Book Log: Nation

Nation by Terry Pratchett

Mau is on his way home from the Boy's island when the wave hits. He has left his boy soul behind, and he is about to receive his man soul--and then the wave hits, and there is nothing left. His people, the Nation, are gone, and there is only him. Him and Daphne, a trouserman girl, the only survivor of a shipwreck caused by the wave. They don't speak the same language, but they are the only two living souls on the island, and so they must work together to survive. And slowly, they are joined by more stragglers, more survivors. And as they work together to survive, they begin what may be the greatest adventure of all time.

I was hesitant to even try to blurb this book. It's one of those rare books, like Elizabeth Knox's Dreamhunter/Dreamquake (even though it's nothing at all like them) where there is just no imaginable way to do it justice with a blurb. It's impossible.

This book is too good--too throat-catchingly, painfully, heartbreakingly good--to sum up in an easy paragraph. Which is to say, it's vintage Pratchett. It's funny--hysterically funny at times--and then it gets you where it hurts, and is suddenly dead serious and important. It's an interesting departure from Pratchett's Discworld books, which, aside from being excellent books, are all parodies of something. It's not a parody of anything, and it stands entirely alone.

This is a book about redefining yourself when you've lose your compass and everything you used to use for that task. It's about seeing your culture and your life through new eyes. It's about what it means to believe, and what it means to care. It's about being human. It's honest and heartbreaking and excellent and I beg you to read it.

Words don't do it justice. So I'll leave you with some quotes from the book:

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"He's frightened of me, Mau thought. I haven't hit him or even raised my hand. I've just tried to make him think differently, and now he's scared. Of thinking. It's magic."
--p.157

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"How are you?

Mau's brow wrinkled, and she knew that one wasn't going to work. They had got a language working pretty well now...but it was for simple everyday things, and "How are you" was too complicated because it didn't really ask the question you thought it asked."
--p.221

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"The dark, piercing eyes stayed fixed on her for a while, and then it seemed that she had passed some test.

"You are very clever," said the old man shyly. "I would like to eat your brains, one day."

For some reason the books of etiquette that Daphne's grandmother had forced on her didn't quite deal wit this. Of course, silly people would say to babies, "You're so sweet I could gobble you all up!" but that sort of nonsense seemed less funny when it was said by a man in war paint who owned more than one skull. Daphne, cursed with good manners, settled for, "It's very kind of you to say so."
--p.311