Mort is the first Discworld novel I have read that lives up to the series' overwhelming popularity. It is a charming tale, cleverly told, and--at last!--often hilarious.

The story involves what is perhaps Discworld's best character, Death. The black-shrouded, scythe-carrying workaholic is looking for an apprentice, and who else is better for the job than the unerringly bumbling Mort, an earnest young man with a penchant for ruining whatever he happens to be doing? The job is actually not too bad for Mort, but Mort has the bad fortune of becoming Death's apprentice at a time when Death is experiencing a mid-life crisis of sorts, questioning what he ultimately wants out of his existence and whether the whole death business is really fulfilling him.

As if that weren't enough, there is--of course--the possible impending destruction of all existence.

Death is simply a phenomenal character. At first he seems like a caricature, with his all-caps script and death-and-destruction talk, but hints of his deeper character shine through: his love of kittens and his anger at their needless deaths, his fatalistic but understanding commiseration with the dead as they gaze upon their bodies. Pratchett also does an excellent job "humanizing" Death, showing that, for all his bad reputation, he is to a large extent just an ordinary guy who does, indeed, have a life and opinions outside of his job. (Death's lengthy diatribe against cherries in drinks is an early and funny example.) But through it all, Pratchett never fails to remind us that Death is, after all, Death. This leads to hilarious exchanges, like the following between Death and Lezek, Mort's father:

'He's a good lad at heart,' said Lezek. 'A bit dreamy, that's all. I suppose we were all young once.'

Death considered this.

NO, he said. I DON'T THINK SO.

Pratchett also displays a higher concentration of effective writing than usual, with several small passages so perfect that they caught me by surprise. Take, for instance, Pratchett's felicitous description of a seemingly normal relationship that clearly has a long history behind it: "To Mort it was rather like going for a walk after a really bad thunderstorm: everything was quite fresh, nothing was particularly unpleasant, but there was the sense of vast energies just expended."

And there are too many passages that are just laugh-out-loud funny, like this tidbit of wisdom from the Ching Aling: "Without vertically, wisely the cochineal emperor goes forth at teatime; at evening the mollusc is silent among the almond blossom." (Says the fortune teller after a brief pause, "I think perhaps it lost something in translation.")

But what really moves this book beyond a mere comedy is its surprising development of Mort's character. He starts off as a mere child, with a character more comic relief than protagonist, but steadily matures during a series of bizarre adventures into a much more complex young man who has attained a much deeper understanding of life and, of course, death. Even better, Pratchett develops Mort's character with a pleasantly light touch, with no heavy-handed passages about learning this or that lesson.

Copyright © 2002 Steven Wu