Part of the Discworld series, but it’s pretty standalone and can be read without knowing the other books. It’s one of the shortest works in the Discworld series. At first, I was a bit worried because I’d heard this was the worst book in the series—too weird and out there—but I actually found it hilarious. Maybe that says more about me than about the book.

It’s a whimsical story, very much focused on comedy, satirizing everything from classic wizard tropes to the concept of Christian hell.

Random side thought: why did the demon from the myth of Sisyphus sound like the fat girl from Derry Girls in the audiobook version? Maybe it’s because, both are irish.

Also, how the fuck does hell work? If you get promoted for being incompetent or doing something otherwise bad, does that mean all the top guys in hell are literally useless?

One of the funniest parts was this:

Interestingly enough, the gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that’s where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won’t do if they don’t know about it.

This explains why it is important to shoot missionaries on sight.

Also great:

It is hard to say whether the Luggage was happy or not. It had viciously attacked fourteen demons so far, and had three of them cornered in their own pit of boiling oil. Soon it would have to follow its master, but it didn’t have to rush.

It starts with an introduction on why mysticism matters, countering its bad reputation as being anti-scientific. It then continues by going through numerous Christian mystical texts and interpreting their meanings. He ends by showing how the notion of mysticism can be transferred to aesthetics, particularly music—as can be seen with krautrock and punk.

The book is alright. For me personally, it’s too unstructured and not systematic enough. It’s more concerned with flowery language and interpretations. After finishing the book, you won’t come away with a clear metaphysical understanding of what mystics actually believed in. It’s more about feelings and vibes. But wanting to know exactly what the mystics meant is, according to the author, exactly the trap we fall into. When we try to look at the subjective objectively, we strip away the essence of subjectivity—that is, its very subjectivity. In other words, the subjective does not have an objective quality to it.

One of the most important aspect of the book for me was the argument for the mystical that he lays out. If there is an experience you can have—no strings attached—that brings the kind of ecstasy mystics describe, wouldn’t you want it? Most people would say yes. And then the question becomes: how do you access such experiences? Central to this is being open to these moments and not rationalizing them away. For example, imagine you’re on a hike and suddenly feel an enormous sense of wonder swelling up within you. Instead of suppressing it or reasoning it away, the idea is to surrender to it and remain open to the experience.