Is it possible to have two favourite Discworld books? I have three favourite children after all, so conceptually it should be possible. Were it to be deemed so by the powers that be, then ‘Witches Abroad’ would definitely be my joint favourite Discworld novel alongside ‘The Night Watch’. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, her perfect foil, and Magrat Garlick on a road trip across the Disc, travelling through a landscape of fairy stories brought to life by Lilith de Tempscire, Granny’s evil sister. Just perfect!

Granny and Nanny are two of my favourite Discworld characters – Magrat is a wet hen, and I can take her or leave her – and together they are wonderful. Nanny Ogg is sometimes overshadowed by Granny’s awesomeness, but her she is in full flow, a force of nature that bulldozes its way across the Disc, all the way to Genua. Genua is a coastal town with an annual celebration called Fat Lunchtime, a tradition of cooking based around gumbo and, and all in all bears a strong resemblance to New Orleans.

Witches Abroad also contains the greatest Discworld story Sir Terry never wrote. At the end of this novel, when the bad guys have been defeated and order restored, the witches have a choice – to go home, or to go and “see the elephant”, a colloquial expression for going home the long way, continuing their holiday as much as possible. They agree to see the elephant, and the reader is left to picture what a glorious, outrageous adventure that would have been. (If it turns out that this novel was actually written, and I have just forgotten it, which is quite possible, I will be both deeply embarrassed and hugely delighted).

So what is it about this novel that makes it so full of wonder? It can’t be the jokes, because they almost all qualify as ‘dad’ jokes – even the title is a pretty silly play on words (Witches Abroad = witches out and about, and also in foreign lands). Or try this schoolboyish fun with the fact that in some languages words have gender, which might be funny if you are 11

“‘S called the Vieux River.”
– “Yes?”
– “Know what that means?”
– “No.”
– “The Old (Masculine) River,” said Nanny.
– “Yes?”
– “Words have sex in foreign parts,” said Nanny hopefully.”

Or here’s another joke, when the witches see a stuffed lion’s head:

By gor’, that’s a bloody enormous cat.’
‘It’s a lion,’ said Granny Weatherwax, looking at the stuffed head over the fireplace.
‘Must’ve hit the wall at a hell of a speed, whatever it was,’ said Nanny Ogg.
‘Someone killed it,’ said Granny Weatherwax, surveying the room.
‘Should think so,’ said Nanny.  ‘If I’d seen something like that eatin’ its way through the wall I’d of hit it myself with a poker.”

OK, silly jokes yes, but slapstick can be funny?

Is it the ‘world building’? (“The process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes associated with a whole fictional universe. The resulting world may be called a constructed world.”) I think this is getting closer. STP made no attempt to make the basic concept of Discworld anything other than fun, but over time he developed a geography and history for the world that within its own constraints – it is balanced on a turtle carrying four elephants after all – is believable. Is it the story-telling? Definitely not. One of the joys of rereading these novels is rediscovering (and then quickly re-forgetting) what happens, because what happens is usually not very important. We know the good guys are going to win, and the demons from the Dungeon Dimensions are going to be defeated in that somewhat vague way that most of these novels deploy to resolve matters. In the tradition of most great story writers STP borrows plot lines freely and openly, even going so far in this novel to make that borrowing itself part of the plot. Dracula, The Wizard of Oz, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, – you name it, STP borrows from it.

So what’s left? It would be wrong to use the term “philosophy”, but the underlying humanism of the author’s perspective on the world shines out from every one of his novels. He has profound insights into the human (and dwarven, troll and other life-forms) condition. You really have to read the books to get this point properly, but for now how about this from Granny Weatherwax?

“You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it’s just a cage.”

Lastly, there are the novel’s extraordinary, deeply loved, characters. I’ve written at length in previous Discworld reviews about Granny, Nanny and Sam Vimes in particular, so I am not going to repeat myself too much other than to say they are utterly magnificent, utterly believable, and full of the humanity that makes these novels some of my favourites on the planet. Sorry, roundworld.