Review: Nation by Terry Pratchett
Nation
by Terry Pratchett
Everything can change in an instant. As plague sweeps through London, devastating the royal line, the Heir to the Throne must be retrieved from the New World, so a ship is dispatched to fetch him. En route they hope to pick up his daughter, who is only a few days ahead of them and completely unaware of her father’s new prominence.
Across the ocean, on a tiny island, Mau is preparing for his coming of age ceremony. All he needs to do escape from Boy’s Island, leaving his boy-soul behind, and return to the shores of his home, where he will receive his man-soul. He is quite happy as he paddles home in a handmade canoe, but a giant wave suddenly appears and nearly kills him. When he finally makes it home, it is to a scene of complete and total devastation. A tsunami has struck his coastal village, and everyone in the Nation is dead.
But Mau’s not alone. An English ship has been wrecked in the midst of his island by the wave, and a young woman is stranded on the island as well. She thinks of Mau as a savage; he thinks she is a ghost-girl, but they only have each other and soon a friendship forms even as they struggle to communicate and reconcile their vastly different cultures. Soon, other ragtag survivors from other tribes scattered amongst the archipelagoes begin washing up on the island’s shore, but can so many cultures gather together and form a new Nation?
While this isn’t a particularly funny book (an entire culture of people is brutally washed away in the two chapters) there are some very funny moments in the book. I have to admit, there were several attempts that produced an eye-rolling “Really? You tried that joke?, but more often Pratchett sneaks in a clever turn of phrase, or a particularly witty conversation, and it works. In fact, I’m so glad he adds in this humor because Nation would be quite depressing otherwise.
The book covers a lot of big themes: imperialism, gender roles in society, culture clash/prejudice, religion, and grief to name just a few. It is written for a younger audience, so there’s nothing too graphic, but I don’t think I’d recommend it for anyone under middle school, because the issues each character grapples with might be a bit lofty for the young’uns.
Did I enjoy reading Nation? Yes and no. It wasn’t a page-turning addiction; though the plot moves along smoothly it isn’t always captivating. At times I thought Pratchett was rather heavy-handed with some of the messages he was trying to push forward, and since I don’t really agree with those particular viewpoints (on the science v. religion-type debate) it was grating after the first several times it came up. This would not be the first Robinson Crusoe-esque adventure I’d recommend, but if it interests you, go for it.
To read more about Nation, buy it or add it to your wishlist, click here.