Have you ever wanted to get into Discworld’s sprawling expanse of books and intertwining series? Well now is the perfect time! Hogfather while being book four in the Death series and the twentieth overall novel works perfectly as a stand alone holiday adventure.
Some may be familiar with the two-part TV movie adaptation of the book that came out back in the mid 2000’s, or with the memes and comics that circulate the internet of a Santa clad skeleton gifting children swords. For those that aren’t, Hogfather is essentially if Discworld had its own Nightmare Before Christmas. Only you replace Santa with the Hogfather, Christmas with Hogswatchnight (A combination of Christmas and New Years that takes place on the eve of December 32nd) and you replace Jack Skellington with Death itself who instead of being motivated by just the idea of trying a new holiday is motivated because an assassin named Teatime (pronounced Teh-ah-tim-eh) has somehow successfully unalived (for lack of a better term, because you can’t REALLY kill a God or an idea) the Jolly man himself. So really it’s nothing like The Nightmare Before Christmas outside of the fact that a Skeleton wears a red suit and misunderstands the meaning of a Holiday.
The novel is both a parody of multiple Christmas holiday traditions, financial class and how it intersects with the holiday as well as poses questions on what it means to believe in something. Pratchett’s writing is full of clever wit and banter as well as many still poignant views on the commodification and commercialization of holidays as well as just generally what it means to be human. So despite its absurdity, it still manages to pack a punch and leave you with concepts and moments to gnaw on long after you’ve set the book down and the Holiday season has passed. Such as, “The phrase 'Someone ought to do something' was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used it never added the rider 'and that someone is me'.”
