In honor of Sir Terry. · 12:30pm May 9th, 2023
Lately I've been reading the official biography of Terry Pratchett, which was released last fall: A Life With Footnotes, written by his longtime personal assistant Rob Wilkins. I'm not normally a big reader of biographies, but for this I made an exception. It's a wonderful book, vivid and evocative all the way through.
Last night I read the last few chapters, telling the story of Terry's worsening health, and the growing struggle to keep working, and the steady sense of running out of time as the future grows shorter. It was heartbreaking. Even for someone as prolific as Sir Terry, who wrote two new books a year for multiple decades, there was never enough time to use all his ideas.
I read my first Discworld novel when I was 10: The Colour of Magic, the first in the series, although now that's not where anyone is recommended to begin. I loved it, and it was the book that got me interested in reading books. Before then I'd only read comics. Which in Norway mainly meant Donald Duck and various magazines that were just collections of various newspaper comic strips. My favorite was Calvin and Hobbes, because of course it was, though I was also partial to The Far Side, because of course I was. But also there was ElfQuest, my actual first fantasy series, and Valhalla, many a scandinavian child's first introduction to the worlds of Norse myth.
So I was well primed to appreciate the Discworld's sense of comic fantasy, and it was honestly practically the only thing I read for many years (there was enough of it to fill the time, which helps). They meant a lot to me. The simple joy of reading a very funny book was really what got me through some very rough years, and his influence is inescapable in my own writing.
When he died I wrote a little tribute. It wasn't a very good tribute, but it's what I managed on the spot.
I remember exactly where I was when I found out he had passed, because I made a scene. I was surfing the web in the middle of a lecture about Beowulf, and I interrupted the professor to announce the news to the whole class. The professor was a lovely old Oxford chap who didn't deserve to be interrupted, but I felt it was justified.
Towards the end of the book Rob tells a story from a memorial, the year after Terry's death, where John Lloyd went up to him and told him, "Of all the dead authors in the world, Terry Pratchett is the most alive." And the fact that last night reading about his last days eight years after the fact almost brought me to tears... yeah, it feels right.
Someday I should go back and revisit those early books. When I was a kid I read them only for the comedy, and lost interest with the later books when they put comedy to the side, to put more focus on higher themes. Which makes me think that even though I loved them dearly, I still didn't give them as much credit as they deserved. Even now I think there's still more to see in them that I should go explore.
wow
talk about lines that go hard c_c well said, Mr. Lloyd
The best thing about Pratchett's writing: he puts paid to the idea that being funny and being serious are mutually exclusive.
Pterry's stories always have more layers. Excluding perhaps the first two when he was finding his feet, every book from Equal Rites onwards has been more layered and complex than it appears.
Pratchett's works are eminently re-readable. I discover something new every time I go back to an old favorite.
I had the great fortune to meet him once at a book signing in Menlo Park. He had written something in The Fifth Elephant,* just a short little descriptive phrase, that could easily go ignored or unnoticed. But I gave it a lot of thought, and I realized (or thought I did) that it was excruciatingly deliberate, and was evidence that Pratchett had put an enormous amount of thought into how, exactly, the werewolves of Diskworld operated, as opposed to other types of shapeshifters who had to obey the law of conservation of mass.
There was a huge line (of course), and the bookstore staff was being draconian about keeping things moving. We were supposed to go up to the table, get our books signed and move on; no conversation with the author allowed!
But I had to know. So, when I got my turn, as he was signing my book, I blurted out, "Your werewolves rotate through a higher dimension, don't they?" adding a probably unhelpful hand gesture.
Terry gave me a broad grin, a nod, and said, "Well spotted!"
The bookstore thug growled, "Next!" and ushered me away, and that was the end of that. It's still one of my fondest memories.
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* Alchemical pun as a title... how can anyone not love that man and his quintessential wit?
5727558
Lucky you.
I have no idea what that means but it's marvelous
I can at least say I've been to every signing Neil Gaiman has done in Norway. Which is to say two of them.
5727558
Surprise! I saw what you did there!
5728185
It's nice to be noticed.