Feet of Clay

This is what a good book should be. It should be thought provoking. It should be a commentary on life. But above all it must, MUST be enjoyable. Terry Pratchett has always been a master of this, and “Feet of Clay” is a fine example of this.

The novel is framed as a murder-mysetery, but is not so much of a whodunit as it is a HOWdunit, with the reader anxiously scrabbling for answers along with our protagonist, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes of the City Watch. But tied in is the (mostly) comedic side plot of the possibility that Nobby Nobbs, a man who needs written proof he’s not a monkey, may be the heir incumbent to the defunct Earl of Anhk. And something strange is happening with the golems, clay automatons who work ceaselessly and without complaint….

And, wound through the whole novel, is the curious motif of freedom, with some searching for it, some trying to snuff it out, and most being too afraid to hold onto it.

My only complaint about the novel is the sequences involving Nobby, usually a comedic side character in other books, can become somewhat cringe comedy, and one may find themselves skimming those portions.

Also, specifically for the ebook, there is a passage about one quarter to midway, where there is a large blank portion before the story resumes. THIS IS OKAY. I had thought that the book was missing a passage, but after hunting down a physical copy in a bookstore I found it was merely a formatting error. Someone should fix that, but it’s not going to effect your reading enjoyment.

Do read. Please.

I’m a huge Terry Pratchett fan(RIP, Terry. We’ll see you hubwards), so it comes as no surprise that I knew that he could pull off a whodunnit like no one else in the business. And boy, does he.

The Night watch series is truly one of a kind…We have Sam Vimes, the most noble ignoble you’ll ever hope to meet. His Sgt, Fred Colon, who has a distrust of foreigners unlike anything you’ve seen this side of the Mississippi. Corporal Cecil Wormsborough St. John “Nobby” Nobbs, who has to carry a card around stating that he is, in fact, human. Corporal Carrot Ironfoundersson, a 6’5″ dwarf. Cheery Littlebottom, the first dwarf to identify as female (she even wears lipstick, much to Vimes’ confusion). Corporal Detritus, full-time troll, part time genius, All-time battering ram. Angua, part-time werewolf. And a few zombies. Gnomes. And just about everything else that might roam around the disc(save Vampires).

It starts out with a man being mummified in a vat of latex used to make…well, “male contraceptives”, let’s say. And it just gets more insane from there. You never know where the book is going, and that’s awesome. It keeps the pages turning, and the laughs coming.

It is interesting to see how golems evolve from Pratchett’s Discworld novel, “Feet of Clay” (1996), where they are speechless slaves of clay, to “Going Postal” (2004) where a well-educated but humorless golem serves as body guard and lecturer-in-morals to the new Post Master. This is where it all begins…

Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, of Ankh-Morpork’s Night Watch pays a visit to the Dragon King of Arms at the urging of his new wife, who thinks Sam needs his own coat-of-arms now that he’s been knighted. Unfortunately, one of Sam’s ancestors was a regicide so his descendent is denied an armorial bearing by the College of Heralds. He does learn that one of his watchmen is actually the Earl of Ankh: the inimitable Corporal Nobbs, who is forced to carry around a piece of paper signed by Ankh-Morpork’s Patrician certifying that he’s really human.

Well, this is a bit of a come-down for Sir Sam, but he’s got more important matters on his mind, including the murders of two harmless old men. One of them was beaten to death by a loaf of Dwarf bread. His body was discovered by Captain Carrot and Corporal Angua, the only werewolf in the Night Watch, when they visited the Dwarf Bread Museum on their day off.

The only link between the two corpses is a trace of white clay at both murder scenes.

Subplots zigzag every which-way through “Feet of Clay.” Corporal ‘Earl of Ankh’ Nobbs is being courted by a group of well, nobs who haven’t given up on the notion that Ankh-Morpork should be ruled by a king. Captain Carrot, hereditary king of Ankh-Morpork who wisely refused the crown in “Men at Arms,” is busy tracking murderers and emancipating golems. Sargeant Colon is about to retire if he lives through a trip through the sewers with Wee Mad Arthur. Corporal Angua helps a new dwarf recruit come to terms with her yen to wear lipstick.

Death, who has at least a walk-on role in all the Discworld fantasies is still working on his sense of humor: “I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES. I TURN UP ONLY ONCE.”

If this sounds confusing, it isn’t. It’s brilliant. All of the story lines tie together according to character. I don’t know how Pratchett digs through the sewers and stockyards of Ankh-Morpork, and rubs together a monarchist plot with a bit of animated clay to create such a gem.

I think he must use magic.

Some characters stick with you, some storylines open you up to new characters, which i exactly what happened with this story (for me).

It did help that I’d been to Prague some years before & had an interest in “Golem” ..the story is in essence a tale of slavery, & buying back the slaves, presented in the usual not “in yer face” wiles of the author, & it works whilst offering up a good story, so much so that whilst I regularly read the paperback it is nice when doing onerous tasks (diy) to listen to the story as told via the robo-tones of my kindle.
Purchased on the occasional “special” deal (1.99) for a favourite book, I couldn’t possibly refuse.

NB it should be noted (& sorted by amazon) that this is one of the pratchett books that “clips” (misses) some of the words to speech within the book (first word of a line) when turned to auto speech, …NOT as read by an audible narration! …I have complained about this before to no avail / reply from amazon.

Feet of Clay was the first (of many) Discworld novels I picked up, some 20 odd years ago.

I’m slowly completing the collection in digital format, so for 1.99 this was a very good buy.

The book itself… Well, what can I say? A classic from a much loved and sadly missed author.

’nuff said.