Review: Unseen Academicals (Discworld, #37; Rincewind, #8)

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very funny and a lot of fun, as always!

Also as usual, it's not just one story, but at least two main stories (and many more themes) interleaved, with lots of other stories in the subtext. The football (soccer for the American reader) is just the framing device, but it explores a lot of themes around it, like how the celebrity can escape their poor origins, how the game brings people together, how it is a metaphor for society, etc…. There is also a love story, which is initially I thought it was a bit of Romeo and Juliet (with Romeo called Trev, and Juliet actually being called Juliet), a star-crossed romance between people rooting for different teams; but then it becomes about exploring the relationship of the footballer and WAGs (Juliet is, as many times in real life, a model), as well as their careers. In fact, I was struck about how the author talks about the career of a model, it feels very positive, and not condescending like many other writings on the subject. It then delves deeper into another main theme/plot, the subject of The Other, of accepting people from different backgrounds, particularly from vilified backgrounds, here personified by an Orc; how if given a chance, people can show that stereotypes don't capture the full picture; it's a very "on-your-face" criticism of racism.

It also had some great scenes with the wizards of Unseen University (particularly Archchancellor Ridcully) and with the machiavellian Lord Vetinari.

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