The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 32: A Hat Full Of Sky

Tiffany is eleven, two years older than she was when we first met her in The Wee Free Men. She’s heading off to her first job, apprenticing as a witch to the mysterious Miss Level. Recommended by Miss Tick, her mentor/advisor from that book, she leaves home for the first time, not quite ready for the challenges that face her. Fortunately she has the assistance of Rob Anybody, leader of the local clan of Nac Mac Feegles to help her out…

First up, A Hat Full Of Sky (2004) is a great sequel. It picks up after Tiffany has had some time to think about what has happened to her in the last book and also lets her be a little more mature and thoughtful about what does happen to her. And then it places her in a situation where she is forced to make decisions that have consequences and must also come to terms with some choices that she makes when she isn’t in full control of herself.

Metaphors for adolescence aside, this story contains some wonderful moments, scenes and characters. We meet Miss Level, who has two bodies (which was an amazing asset for her previous career in the circus), both of which take Tiffany under their wings. She also meets other girls who are training to become witches and manages to embarrass and alienate herself in front of Annagramma, the unelected leader of this junior coven, them before realising that they are on the same side as her.

But Tiffany also has to deal with an entity known as a hiver, a malevolent spirit that enters human minds and makes them commit deeds that they would normally consider to be immoral or evil. The hiver, though, doesn’t really understand what humans are about; it just wants to learn and feel for itself and to hell with the consequences.

I feel that this is a much better novel than The Wee Free Men. The characterisation of Tiffany is more assured and the challenges she faces are less about letting go of “childish” ideas and more about coping with the world and hand that you have been dealt.

But first, I have to get a bit of a rant out of the way…

The Tiffany books were marketed as Young Adult novels. Honestly, I get that this was a marketing thing, as well as a conscious choice by Terry Pratchett to try something new with the series, but the books already had a huge following amongst YA readers – Hell, Mort, Esk, Carrot, Teppic and Susan all began their careers on the Disc as what we would recognise as YA characters. So why were these novels not marketed as YA novels while the Tiffany ones were?

The simple answer is Harry Potter. The boy wizard had begun to be published just a few years prior to this book and were still causing a sensation when this one came out. All those other Discworld characters I mentioned in the last paragraph were first published before YA books had become the publishing behemoth that it is today, led by J. K. Rowling’s work.

But the Discworld had also been a major series before the Potter books – prior to the first one, Pratchett was the bestselling novelist in the UK, pretty much entirely on the back of Great A’Tuin, if you’ll pardon the metaphor. It’s annoying, on a personal level, to see an older, loved series being marketed like a competitor in a field that has room for loads of writers.

However, marketing aside, what we have in the Tiffany stories is something quite tonally different to what had gone before and – to an extent – came after. As we did in The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents, we get a slight adjustment of the narrative voice from Pratchett to something that is less candid and slightly more nuanced. Which is great, because it shows that we can get heaps of different types of stories out of this setting. It also shows what a wide range of character and mood Sir Terry had.

But the early Tiffany books, particularly this one, tell a very YA story: there are some lessons about maturity and growing up shoehorned into the plot, or rather, made more obvious than they would be normally. Characters have a bit less of their usual shades of grey and the main character comes across as a little more special than she might normally be in a “regular” entry in the series. And her adventures are more about learning how to cope with the changed world around her and starting to make a place for herself in it.

For instance, Tiffany spends a lot of time adjusting herself to her new setting and learning who she can trust. She’s also eleven, an age where most kids are having to think about that adjustment as they are leaving Primary School and beginning at High School. Tiffany is escorted to her new posting by Miss Tick, her old teacher, and is placed in the care of the multiple bodies of Miss Level – which is a great way of showing what going to high school is actually like: there are more teachers than you’re used to and not all of them are interested in talking to you at the same time. She also has new tasks to learn and a new way of thinking about her relationships in the community around her.

Tiffany also makes new friends and manages to embarrass herself in front of a bunch of them pretty quickly.

… Yeah, let’s not dwell too much on that one.

And when the hiver takes over her and forces her to do things that she had previously only imagined but not done because they were too outrageous or just plain wrong, well, that’s a classic example of the peer pressure or need to stand out that a lot of kids have. The fact that she does a couple of terrible things in front of Annagramma, someone she doesn’t necessarily like but is feeling a little awed by, makes it a great scene that many readers can relate to.

And then there’s the toe-curling embarrassment that she feels when she has to face up to those consequences. The only unrealistic thing about them is the ease with which some of her new friends accept that she was taken over by an Id-monster and, if not forgive her, at least agree to give her another chance. But it’s possible that the presence of Rob Anybody and the Feegles (the small fairy…ish…ish creatures that exist as her well-intentioned guardians) that help to clean up after her messes makes that a little easier to overcome. Or, as Tiffany is told:

“It’s an unfair world, child. Be thankful you have friends.”

(I want that on a t-shirt.)

The Feegles don’t play as big a part in this book as they did in the last and they come off the better for it, in my not-so-humble opinion. They are the sort of characters who tend to grate on me if I have to spend too much time in a story with them. They are balanced perfectly here: there’s a fantastic scene early on in the book where Rob, newly married to Jeannie, has to choose between looking after Tiffany or staying home to look after his wife. Jeannie is jealous of the bond between her husband and Tiffany, making her deal with the twin concerns of insecurity and homesickness. But we know that we are going to be on her side at the end of this scene when Rob confides in her:

“It cannae be a good life for the puir wee big thing, all alone and far fra’ home, among strangers.”

“Aye,” said Jeannie, turning her face away. “I ken that, too.”

I dislike some of the choices made in this book because it’s a separate series for kids, but when we get moments like that, I know that the Discworld I am used to isn’t very far away.