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Originally Posted by Thadlerian  Ouch, that was a little unfortunate, it seems to me. Johnny and the Dead was by far the weakest of the series. And if that's the philosophy of Pratchett - well. What it seemed to me that the book was about was a criticism of capitalism. Unfortunately, Pratchett does not do that very well. His capitalist "bad guys" are strawmen without interest or plausibility, a problem which hampered Going Postal as well.
Terry does so much great criticism, and greatest of all is his work on ethnicity and nationalism, as seen in Thud!, Jingo, and Monstrous Regiment, where he seems to have insights way beyond any other Fantasy writer I've read. Especially British writers. |
Well, yes. PTerry is a socialist, a republican, an atheist, a pacifist, not a patriot (At least not the flag-waving type) and certainly not a nationalist. (The TV series of Johnny and the Dead was, if possible, even
more left-wing than the book).
Personally, I like 'Dead'. It's not really capitalism that comes under the hammer here but
Thatcherite capitalism, i.e. "grab all that you can and it doesn't matter who you step on to do it". And that
deserves thumping.
I found the whole bit about the Blackbury Pals regiment deeply moving and PTerry obviously had more to say on military madness - witness Monstrous Regiment.