Reviews for The fifth elephant

The average rating for The fifth elephant based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-06-29 00:00:00 Robert Skenes You know what Goodreads *really* needs? The ability for someone to leave multiple reviews of a book that they've read at multiple points in their life. I'd like to talk about my recent thoughts on this book, but I don't want to erase my old review or change the date on it. Think how nice it would be to look back on your reading history and see how your attitudes have changed over the course of your life. Books you loved as a kid that pale as you mature, versus books you liked when you were young that grow even better with age... I'd love to see something like that added here. What about you guys? ***** There's worse ways to start the year than reading some Pratchett. So that's what I did. I've only read this one one once before, and that was years back, so it was fun and pretty fresh for me. I'm a big fan of Vimes, but even given my bias, this is a great book. Probably not on the level of Pratchett's best (Monstrous Regiment, Thud, Wee free Men) but still a great book.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-03-07 00:00:00 David Wilkins Diplomaticing anything out of the downplaying of an incident around a just ideologically not completely worthless and overrated cult object. The fine art of not going to war or, if so, at least sophisticated, with style, culture, and the right documents bureaucracy wants to see before the slaughter fun can start, that´s what diplomacy is for. Already ridiculous in real life, because the madness of tradition, ideology, and dogmas makes each country a special, unique mental asylum, it gets even more hilarious when Samuel Vines has got the job. The object of saber rattling is just a strange looking object in a, maybe fictional, fictional story because, just as with diplomacy, there is no logic included except the underlying economic and market forces Pratchett is infamous for exposing and making fun of. His works include more differentiated, wise, and true analysis than whole subfields of wacky fringe sciences Alfred Nobel never wanted prices to be given for under his name so that they had to wait a while, strangely and completely coincidentally until the beginning of the rise of neoliberalism with extraordinarily and suspiciously many prices given to the university of Chicago and it´s bonkers boys, to get the dry and boring pipe dreams rolling. How the true masters behind the kings and presidents ruled, rule, and will rule by manipulating the predictable and primitive primate instincts of their voters, in this case to use different cultural norms to let them fight good, old divide et impera style, is a fascinating topic and that it´s so easy to satirize too, because of it´s inherent sick and illogical nature that ought one let start thinking about why these anachronistic systems are still so strong in each seemingly democratic system. Even the original, more obvious Scone of Stone metaphor, playing with the idea of any kind of cult object, is still big, which really makes one wonder about cultural evolution, until one realizes that the human brain hasn´t really developed that much over the last tens of thousands of years, so maybe it still needs some time to jump over the apes with smartphones line. The reasons for laughter are always tabus and pain, but jumping from just giggling to realizing what´s behind the hilariousness is a step just a few are willing to take, because it would mean critical self analysis and possible change of mentality, so they prefer to better just keep smiling without digging too deep inwards toward the reasons why their cognitive dissonances start ringing. Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique: This one is added to all Pratchettian reviews: The idea of the dissected motifs rocks, highlighting the main real world inspirational elements of fiction and satire is something usually done with so called higher literature, but a much more interesting field in readable literature, as it offers the joy of reading, subtle criticism, and feeling smart all together.