Read: Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett

“Sam Vimes” are the first two words in this book. That was deligthful, the Night Watch with its chief Sam Vimes is (as of many others) my favourite thread of the Disc World books.

It has been a long time since I read the last book of the series, I really looked forward to continue with this novel. Making a little break was maybe not a bad decision, though, the ever brillant homour of Pratchett is so likable for me, but it also becomes somewhat predictable (especilly Vimes' raw sarcasm and Vetinari's deep sarcasm, oh how I love it). I even sometimes catch myself being immodest and thinking what snappy answer from Vimes comes next.

The humour of the of the author is not fashion, it is based on humanity; so passages can ring a bell, connecting it to real events happening many years after Pratchett wrote the actual lines:

‘The Times says, Borogravia has invaded Mouldavia,’ he announced.
    ‘Is that good? I can't remember where it is.’
‘Both formerly part of the Dark Empire, sir. Right next door to Uberwald.’
    ‘Whose side are we on?’
‘The Times said we should be supporting little Mouldavia against the aggressor, sir.’
    ‘I like Borogravia already,’ snapped Vimes.
(Captain Carrot and Sam Vimes, p. 35f)

Pretty easy to find a reference to current world politics here.

‘You only have to look around the city. Our rent's going up, taxes go up, there's these new taxes all the time, and it's all just cruel, Winder [Note: the Lord of the city] sold us all to his mates. […]
The city never seemed poorer, but by the gods there was a lot of tax being paid.
(Young Sam Vimes and Old Sam Vines, p. 139)

Familiar rant, isn't it?
That's about the state's eonomy. There's also a piece about that stat's laws and iurisdiction:

It wasn't that the city was lawless. It had plenty of laws.
It just didn't offer many opportunities not to break them. Swing [Note: Chief of some kind of secret police] didn't seem to have grasped the idea that the system was supposed to take criminals and […] force them into becoming honest men. Instead, he'd taken honest men and turned them into criminals. And the Watch […] into just another gang. (p. 165f)

I do not know the actual political views the author had — or had in 2002 — the issue of having too many norms, on each leayer of political powers, is evident. This opens doors for despotism.

Everyone was guilty of something. (p. 166)

So what about the state's security, then?

Weapons were involved in so many crimes that, Swing reasoned, reducing the number of weapons had to reduce the crime rate. […] Confiscate all weapons, and crime would go down. […] The flaw […] was this: criminials don't obey th laws. It's more or less a reqirement for the job. […] Some citizens took the not unreasonable view that something had gone a bit askew if only naughty people were carrying arms. And they [Note: the citizens?] got arrested in large numbers. The average copper, when he's been kicked in the nadgers once too often and has reason to believe that his bosses don't much care, has an understandable tendency to arrest those people who won't instantly try to stab him.

Again, I do not know what Pratchett had in mind when writing this treatise in 2001, or it is just a typical American plea for the 2nd amdandement. But the descriptions seem somewhat prophetic to the current discussion about the murder of Henry Nowak in England now in 2026.
The exuberant rules about carrying weapons, forbidding the regular citizen to bear any arms at all; but with the exemption for some cultural groups, one of those groups now becoming a murderer with such a weapon. The police preferring to arrest the victim, because he was obvious nonhazardous for the policemen. And no consequences for all that.
It is written in the book, indeed.

Of course it's not politics and social science that make me read these books. At least, not just that. The language is hilarious, and I can only image, how much better it must even be for a native speaker.

The man was dead. When he hadn't been when he fell of the roof he was after he'd hit the ground.

The message I take is this one: Have fun.
Being able to have fun is both remedy to the soul as well as a litmus test for a healthy society.

Terry Pratchett, Night Watch, The Twenty-Ninth Discworld Novel
Corgi Books, 2003
ISBN 978-0-5521-4899-3