Carpe Jugulum
My final main witches book, though I will now re-read the Tiffany books I had read(the first two).
This book had amazing theological discussions, but was only an OK book for me. I guess I should say it is an OK Discworld-book, which means it is still really good. Mightily Oats is a great character and of all characters in any Discworld book, he really is like me.
This book contains my favorite single passage so far. It’s Mightily Oats’ thoughts about God, belief, and whether any of it is true or not.
This passage is like Terry Pratchett read my mind and then wrote it out. I’ll spoiler-box it since I am pushing the edge of quote-length.
They had been warned about it.
Don’t expect it, they’d said. It doesn’t happen to anyone except the prophets. Om doesn’t work like that. Om works from inside. —but he’d hoped that, just once, that Om would make himself known in some obvious and unequivocal way that couldn’t be mistaken for wind or a guilty conscience. Just once, he’d like the clouds to part for the space of ten seconds and a voice to cry out, “YES, MIGHTILY-PRAISEWORTHY-ARE-YE-WHO-EXALTETH-OM OATS! IT’S ALL COMPLETELY TRUE! INCIDENTALLY, THAT WAS A VERY THOUGHTFUL PAPER YOU WROTE ON THE CRISIS OF RELIGION IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY!”
It wasn’t that he’d lacked faith. But faith wasn’t enough. He’d wanted knowledge. Right now he’d settle for a reliable manual of vampire disposal. He stood up. Behind him, unheeded, the terrible camp bed sprang shut. He’d found knowledge, and knowledge hadn’t helped. Had not Jotto caused the Leviathan of Terror to throw itself onto the land and the seas to turn red with blood? Had not Orda, strong in his faith, caused a sudden famine throughout the land of Smale? They certainly had. He believed it utterly. But a part of him also couldn’t forget reading about the tiny little creatures that caused the rare red tides off the coast of Urt and the effect this apparently had on local sea life, and about the odd wind cycle that sometimes kept rain clouds away from Smale for years at a time. This had been… worrying.
…
Because he was, he knew, in two minds about everything. At one point he’d considered asking to be exorcised but had drawn back from this because the Church traditionally used fairly terminal methods for this and in any case serious men who seldom smiled would not be amused to hear that the invasive spirit he wanted exorcised was his own.
He called the voices the Good Oats and the Bad Oats. The trouble was, each of them agreed with the terminology but applied it in different ways. Even when he was small there’d been a part of him that thought the temple was a silly boring place, and tried to make him laugh when he was supposed to be listening to sermons. It had grown up with him. It was the Oats that read avidly and always remembered those passages which cast doubt on the literal truth of the Book of Om— and nudged him and said, if this isn’t true, what can you believe?
And the other half of him would say: there must be other kinds of truth.
And he’d reply: other kinds than the kind that is actually true, you mean?
And he’d say: define actually!
And he’d shout: well, actually Omnians would have tortured you to death, not long ago, for even thinking like this. Remember that? Remember how many died for using the brain which, you seem to think, their god gave them? What kind of truth excuses all that pain? He’d never quite worked out how to put the answer into words. And then the headaches would start, and the sleepless nights. The Church schismed all the time these days, and this was surely the ultimate one, starting a war inside one’s head. To think he’d been sent here for his health, because Brother Melchio had got worried about his shaky hands and the way he talked to himself!
He did not gird his loins, because he wasn’t certain how you did that and had never dared ask, but he adjusted his hat and stepped out into the wild night under the thick, uncommunicative clouds.
I made a google document of it so I can read it over and over. I love it so much, I have no words.
