SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: Summer 2021] Mort
Mort is the fourth of four books that I bought as Discworld mini books. Pratchett himself says that this was the first book that he was pleased with. He says of his other books that the plot had existed to support the jokes, but that in Mort, the plot was integral.
I remembered the story of this one quite well, although the details were a little fuzzy. Is it possible I only read this one?
The story starts out with Mort, a teenager who is all elbows and knees–gangly, awkward, embarrassed and just generally the kid of person who gets more work done for you if he is not helping.
Needing Mort to go away and find employment elsewhere, his father takes him to the local job fair.
No one wants Mort.
At midnight Death arrives. Death has appeared in all of the books so far and has always been a bit of comic relief, but here he is a full on main character, and Pratchett does a great job filling him with pathos. He also fully introduces the idea that everyone can see Death when he appears but that the human mind is excellent at not acknowledging what shouldn’t be there. So as Death walks about, people tend to see right through him.
Death introduces himself to Mort (who can see him) and his father (who cannot) and decides to hire Mort as an apprentice. Mort’s father knows he talked to someone, but can’t remember anything about the guy–was he an undertaker? Mort is unsure about this whole thing but seems pleased to have been acknowledged at all.
Death takes Mort to his domain, where he meets Death’s elderly manservant Albert, and his adopted daughter Ysabell. Albert has been with Death for millennia and explains that Death tries to make his domain as humanly natural as possible but that he doesn’t really understand how things works. So everything in the Domain looks like things on the Disc, but for instance, everything is black. Ysabell takes an instant dislike to Mort–and she doesn’t understand exactly what Mort could be doing there.
Mort accompanies Death and learns how the job is done. On the first excursion, he tries to prevent an assassination (but cannot). Death explains that he can’t interfere with fate.
As Mort does more for Death, Death starts looking for ways to relax–he has never relaxed before. There’s much humor in Death looking into relaxing human pursuits (like fishing).
Death sends Mort on three solo assignments. In the first, the dead Witch has her own plans for how she will die. In the second, it’s a person who is perpetually reincarnated. Neither of these dead souls does what it is supposed to do. And then comes the third. Princess Keli. She is fated to be assassinated, but Mort falls for her and prevents the assassination.
However, everyone in her kingdoms believes that she is dead because she according top Fate, she was supposed to die. Soon enough, no one can actually see her anymore.
She is infuriated by all of this and employs a Wizard to make sure people remember her (wizards can see everyone).
Mort is infatuated with Keli but doesn’t know how to talk to her. The first time he goes back to visit her, she is more mad at him than anything else. Then he realizes that by stopping the assassination, he has essentially split the universe’s timeline in two and the two realities are coexisting–in a very uncomfortable way.
Indeed, that reality is slowly closing in on Keli with the full intent of making her go back to the proper time line.
Mort and Ysabell slowly start to trust each other–especially when they start researching There’s a wonderful scene in Death’s library which is just shelf after shelf of every person’s book of life being written. There’s lots of fun with that conceit as well.
They learn that Alfred is indeed a powerful wizard from thousands of years ago and that hen wet with Death because he feared what waited for him in the afterlife. In a fascinating subplot, Albert returns to Unseen University, under the identity of Malich. He was a very powerful wizard and believes that if he has the wizards perform the Rite of AshkEnte he maybe be able to escape Death.
Death meanwhile has been really enjoying himself–he’s been drinking and dancing and he even got a job. Meanwhile Mort is acting more and more like Death–he’s authoritative and he starts talking in small caps just like Death does.
The universe is wrong and it needs to be set aright. It all comes down to a duel between Death and Mort (whom Ysabell has fallen in love with).
Leave a Reply