Saturday, December 04, 2004
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
Going Postal is a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. A condemned conman, Moist van Lipwig, is given a second chance at life (after he has been executed) through taking the government position of Postmaster. This taking place in Ankh-Morpork, the post office turns out to be a haunted, pigeon infested, crumbling building with two employees huddled in the basement and a list of 5 recently dead Postmasters. Moist takes the job with the hope that he will soon be able to escape and return to his happy conning life.
Intertwined with the business of the Post Office and its decades of accumulated undelivered mail is the business of the GrandTrunk clacks which relay messages using a sort of code.
Terry Pratchett does a brilliant job of writing a funny punny story which also explains deeper truths. Ever thought that your little lie or cheat never hurt anyone or that the small theft would be absorbed by the large company? Ever wondered how it is that groups of people can take over businesses and run them into the ground, go bankrupt, sell the business, and still come out on top? Terry Pratchett will explain it through the story. I wanted the rascal to win because he was a better bad guy (although not the best bad guy which would be the worst sort of person) than the others.
I left a group of 7th graders fighting over this book. I wonder if I'll ever get it back?
Intertwined with the business of the Post Office and its decades of accumulated undelivered mail is the business of the GrandTrunk clacks which relay messages using a sort of code.
Terry Pratchett does a brilliant job of writing a funny punny story which also explains deeper truths. Ever thought that your little lie or cheat never hurt anyone or that the small theft would be absorbed by the large company? Ever wondered how it is that groups of people can take over businesses and run them into the ground, go bankrupt, sell the business, and still come out on top? Terry Pratchett will explain it through the story. I wanted the rascal to win because he was a better bad guy (although not the best bad guy which would be the worst sort of person) than the others.
I left a group of 7th graders fighting over this book. I wonder if I'll ever get it back?
# posted by JJ @ 6:36 PM 
