Nation

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Something completely different than the Discworld, dealing with the ups and downs of indigene and industrial living styles in an exotic setting with some fantasy elements Terry often talked about “doing” his autobiography. In the years before he was ill, he talked about it almost exclusively to dismiss the idea. He didn’t seem persuaded that there was anything in the story of the journey that took a kid from a council house in Beaconsfield to a knighthood and a mansion near Salisbury by the sheer power of his imagination alone; or in the tale of how a boy with, as Terry put it, “a mouthful of speech impediments” became one of his generation’s most popular communicators; or how someone who left school with five O-levels could also go on to have an honorary professorship at Trinity College Dublin. And besides, there were always other things waiting to be written – bigger stories in which far more outlandish and arresting things were free to happen. To say that I am a Terry Pratchett fan is to really not grasp the picture. It is like saying that the ocean is marginally damp, or that George Bush might have made a mistake stepping into Iraq.

Even more survivors have now arrived at the Nation, and Daphne begins hearing the voices of the Grandmothers, who claim to be the neglected but more sensible counterparts to the Grandfathers. They suggest that Daphne explore an ancient, closed-off crypt called the Grandfathers' cave. Mau, Daphne, Ataba, and their companions enter this cave and discover that the Nation is probably the oldest civilization on Earth, whose citizens once made astounding scientific progress with such creations as telescopes, eyeglasses, and even accurate star charts.

Yet we had no clear idea how long we had. One year? Two years? We had more time than we knew, in fact; it would be seven years before Terry’s last day at work. Yet, when it came down to it, the priority was always the novels – first Nation, the book Terry was working on at the time of the diagnosis, and then Unseen Academicals, I Shall Wear Midnight, Snuff, Dodger, Raising Steam, The Shepherd’s Crown … All through this period he was chasing to get those stories down.

The easiest way anyone would describe this book would be "it is a survival story," and it is, but such a simplistic view does a disservice to this work. It is also about the world, and our place in it, tribal mentality, various religions, devastating loss, a search for identity. Basically, this is everything Robinson Crusoe should have been but wasn't. I suppose that after twenty-five years of writing DiscWorld novels, Terry Pratchett has earned the right to do something a bit different. And different is precisely what he does with his latest novel, "Nation."This a powerful book, and I hope it continues to fly under the radar of those people who think children shouldn't read books that make you think. After Terry was diagnosed with Posterior Cortical Atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease, in 2007, at the cruelly early age of 59, I began to accompany him at public appearances, reading for him when he no longer could, helping him through interviews on stage as “keeper of the anecdote”. We became, of necessity, a sort of double act. This alternate history takes place in a time when the redcoats were plopping down flags on islands without asking the permission of the natives. Most authors fail to give such natives equal or superior intellectual status with their European contemporaries. Instead, such people are painted as savages. Pratchett seeks here to blur the normal lines between civilized and savage and redefine these words. Four stunning titles have been shortlisted for the 2009 Guardian children's fiction prize, reflecting both the breadth of writing for children and young adults and an optimism about the power of story to inform and guide. Though the four are widely varied in context, each is the hopeful story of an individual's journey - one which reveals how they have been made, and sometimes unmade, by the society they come from. In different ways, and set in different times, all reflect on how the present is affected by the baggage an individual carries with them from before the start of the story, while also showing that everyone can influence what happens next. What starts off being a two-person show is soon remedied with the arrival of Milo and Pilu, which, after some rather embarrassing moments between Mau and Daphne concerning the nature of gender, sees Daphne come into her own as a powerful woman.

So. I have gone. There were days when I felt I had already gone and so all I wish for now is a cool, quiet room and some peace to gather my addled thoughts. I think I was good, although I could have been better, but Terry Pratchett is dead and there are no more words. Ler este livro foi como se também eu tivesse sido apanhada por esse tsunami - foi completamente inesperado e seguramente terá consequências duradouras, uma das quais será a obrigatoriedade de ler mais livros de Terry Pratchett. In an epilogue, the last chapter of the book, it is the twenty-first century. The Nation is full of scientists but has kept its own culture. An old man tells two young children of the Nation about Mau and Daphne and how to use an old telescope.As they leave the cave, they discover that white European explorers have arrived. Not the friendly type, either: these guys were mutineers aboard the Sweet Judy. They shoot Ataba dead and take Daphne hostage. She's no wilting English rose: she poisons one, injures the other, and gets out of there. Finally, Mau defeats their leader in a duel, scaring them off for good and returning peace to the island.

Besides engaging the idea of the god debate, Pratchett touches on another part of creation - where do stories come from? Are stories more than just religion? Is religion more than story? This comes as no surprise to the reader who has read the last two Science of Discworld books. Because Mao is in between being a boy and a man, he thinks he has no soul. Mao often thinks that he is like a hermit crab that has left one shell but not found another one yet. Because of this, Mao and other people wonder if demons and other evil spirits will get into Mao's body. Written loosely in a third-person perspective, the novel is set in an alternative history of our world, shortly after Charles Darwin has published On the Origin of Species. [5] A recent Russian influenza pandemic has just killed the British king and his next 137 heirs. Except for the opening chapter, the novel's action entirely occurs in the Great Southern Pelagic Ocean (the fictionalised South Pacific Ocean) on a particular island known by its indigenous inhabitants as "the Nation". Most of the story happens on an island in the "Southern Pelagic Ocean" after a giant wave kills almost all of the people who lived there. The people who lived on the island, and their culture, are "the Nation". The world of Nation has an England and a France in it. It also has a "Pelagic Ocean", which is not really the Pacific Ocean. The story is set in the 1860s. [2] Plot [ change | change source ]At first glance, it looks like Pratchett has combined the descriptions from Simon Winchester's Krakatoa and the Indonesian tsunami with the central question of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel (i.e. why do the Europeans have all the stuff and pacific islanders don't). In short, using Pratchett’s own blurb as a reference, Mau is the last survivor of his people, left alone on an island with only a ghost girl as company (Ermi… Daphne). The Nation will regrow, as other survivors of the catastrophe seek a measure of shelter, but for young Mau, who is no longer a boy but not yet a man, the battle is just beginning. He must become chief to survivors while trying to work out who he is. The problem, as I see it, with such "fame" as Pullman receives is that people get hot and bothered either condemning the work or, justly, defending the work. So hot and bothered that books like Nation get overlooked. In many ways, this is good, for no one is trying to ban the book. In other ways, it is bad, for the book doesn't get the fame it deserves. And that's the wonderful thing about this book. It causes the reader to think while being entertained. And Pratchett accomplishes all of this without being preachy or trying to substitute his answer for your own. In fact, his message seems to be that you must have faith in something--whether it's a god, a science, or a nation. As long as what you believe in is good and furthers mankind, your faith is not wasted. Perhaps his stance is best summed up by one of the characters: Mau and Daphne save each others' lives, as well as the lives of other islanders who gradually make their way to the island. They are both amazingly courageous, smart, hard-working, and resilient. They both are clever enough to extricate themselves out of bad situations. Daphne is sure that someday a British ship will come and find her--and try to take possession of the island. It is up to the two of them to figure out a way to keep Western civilization from ruining the island.