Review of Unseen Academicals by Terry Practhett

Whether tracked mentally or written down, I assume Terry Pratchett had a list of topics he wanted to present through the unique lens of the Disc. And he got through dozens upon dozens of these topics. Readers knew football / soccer / foot-the-ball had to be there somewhere on the list, and indeed in the thirty-seventh novel up it popped in Unseen Academicals (2009). A topic beloved by millions if not billions, one can only assume Pratchett was waiting til he had the right story, the right combination of ingredients, to do the sport justice in Discworld. Let's see what they were.

The portions plying the pot of Unseen Academicals are: ten cups of wizard, one stein of goblin, two hurlyhoos of female Unseen University kitchen staff, various dashes and splashes of Ankh-Morpork streetlife, the unpeeled onion of Veterinari, oh, and one, large orange librarian (with banana). The spice setting the stew afire is the discovery of a certain pornographic vase at Unseen University featuring ancient men at play in foot-the-ball. A set of gentlemanly rules discovered inside the vase, Veternari makes the case that foot-the-ball needs to be converted from a pie-eating, tooth-knocking, rough-housing affair on Ankh-Morpork's streets to the next level of respectability; it needs proper goals and a field judge. He asks the wizards to field a new team and stage an exhibition match. Away we go!

Yes, this means Pratchett approached football from a historical perspective. He shows the Discoworld transition of street game beloved by many to adjudicated, structured match—a big step when players and crowds mingled and players' primary goal was to stay alive, goals of secondary concern. But the love, the passion is there, represented by the multiple romance stories Pratchett strings along in parallel to the emergence of organized play, not to mention the bloodthirsty zeal players and fans alike express (physically and emotionally) watching foot-the-ball.

Unseen Academicals is one of the last Discworld novels Pratchett wrote. And while it's clear a couple of his latter novels show the unfortunate signs of the mental illness that eventually dragged Pratchett down, Unseen Academicals is not one. It sparkles from end to end. Not every reader may agree with how Pratchett handles the sacred subject of football, but the unique humor, page after page, shines.

A... creature plunged out of the gloom.

There is a phrase 'neither flesh nor fowl nor good red herring'. This thing was all of them, plus some other bits of beasts unknown to science or nightmare or even kebap. There was certainly some red, and a lot of flapping, and Nutt was sure he caught a glimpse of an enormous sandal, but there were the mad, rolling, bouncing eyes, the huge yellow and red beak and then the thing disappeared down another gloomy corridor, incessantly making that flat honking noise of the sort duck hunters make just before they are shot by other duck hunters.

Comedy gold.

In the end, Unseen Academicals is another fine addition to the Discworld pantheon. By looking at the fans, the practices, the food, the fervor, and the game itself (in all its subjective glory), Pratchett does the humanity of 'the beautiful game' justice. Several of the latter Discoworld novels saw the “industrialization” of the setting, and I like to think Unseen Academicals, despite football being the topic, is part of said civilizing—putting aside old ways for something more structured, and funnily crazy, in the process. Just more great Discworld stuff.