While I haven’t been writing reviews for every Discworld
novel I read, when I do it’s usually because I have something to say. Early in 2022 I read Carpe Jugulum and
it swiftly became one of my favorites from Pratchett for what it has to say on
the encroaching nature of evil and how it evolves, done through the lens of
vampires and the aristocracy going against the Lancre witches. Now, nearly a year later, I’ve returned to Discworld
to read the next novel, The Fifth Elephant, a book whose title is a
clear reference to The Fifth Element as well as possibly the three
Estates of pre-Revolutionary France. The
Fifth Elephant is a Watch book where Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City
Watch is sent to Uberwald with his wife in his capacity as the Duke and ambassador
to the crowning of a new dwarf king. As
with the previous book, this is a novel heavily concerned with aristocratic society
and how it uses and abuses those underneath it, though perhaps not as pointedly
about the cyclical nature of evil and injustice. This time instead of vampires, it’s
werewolves who have entrenched themselves within an old system of other species,
mainly dwarfs who have incredibly rigid standards of gender and sex which must
be challenged, as well as discrimination against trolls and tot a lesser extent
regular wolves. That isn’t to say there
isn’t a vampire in The Fifth Elephant, but her part in the plot is only
there to accent what Pratchett is doing and give Vimes someone to really work off.
Samuel Vimes as a character is an important one, he is
in every sense of the world an honorable man despite being a cop, but hey this
is the Discworld where perhaps ACAB doesn’t always have to apply. He is also an officer and a gentleman above
all else, often having his brain for normal human interactions with his wife be
taken over to let her take the lead.
Sybil Ramkin is a character who Pratchett hasn’t always used, but here her
role in events is perfect and underpins the idea of change with the final
reveal of her pregnancy which breaks Vimes.
Breaking Vimes is not a bad thing, it mainly gets him out right at the
end of the very systematic way of thinking and gets him to confront the fact
that he is about to be a father, something that is not resolved at the end of
the novel but it ties into a lot of Pratchett’s ideas about family. Family is important to the dwarfs as is
tradition, the werewolf leaders of Uberwald are Angua’s family, and Carrot and
Angua hint at starting a family of their own by the end of the book (with this
beautiful promise that Carrot will do whatever is necessary if Angua goes bad).
Angua’s family are your classic aristocrats who are
out of touch and typically ruthless, her brother Wolfgang is an idiot with a
taste for flesh who spends much of the middle of the novel hunting Vimes down
as a game, her father is more wolf than man and has lost his senses, and her
mother is the only one with any mind for strategy being partially responsible
for the plan to steal a replica of the Scone of Stone which is integral in the
coronation of the new dwarf king. There
are also quite a few things Pratchett has to say actively on the gender roles
here which have evolved further from earlier novels with Cheery Littlebottom’s
plot running in tandem with Vimes being the highlight of the book. The plots with Vimes, Sybil, Cheery, and
Detritus running one arm while Carrot, Angua, and Gaspode the Wonder Dog from Moving
Pictures run the other incredibly well with the only real complaint being
the third, much smaller subplot of Sergeant Colon promoting himself to Captain
and having the rest of the Watch revolt due to his sloth and incompetence. It’s not a bad plot by any means, but it does
get in the way of what The Fifth Elephant is doing better and honestly
Pratchett realizes it about halfway when it comes to a premature close and is
not mentioned again until the very end of the novel.
Overall, The Fifth Elephant may be a title that’s
a parody and doesn’t quite explain what the book is doing, but what the book is
doing is brilliant and honestly if you aren’t reading these novels in order you
will not get the brilliant one, two punch of Carpe Jugulum followed by The
Fifth Elephant as those in power were clearly on Pratchett’s mind near the
turn of the millennium. 9/10.
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