of noble lines in many volumes of books for centuries because he believes it is so important. This character also fears that Captain Carrot’s girlfriend, the werewolf on the watch named Angua (I loved all her badassery whenever men thought she was a defenseless woman before she’d take a bite out of them 🐺😉), might have Captain Carrot’s children one day … and he hates werewolves and doesn’t want them “breeding puppies” with people. Thus we have the satirical edge on those who uphold royal family traditions in the story (& Vimes retaliates against the Dragon King very well in the end.)
Commander Vimes continually asks, “Why should we have kings? The whole idea is fundamentally ridiculous.” 😂Throughout the story he insists on people being held accountable for their actions – so he doesn’t favor anarchy – and also that no one should supervise others in a way that keeps them poor and suppressed. (I honestly just assume this character’s voice is the closest to Terry’s own opinions on the topic, but maybe that’s just me.)
Vetinari the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork (current Mayor-type of city leader) insists that Rulers are necessary to keep balance and maintain the status quo, not to make changes. Thus, he does all he can to stay in power without ever doing much in the way of making improvements for the people or city. ⚖️ (Sound like any politicians you know?)
Angua continually grumbles about how she hates people, no one should be king, and she’s about to run off and just take care of herself… but she can’t help liking and listening to Carrot because he’s so damn good and considerate that she can’t hate him. 💕She’s the foil to Carrot that balances him out because she can always see the bad side of people while Carrot sees their good side first.
The golems at one point make their own Golem king out of clay and use tricky means to bring him to life in the hopes that only a golem King could free them. Yet this golem king is always screaming, overwhelmed with all the instructions the other golems gave it since it had “too many masters.”
That brings me to this sneaky little quote Terry put in that shows how golems and humans are alike:
pg. 67:
It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: “Kings. What a good idea.” Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw.
Golems too, we learn, are created by slipping texts into their head = giving them a King or Master to command them (i.e. programming).
Yet, here is where Captain Carrot really shines as a leader.
He exemplifies the ideal that “Everyone should be their own King.”
Carrot wrote on a receipt that one of the golems was his own master now and put that - literally - into its head as new programming. Right before he gave this golem freedom, Carrot demonstrated empathy, listening to both sides of a story, and believing one is innocent until proven guilty.
Then when Dorfl is set free by such a person, who does Dorfl emulate?
Carrot.
The golem became like Carrot: honest, with a desire to defend the weak and serve others, getting joy from work, and so on. By the end of the tale, Dorfl even wants to buy other golems’ freedom because he decided to follow a fair trade payment system (like Carrot who always pays for free meals).
Dorfl realized if he bought the other golems, that was part of their programming to accept a new master so that they could accept being “free” when he’d give them their own receipt, the way Carrot had freed him.
The whole transformation of it, the beauty of this pun till the end, was incredibly satisfying to read. I highly recommend it.
My 2023 Halloween Read + Watch List:
If you haven’t read the book I reviewed last month, “Vampires of El Norte,” then by all means, go read this rich gothic romance with gruesome undead beasts in Mexico.
The new release of NYT bestseller Susan Dennard’s “The Hunting Moon” (part 2 of “The Luminaries”) comes out November 7th. It features “vampira” in a deadly original form as one of the many horrifying creatures in the forest of nightmares that the luminary clans hunt nightly to protect the rest of the world. I read the first book over a weekend and can’t wait to see what happens next
.
Of all the vampire films out there, I still haven’t seen anything that can top the spellbindingly artistic and wild version of Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola. (Sorry, “True Blood”) BTW, what’s so brilliant about this version of Dracula is that it creates a new backstory that “could have been” hiding off the pages of Stoker’s original Dracula.
And now for something completely different: 👻Check out “The Canterville Ghost,” a short story by Oscar Wilde with the funniest ghost who fails terribly at haunting the latest family to move in. A great audiobook recording of The Canterville Ghost is here on YouTube.
Another horror comedy that doesn’t get enough love is “A Vampire in Brooklyn” with Eddie Murphy. It’s over the top in all the best ways. 😂
The scariest film for me personally (that I still cannot watch again) remains the classic movie “The Shining” with Jack Nicholson. I never would’ve believed that twins in a hallway could be so terrifying until I saw this:
What are your top favorite scary books or films of all time? Please tell me by replying in the comments. 😈
📣Announcement!
After I wrote this post, I launched a Humorous Series called “The Intergalactizen’s Guide to Taming Earthlings” specifically inspired by Terry Pratchett’s wit and Douglas Adams’ zaniness in satire in July 2024.
Read the first episode of my Cozy Sci-Fi Comedy here:
Episode 1: Wrong House, Wrong Time
Want to read this on your Kindle or iBooks? I’ve added a new option through a handy Ko-Fi store integration, so click on this button ⬇️