Small Gods

Mildly amusing, that's how I would describe the overall tone of this book. It is filled with small jokes and satires relating religion, politics and philosophy. The writing style is very clever, but I'm not much of a fan of the British “Monthy Python” sort of humor, or else this book would rate a 5 for me.

The story revolves around a monastery that represents the center of political and religious power in this region of the world. The monks worship the god Om, and they are very keen on judging other people. Anyone that does not conform with they're very rigorous view of the world is sent to the Quisition to be tortured and killed. Also, they tend to wage war on all other nations that does not follow the same religion as theirs.

The protagonist is a simple minded monk that has a perfect memory. One day, he starts hearing a voice, that turns out to be the god Om speaking to him. He soon finds out that he is the only one that can hear him, and that every other pious priest of his religion is an hypocrite that is more preoccupied with rituals, traditions, following the rules, not getting tortured and politics then with proper adoration of the god.

The dialog is very intelligent, there are many philosophical references as jokes are made about them as well. The characters are very likable, even the antagonist which is a fervent worshiper of himself, apparently. His only goal is to rise in the church hierarchy to impose his views on others. Among other things, he is against asking too many questions, reading books and any other activity that leads to critical thinking.

This book discusses, as the title says, gods. In a world where there are small gods and large gods, and even microscopic gods, the book uses wit and humor to deliver an interesting tale around the Great God Om, who has taken the form of a tortoise. Pratchett makes an interesting observation on gods and religion–why do humans need gods? Why do they believe in them? Why do gods, assuming they exist, need humans?

To me, this book asks questions, but doesn't necessarily push an anti-religion or even a pro-religion stance. The book is just making observations–Do people actually believe or do they go through the motions? Will people actually follow a god just based on a book and is that enough? Do religion books/prophets say things that are from God or do they use their position and power to push their own agenda?

I can see the connections between the Church of Om with the Catholic church, however, I really think it is meant to connect to any religion, especially any high-demand or old religion. I know I found many connections to the religion of my youth.

This book was great, but the story itself was a bit boring to me and things jumped around without really explaning things, which sometimes made it difficult to follow, but otherwise, fun, witty, and an interesting premise and look at religion and belief.


Quotes:
Belief, he says. Belief shifts. People start believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.

Fear is strange soil. Mainly it grows obedience like corn, which grows in rows and makes weeding easy. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.

May as well tell you,' muttered Om. ‘It's not as though we're going to survive... See, every god's a Great God to someone.'

What lolling around all day while slaved do the real work? Take it from me, whenever you see a bunch of buggers puttering around talking about truth and beauty and the best way of attacking Ethics, you can bet your sandals it's because dozens of other poor buggers are doing all the real work around the place while those fellows are living like—' ‘—gods?' asked Brutha.

“Just because you can explain it doesn't mean it's not still a miracle.”

“Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think.”