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Nation (novel)
Encyclopedia
Nation is a Terry Pratchett
novel, published in the UK on September 11, 2008. It is the first non-Discworld
Pratchett novel since Johnny and the Bomb
(1996). Nation is in an alternate history of our world in the 1860s. The book received recognition as a Michael L. Printz
Honor Book for 2009.
conclusion. He has said "I want to write this one so much I can taste it", and that he's been ready to do it for four years. Pratchett said in February 2007, "At the moment I'm just writing. If it needs to be Discworld it will be Discworld. It could be set in this world 150 years ago while still more or less being a fantasy. The codename for it is Nation."
's On the Origin of Species having just come out). The place is a world, strangely like ours, but different
in many subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways.
Scattered across the Great Southern Pelagic Ocean
are chains of tiny islands. On one island, a boy named Mau has almost completed his ritual ordeal to become a man. Now he must launch the canoe
he has built into the ocean and sail back to his home island, where he will receive his adult tattoo
s and be given a man-soul to replace the child-soul he has left behind. His entire village awaits him on the beach for his arrival.
Aboard the schooner
Sweet Judy, presently voyaging through the Southern Pelagic Ocean, bound for Port Mercia, Ermintrude ("Daphne") Fanshaw sails to join her father, the Governor of the Pelagic Territories, presently stationed at Port Mercia.
In England, the dreaded Russian Influenza has killed all other heirs to the throne. The Gentlemen of Last Resort, a secret organisation serving the Crown
, set out for Port Mercia to bring back Daphne's father within the nine months required by the ratified version of the Magna Carta
, accompanied by the heir's mother. Thanks to the epidemic, he is now king, and Ermintrude is now heir to the throne of the British Empire
. Neither she nor anyone else within ten thousand miles knows this.
Far to the south, a volcano erupts, blowing itself to bits and setting off an enormous tsunami
. When the wave has passed, only Mau and Ermintrude remain alive, marooned together among the wreckage and corpses on the island called the Nation. Having left his boy soul behind but with no one remaining to give him his adult tattoos, Mau considers himself to be without a soul
. Without his soul, Mau describes himself as a vulnerable blue hermit crab that has left one shell to seek another. This is a major theme throughout the book, since Mau is a man without a country. Just as a soulless person hungers for a soul, Mau is driven to rebuild his country.
Upon arrival at the island, Mau discovers that his entire village and family has been wiped out by the tsunami. Numb with horror Mau begins burying the dead, sending them into the sea wrapped in a substance called papervine, a type of tough local vegetation. Island tradition says that the dead, buried at sea will become dolphin
s. Distraught at what he is doing, he attempts to disassociate himself from his task, working on a kind of mental auto-pilot. Finally, after sending the last corpse into the sea he considers his life as a soulless person, neither boy nor man, and considers suicide. He is only prevented from doing so by Ermintrude, who tries to talk to him. In his dream state, Mau believes her to be a ghost, as she is pale-skinned and dressed in white.
Ermintrude is a resourceful girl with an active interest in science. Her ocean voyage was intended to be a way to get away from her overbearing grandmother and create a new life with her kindly, widowed father. Instead, she finds herself surviving mutiny, storm, and shipwreck. She is afraid of Mau, but after watching him bury his dead, she leaves Mau a mango on a plate. When they meet again, she tries to shoot him with a pistol. Fortunately, the gunpowder in the pistol is wet, and the gun fails to fire.
Mau mistakenly believes that by waving a gun around, Ermintrude is giving him a spark-maker to make fire. With determination and good faith, the two begin to help each other and establish some basic communication. Ermintrude introduces herself as "Daphne" and never uses her given name, which she has always hated.
Soon, drawn by the smoke of Mau's fire, other survivors from neighbouring islands arrive at the Nation, including an old priest called Ataba, and a nameless woman and her infant. The woman cannot breastfeed, and the baby will die unless someone can find milk. With desperation and resourcefulness, Mau finds a way to get milk from a wild pig at great danger to himself. Due to Mau's lack of a soul and his rejection of the gods (since they failed to save his family from the tsunami), Ataba believes that Mau is possessed by a demon
, referring to him as "Demon Boy" for most of the rest of his life. A few days later, more survivors arrive, including strong Milo and silver-tongued Pilu, two brothers who are able to communicate with Daphne in English. This speeds the translation of language along considerably. Milos' wife is heavily pregnant and 13-year-old Daphne is drafted as a midwife. She brings the child into the world, singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
" throughout the birth, a choice that makes Milo revere Daphne throughout the rest of the book.
Confronted with the problem of the missing "god anchors" (white, non-indigenous stones that are said to "anchor" the gods and stop them drifting away), Mau locates and then tries to salvage them from the lagoon
, where they have been left by the raging tsunami. He locates and restores two of the original three god anchors but, whilst underwater, searching for the third, he discovers several more of the white stones, one of them with a carving on it. The priest, Ataba, tries to destroy one of the god stones, which he claims to be false. His rage causes him to thrash about in the lagoon and he attracts the attention of a shark. Mau is nearly killed rescuing him from the shark and, having suffered hypothermia
and chronic sleep deprivation (he has obsessively spent his nights guarding the beach) Mau falls into a coma
. Accepting a magic poison from the women of the island, Daphne travels to the land of Locaha, the Nation's god of death, and rescues him. Still more survivors arrive, bringing news of cannibal raiders from another island who are hunting survivors.
Daphne is at one point told by the Grandmothers (the not-at-all remembered counterpart to the ancestral Grandfathers) to open the cave of the Grandfathers
. Convincing Mau that this is what they should do, Daphne, Ataba, and Mau enter the Grandfathers' cave, an ancient burial chamber. There, they discover that the Nation is far older than any other civilisation on Earth, and has made huge discoveries (up to and including maps of the stars, telescopes and glasses) which have later been forgotten. Their knowledge of the stars is shown in the ancient legends of the Nation, which can also be seen as metaphor
s for the movements of the planets. It is from this ancient cave that the white stone that formed the god anchors came. The ancient discoveries remained part of the history of the Nation, but only as stories
told to children.
When Mau, Daphne and Ataba leave the cave they are met by two English men who mutinied on the Sweet Judy and who were set adrift by the captain of that ship. When the old priest Ataba threatens them with a spear, the mutineers shoot and kill him. They take Daphne hostage as she tells the islanders to melt into the forest. She learns from them that the leader of the mutiny, a man named Cox, has joined the tribe of cannibal raiders, who worship the death god Locaha. Soon after this Daphne offers the two men a local type of moonshine
beer. However, one of the mutineers refuses to spit into the beer, which neutralises the poisons in the beer and his first drink kills him. This causes the other to be scared off. He later escapes the island and meets up with Cox and the cannibal raiders.
Certain that the raiders will arrive soon, Mau arranges for the cannon
s on board the Sweet Judy to be set up overlooking the bay for the defense of the Nation. A test firing goes well. However, they only have enough gunpowder
for one more shot.
The Raiders arrive, with Cox as their new chieftain. Daphne immediately notices that the Raiders hate Cox, but according to their laws they must accept him as chieftain because he killed the previous chieftain. Instead of allowing Cox and the Raiders to attack the entire village, Mau has the only intact cannon, which was reinforced with papervine, fired, frightening the Raiders. The Raiders and the Nation then agree to have the chiefs fight in single combat, as is the tradition. Everyone is surprised when strong Milo announces that Mau is the actual chief of the Nation. Cox is annoyed because a small boy is a more difficult target than a large man, but he is sure that his two pistols can take care of Mau. Mau remembers Daphne's first wet attempt to shoot him, however, and he knows that gunpowder fails when wet. Mau takes the battle into the lagoon, where Mau's skill as a swimmer and his knowledge of the territory help him win the duel. Enraged with the wrath of Locaha, Mau drives away the Raiders, forcing them to release their prisoners.
A few days after this battle, Daphne's father arrives. He, like Daphne, is fascinated with the discovery made in the Grandfathers' cave. The Gentlemen of Last Resort arrive two weeks later, informing Daphne's father of his new status as King and presenting him with the crown. Mau, who has learned about world politics from Daphne and Pilu, does not want to become part of the Empire but requests that his Nation become a member of the scientific Royal Society
. In the end, Daphne leaves with her father. Though it is never explicitly stated in the book, it is clear that she and Mau would rather stay on the island and be together, but their combined sense of duty leads her to return to England and Mau to remain behind.
Years later, in an alternate present day, an old scientist tells this story to two children of the present-day Nation. He explains that Daphne returned to England to marry a prince from Holland and that Mau died of old age. When Daphne died, her body was sent to the Nation to be buried at sea so that her soul would become a dolphin. He tells them that from those days onward, thousands of scientists have visited the island, including Charles Darwin
, Albert Einstein
, Carl Sagan
, and Richard Feynman
, and that dozens of observatories
have been created to learn about the stars, as the Nation has done for thousands of years. The book ends with the elder of the two children (the girl - by six minutes) standing guard on the beach, protecting the Nation as Mau had done years before. In the lagoon, a dolphin leaps from the sea and the scientist smiles.
The book ends with several small "Don't try this at home" warnings, explaining how the book came about and how some of the things described in the book have real-world counterparts, if somewhat dangerous ones.
The child-to-adult theme is repeated in the story of Mau, of Ermintrude/Daphne, and of the Nation as a whole. Mau starts as a typical (if unusually thoughtful) island boy and would have been satisfied to walk the well-worn path of his forefathers. Instead, because of the wave and its consequences, he has a greatly prolonged moment between the shell of his boy soul and the shell of his man soul, and ultimately he chooses a much larger soul. Mau reinvents himself as a leader and protector of his people.
Ermintrude starts the story as a child, subjected to many Standards that must be Maintained. As a high-born daughter, she isn't permitted to learn anything useful or look forward to anything but marriage. On the island, she soon realizes that there is no one but herself to create the Standards. She instinctively renames herself Daphne upon introducing herself to Mau; the island is her first real opportunity to make what she wishes of herself. Daphne lets good sense and kindness be her guide, whether that means wearing a grass skirt, pre-chewing food for an old woman, or poisoning a murderer.
The Nation itself moves from childhood to adulthood under its new leadership. Before the wave, Mau and the other survivors had followed simple faiths and believed that the asking of questions was a pastime for children. As the Nation rebuilds, the survivors sort through a religious crisis. Ultimately, the Nation leaves its childishness behind, refusing to be either primitive nor colonial. It forges a new path and takes its place among nations as a leader in science.
The second theme asks what it means to have a nation. The word "Nation" is used primitively to underscore the idea that "Nation" is as fundamentally undefinable as "God" or "Earth." Mau is from an island society where no poet needs to point out that "no man is an island"; in the Nation, the individual's place in society is so fundamental that it is completely taken for granted. Mau thinks of himself as a man/boy without a soul, but what he has really become is a man without a country. When he saves Daphne's life, he says that she saved his life because as a boy alone he was nothing, but the two of them together was a Nation. At the end of the story, when the survivors have secured the survival of their new Nation, Mau gets the tattoo that gives him his man-soul.
Being part of a nation requires great sacrifice. When the first canoe of survivors arrives, it is clear that the baby will die unless someone can find milk. Mau risks his life and sacrifices his dignity in order to milk a wild pig. Commentators have noted that milking the wild pig in order to save the fledgling Nation is a direct counterpoint to Lord of the Flies
, where killing pigs is central to the descent into savagery. Daphne, who has adopted the Nation as her own, sacrifices her innocence when she kills someone in order to protect the Nation. Knowing their duties, Mau and Daphne ultimately part ways in order to fulfill their roles as leaders.
The concept of "nation" can be extended to embrace all of humanity, anchoring Nation in the philosophy of humanism
as an answer to the question of "what is the role of the individual in society?" As with the Tiffany Aching
series, Nation contains an undercurrent of passive faith transforming into active scientific enquiry, without losing moral dimensions in the process. Pratchett reinforces this theme with an offhand reference to outspoken atheist and humanist Richard Dawkins
as "that nice Professor Dawkins" who was bitten by a tree-climbing octopus
).
Like Tiffany, Mau and Daphne are resourceful and logical, with a penchant for questioning authority. They are also deeply rooted to their homes, and the awakening of science does not change how Mau feels about his home or his people. Indeed, when he casts aside his superstitions and explores the forbidden cave of the ancestors, what he finds there is both more truthful and more inspiring. Pratchett's books are distinguished by the manner in which logic is warmly paired with humanism and abiding loyalty. For example, when Mau risks his life to save his Nation (whether defined as Daphne, a baby, or all of the survivors as a whole), he doesn't even see it as heroism because he thinks he is merely trying to save himself. Without others to give life meaning, Mau's own life would be meaningless. Tiffany, Mau, and Daphne are tolerant of religious beliefs, but ultimately the meaning that they care about most is the meaning that people create for each other.
calling Nation 'one of his finest books yet', the Washington Post 'a thrilling story', and The Guardian
printing "Nation has profound, subtle and original things to say about the interplay between tradition and knowledge, faith and questioning." Times Online called the novel "Thought-provoking as well as fun, this is Terry Pratchett at his most philosophical, with characters and situations sprung from ideas and games with language. And it celebrates the joy of the moment."
Nation was an Honor Book in the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award
for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. On 15 July 2010 Nation won the Brit Writer's Award Published Writer of the year 2010.
performed a theatrical adaptation of the book by Mark Ravenhill
. Previews started on November 11 and the show opened on November 23, 2009.
Readings from the novel began on BBC Radio 7 on Saturday 30 January 2010 at 1800 and 2400.
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
novel, published in the UK on September 11, 2008. It is the first non-Discworld
Discworld
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series by English author Sir Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody, or at least take inspiration from, J. R. R....
Pratchett novel since Johnny and the Bomb
Johnny and the Bomb
Johnny and the Bomb is a 1996 novel by Terry Pratchett. It is the third novel to feature Johnny Maxwell and his friends, and deals with the rules and consequences of time travel...
(1996). Nation is in an alternate history of our world in the 1860s. The book received recognition as a Michael L. Printz
Michael L. Printz Award
The Michael L. Printz Award is an annual award in the United States for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. It is named for a school librarian from Topeka, Kansas, who was a long-time active member of the Young Adult Library Services Association...
Honor Book for 2009.
Development
Pratchett took his editors by surprise by writing it before the previously scheduled Tiffany AchingTiffany Aching
Tiffany Aching is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's satirical Discworld series of fantasy novels.Tiffany is a trainee witch whose growth into her job forms one of the many arcs in the Discworld series. She is the main character in The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, and I...
conclusion. He has said "I want to write this one so much I can taste it", and that he's been ready to do it for four years. Pratchett said in February 2007, "At the moment I'm just writing. If it needs to be Discworld it will be Discworld. It could be set in this world 150 years ago while still more or less being a fantasy. The codename for it is Nation."
Plot summary
The time is 1860 (the book refers to Charles DarwinCharles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's On the Origin of Species having just come out). The place is a world, strangely like ours, but different
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
in many subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways.
Scattered across the Great Southern Pelagic Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
are chains of tiny islands. On one island, a boy named Mau has almost completed his ritual ordeal to become a man. Now he must launch the canoe
Canoe
A canoe or Canadian canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes are usually pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over A canoe (North American English) or Canadian...
he has built into the ocean and sail back to his home island, where he will receive his adult tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
s and be given a man-soul to replace the child-soul he has left behind. His entire village awaits him on the beach for his arrival.
Aboard the schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
Sweet Judy, presently voyaging through the Southern Pelagic Ocean, bound for Port Mercia, Ermintrude ("Daphne") Fanshaw sails to join her father, the Governor of the Pelagic Territories, presently stationed at Port Mercia.
In England, the dreaded Russian Influenza has killed all other heirs to the throne. The Gentlemen of Last Resort, a secret organisation serving the Crown
The Crown
The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
, set out for Port Mercia to bring back Daphne's father within the nine months required by the ratified version of the Magna Carta
Magna Carta
Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...
, accompanied by the heir's mother. Thanks to the epidemic, he is now king, and Ermintrude is now heir to the throne of the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
. Neither she nor anyone else within ten thousand miles knows this.
Far to the south, a volcano erupts, blowing itself to bits and setting off an enormous tsunami
Tsunami
A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
. When the wave has passed, only Mau and Ermintrude remain alive, marooned together among the wreckage and corpses on the island called the Nation. Having left his boy soul behind but with no one remaining to give him his adult tattoos, Mau considers himself to be without a soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
. Without his soul, Mau describes himself as a vulnerable blue hermit crab that has left one shell to seek another. This is a major theme throughout the book, since Mau is a man without a country. Just as a soulless person hungers for a soul, Mau is driven to rebuild his country.
Upon arrival at the island, Mau discovers that his entire village and family has been wiped out by the tsunami. Numb with horror Mau begins burying the dead, sending them into the sea wrapped in a substance called papervine, a type of tough local vegetation. Island tradition says that the dead, buried at sea will become dolphin
Dolphin
Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating...
s. Distraught at what he is doing, he attempts to disassociate himself from his task, working on a kind of mental auto-pilot. Finally, after sending the last corpse into the sea he considers his life as a soulless person, neither boy nor man, and considers suicide. He is only prevented from doing so by Ermintrude, who tries to talk to him. In his dream state, Mau believes her to be a ghost, as she is pale-skinned and dressed in white.
Ermintrude is a resourceful girl with an active interest in science. Her ocean voyage was intended to be a way to get away from her overbearing grandmother and create a new life with her kindly, widowed father. Instead, she finds herself surviving mutiny, storm, and shipwreck. She is afraid of Mau, but after watching him bury his dead, she leaves Mau a mango on a plate. When they meet again, she tries to shoot him with a pistol. Fortunately, the gunpowder in the pistol is wet, and the gun fails to fire.
Mau mistakenly believes that by waving a gun around, Ermintrude is giving him a spark-maker to make fire. With determination and good faith, the two begin to help each other and establish some basic communication. Ermintrude introduces herself as "Daphne" and never uses her given name, which she has always hated.
Soon, drawn by the smoke of Mau's fire, other survivors from neighbouring islands arrive at the Nation, including an old priest called Ataba, and a nameless woman and her infant. The woman cannot breastfeed, and the baby will die unless someone can find milk. With desperation and resourcefulness, Mau finds a way to get milk from a wild pig at great danger to himself. Due to Mau's lack of a soul and his rejection of the gods (since they failed to save his family from the tsunami), Ataba believes that Mau is possessed by a demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
, referring to him as "Demon Boy" for most of the rest of his life. A few days later, more survivors arrive, including strong Milo and silver-tongued Pilu, two brothers who are able to communicate with Daphne in English. This speeds the translation of language along considerably. Milos' wife is heavily pregnant and 13-year-old Daphne is drafted as a midwife. She brings the child into the world, singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is a popular English nursery rhyme. The lyrics are from an early nineteenth-century English poem, "The Star" by Jane Taylor. The poem, which is in couplet form, was first published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection of poems by Taylor and her sister Ann...
" throughout the birth, a choice that makes Milo revere Daphne throughout the rest of the book.
Confronted with the problem of the missing "god anchors" (white, non-indigenous stones that are said to "anchor" the gods and stop them drifting away), Mau locates and then tries to salvage them from the lagoon
Lagoon
A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...
, where they have been left by the raging tsunami. He locates and restores two of the original three god anchors but, whilst underwater, searching for the third, he discovers several more of the white stones, one of them with a carving on it. The priest, Ataba, tries to destroy one of the god stones, which he claims to be false. His rage causes him to thrash about in the lagoon and he attracts the attention of a shark. Mau is nearly killed rescuing him from the shark and, having suffered hypothermia
Hypothermia
Hypothermia is a condition in which core temperature drops below the required temperature for normal metabolism and body functions which is defined as . Body temperature is usually maintained near a constant level of through biologic homeostasis or thermoregulation...
and chronic sleep deprivation (he has obsessively spent his nights guarding the beach) Mau falls into a coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
. Accepting a magic poison from the women of the island, Daphne travels to the land of Locaha, the Nation's god of death, and rescues him. Still more survivors arrive, bringing news of cannibal raiders from another island who are hunting survivors.
Daphne is at one point told by the Grandmothers (the not-at-all remembered counterpart to the ancestral Grandfathers) to open the cave of the Grandfathers
Crypt
In architecture, a crypt is a stone chamber or vault beneath the floor of a burial vault possibly containing sarcophagi, coffins or relics....
. Convincing Mau that this is what they should do, Daphne, Ataba, and Mau enter the Grandfathers' cave, an ancient burial chamber. There, they discover that the Nation is far older than any other civilisation on Earth, and has made huge discoveries (up to and including maps of the stars, telescopes and glasses) which have later been forgotten. Their knowledge of the stars is shown in the ancient legends of the Nation, which can also be seen as metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
s for the movements of the planets. It is from this ancient cave that the white stone that formed the god anchors came. The ancient discoveries remained part of the history of the Nation, but only as stories
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
told to children.
When Mau, Daphne and Ataba leave the cave they are met by two English men who mutinied on the Sweet Judy and who were set adrift by the captain of that ship. When the old priest Ataba threatens them with a spear, the mutineers shoot and kill him. They take Daphne hostage as she tells the islanders to melt into the forest. She learns from them that the leader of the mutiny, a man named Cox, has joined the tribe of cannibal raiders, who worship the death god Locaha. Soon after this Daphne offers the two men a local type of moonshine
Moonshine
Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...
beer. However, one of the mutineers refuses to spit into the beer, which neutralises the poisons in the beer and his first drink kills him. This causes the other to be scared off. He later escapes the island and meets up with Cox and the cannibal raiders.
Certain that the raiders will arrive soon, Mau arranges for the cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
s on board the Sweet Judy to be set up overlooking the bay for the defense of the Nation. A test firing goes well. However, they only have enough gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
for one more shot.
The Raiders arrive, with Cox as their new chieftain. Daphne immediately notices that the Raiders hate Cox, but according to their laws they must accept him as chieftain because he killed the previous chieftain. Instead of allowing Cox and the Raiders to attack the entire village, Mau has the only intact cannon, which was reinforced with papervine, fired, frightening the Raiders. The Raiders and the Nation then agree to have the chiefs fight in single combat, as is the tradition. Everyone is surprised when strong Milo announces that Mau is the actual chief of the Nation. Cox is annoyed because a small boy is a more difficult target than a large man, but he is sure that his two pistols can take care of Mau. Mau remembers Daphne's first wet attempt to shoot him, however, and he knows that gunpowder fails when wet. Mau takes the battle into the lagoon, where Mau's skill as a swimmer and his knowledge of the territory help him win the duel. Enraged with the wrath of Locaha, Mau drives away the Raiders, forcing them to release their prisoners.
A few days after this battle, Daphne's father arrives. He, like Daphne, is fascinated with the discovery made in the Grandfathers' cave. The Gentlemen of Last Resort arrive two weeks later, informing Daphne's father of his new status as King and presenting him with the crown. Mau, who has learned about world politics from Daphne and Pilu, does not want to become part of the Empire but requests that his Nation become a member of the scientific Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
. In the end, Daphne leaves with her father. Though it is never explicitly stated in the book, it is clear that she and Mau would rather stay on the island and be together, but their combined sense of duty leads her to return to England and Mau to remain behind.
Years later, in an alternate present day, an old scientist tells this story to two children of the present-day Nation. He explains that Daphne returned to England to marry a prince from Holland and that Mau died of old age. When Daphne died, her body was sent to the Nation to be buried at sea so that her soul would become a dolphin. He tells them that from those days onward, thousands of scientists have visited the island, including Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...
, and Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...
, and that dozens of observatories
Observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geology, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed...
have been created to learn about the stars, as the Nation has done for thousands of years. The book ends with the elder of the two children (the girl - by six minutes) standing guard on the beach, protecting the Nation as Mau had done years before. In the lagoon, a dolphin leaps from the sea and the scientist smiles.
The book ends with several small "Don't try this at home" warnings, explaining how the book came about and how some of the things described in the book have real-world counterparts, if somewhat dangerous ones.
Themes
Two major themes run throughout the book: the movement from a child identity that is received to an adult identity that is self-created, and the relationship between an individual and society.The child-to-adult theme is repeated in the story of Mau, of Ermintrude/Daphne, and of the Nation as a whole. Mau starts as a typical (if unusually thoughtful) island boy and would have been satisfied to walk the well-worn path of his forefathers. Instead, because of the wave and its consequences, he has a greatly prolonged moment between the shell of his boy soul and the shell of his man soul, and ultimately he chooses a much larger soul. Mau reinvents himself as a leader and protector of his people.
Ermintrude starts the story as a child, subjected to many Standards that must be Maintained. As a high-born daughter, she isn't permitted to learn anything useful or look forward to anything but marriage. On the island, she soon realizes that there is no one but herself to create the Standards. She instinctively renames herself Daphne upon introducing herself to Mau; the island is her first real opportunity to make what she wishes of herself. Daphne lets good sense and kindness be her guide, whether that means wearing a grass skirt, pre-chewing food for an old woman, or poisoning a murderer.
The Nation itself moves from childhood to adulthood under its new leadership. Before the wave, Mau and the other survivors had followed simple faiths and believed that the asking of questions was a pastime for children. As the Nation rebuilds, the survivors sort through a religious crisis. Ultimately, the Nation leaves its childishness behind, refusing to be either primitive nor colonial. It forges a new path and takes its place among nations as a leader in science.
The second theme asks what it means to have a nation. The word "Nation" is used primitively to underscore the idea that "Nation" is as fundamentally undefinable as "God" or "Earth." Mau is from an island society where no poet needs to point out that "no man is an island"; in the Nation, the individual's place in society is so fundamental that it is completely taken for granted. Mau thinks of himself as a man/boy without a soul, but what he has really become is a man without a country. When he saves Daphne's life, he says that she saved his life because as a boy alone he was nothing, but the two of them together was a Nation. At the end of the story, when the survivors have secured the survival of their new Nation, Mau gets the tattoo that gives him his man-soul.
Being part of a nation requires great sacrifice. When the first canoe of survivors arrives, it is clear that the baby will die unless someone can find milk. Mau risks his life and sacrifices his dignity in order to milk a wild pig. Commentators have noted that milking the wild pig in order to save the fledgling Nation is a direct counterpoint to Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding about a group of British boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves, with disastrous results...
, where killing pigs is central to the descent into savagery. Daphne, who has adopted the Nation as her own, sacrifices her innocence when she kills someone in order to protect the Nation. Knowing their duties, Mau and Daphne ultimately part ways in order to fulfill their roles as leaders.
The concept of "nation" can be extended to embrace all of humanity, anchoring Nation in the philosophy of humanism
Secular humanism
Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism , is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment...
as an answer to the question of "what is the role of the individual in society?" As with the Tiffany Aching
Tiffany Aching
Tiffany Aching is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's satirical Discworld series of fantasy novels.Tiffany is a trainee witch whose growth into her job forms one of the many arcs in the Discworld series. She is the main character in The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, and I...
series, Nation contains an undercurrent of passive faith transforming into active scientific enquiry, without losing moral dimensions in the process. Pratchett reinforces this theme with an offhand reference to outspoken atheist and humanist Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
as "that nice Professor Dawkins" who was bitten by a tree-climbing octopus
Pacific Northwest tree octopus
The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is an internet hoax created in 1998 by Lyle Zapato. This fictitious endangered species of cephalopod was given the Latin name "Octopus paxarbolis"...
).
Like Tiffany, Mau and Daphne are resourceful and logical, with a penchant for questioning authority. They are also deeply rooted to their homes, and the awakening of science does not change how Mau feels about his home or his people. Indeed, when he casts aside his superstitions and explores the forbidden cave of the ancestors, what he finds there is both more truthful and more inspiring. Pratchett's books are distinguished by the manner in which logic is warmly paired with humanism and abiding loyalty. For example, when Mau risks his life to save his Nation (whether defined as Daphne, a baby, or all of the survivors as a whole), he doesn't even see it as heroism because he thinks he is merely trying to save himself. Without others to give life meaning, Mau's own life would be meaningless. Tiffany, Mau, and Daphne are tolerant of religious beliefs, but ultimately the meaning that they care about most is the meaning that people create for each other.
Reception
The novel was well received with The IndependentThe Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
calling Nation 'one of his finest books yet', the Washington Post 'a thrilling story', and The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
printing "Nation has profound, subtle and original things to say about the interplay between tradition and knowledge, faith and questioning." Times Online called the novel "Thought-provoking as well as fun, this is Terry Pratchett at his most philosophical, with characters and situations sprung from ideas and games with language. And it celebrates the joy of the moment."
Nation was an Honor Book in the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award
Michael L. Printz Award
The Michael L. Printz Award is an annual award in the United States for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. It is named for a school librarian from Topeka, Kansas, who was a long-time active member of the Young Adult Library Services Association...
for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. On 15 July 2010 Nation won the Brit Writer's Award Published Writer of the year 2010.
Adaptation
The Royal National TheatreRoyal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
performed a theatrical adaptation of the book by Mark Ravenhill
Mark Ravenhill
Mark Ravenhill is an English playwright, actor and journalist.His most famous plays include Shopping and Fucking , Some Explicit Polaroids and Mother Clap's Molly House . He made his acting debut in his monologue Product, at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe...
. Previews started on November 11 and the show opened on November 23, 2009.
Readings from the novel began on BBC Radio 7 on Saturday 30 January 2010 at 1800 and 2400.