Terry Pratchett goes forth

by

by Doctor Science

Dammit. Terry Pratchett, one of the greatest writers of my lifetime, just died. Age 66, of early-onset Alzheimer’s.

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By baalakavii, based on the announcement on Pratchett’s twitter account:

If Nobel Prizes for Literature were actually awarded for the most outstanding work in an ideal direction, and if “ideal direction” meant works of ideas, world-building, and morality, Terry Pratchett would have been a leading contender (Ursula LeGuin would be another). But that’s not how the Nobels are really chosen.

pTerry* wrote fantasy — wacky fantasy, with jokes and magic and footnotes and all mod cons — but his central concerns were always philosophical: how should we live, both as individuals and socially? how is the universe constructed? how should we die? and what is the green wobbly bit, really?** Everything he wrote was Ha Ha Only Serious***.
I’m trying to think what I’d say to people who’ve never read Pratchett and are wondering where to start. Of the non-Discworld books, Good Omens is the clear choice, though I think Nation is also frakkin’ brilliant. In non-Discworld for younger readers, I really love The Bromeliad, which covers most of pTerry’s favorite themes in miniature, as it were.

Most of pTerry’s writing was set on Discworld:

which is flat and rides on the back of four giant elephants who stand on the shell of the enormous star turtle Great A’Tuin, and which is bounded by a waterfall that cascades endlessly into space.

Scientists have calculated that the chance of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.****

The Discworld books don’t form a single linear narrative; there’s a reading order guide:

Discworld-reading-order-guide-cropped

but I kind of disagree about the “starter novels”. I find that Wyrd Sisters is the best single “starter”, because it’s got enough Hamlet & Macbeth in it to orient people who are new to the series — and the witches are in fine form, much better than in Equal Rites. I would give someone Guards, Guards! next, then Mort — though there’s a lot to be said for writing order, which moves you around between storylines to fill up the world.

I think I’ll be re-reading some of the Death novels over the next week — Reaper Man seems like a particularly fitting choice.

In the Ramtops village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no-one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away — until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.

 

In the village in the Ramtops where they understand what the Morris dance is all about, they dance it just once, at dawn, on the first day of spring. They don’t dance it after that, all through the summer. After all, what would be the point? What use would it be?

But on a certain day when the nights are drawing in, the dancers leave work early and take, from attics and cupboards, the other costume, the black one, and the other bells. And they go by separate ways to a valley among the leafless trees. They don’t speak. There is no music. It’s very hard to imagine what kind there could be.

The bells don’t ring. They’re made of octiron, a magic metal. But they’re not, precisely, silent bells. Silence is merely the absence of noise. They make the opposite of noise, a sort of heavily textured silence.

And in the cold afternoon, as the light drains from the sky, among the frosty leaves and in the damp air, they dance the other Morris. Because of the balance of things.

You’ve got to dance both, they say. Otherwise you can’t dance either.

Noli Timere Messorum.*****

* A nickname that started on Usenet after Pyramids was published. After Good Omens came out, pTerry’s friend and collaborator Neil Gaiman was often called gNeil.

** Gall bladder or immortal soul? YOU BE THE JUDGE.

*** “For further enlightenment on this subject, consult any Zen master” — that would be the old guy with the broom.

**** quote from Mort.

***** The motto on Sir Terry’s Coat of Arms: Don’t Fear the Reaper.

15 thoughts on “Terry Pratchett goes forth”

  1. I’m trying to think what I’d say to people who’ve never read Pratchett and are wondering where to start.
    As you say, writing order has a lot to be said for it. In particular, that makes it much, much easier to follow the trusty “never, ever, ever read anything after Pyramids*” rule of thumb, which for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend every other reading order I’ve seen seems to ignore.
    *I might make an exception for Small Gods, but even that is iffy.

  2. I think his works got ever more dark and serious with “Hogfather” as a major step in that direction. In the last Discworld novels I think I spotted increasing minor consistency faults that I attributed to his Alzheimer’s. Personally, I do not count Pyramids among my favorites (I think I read it only twice, once in German, once in English). I agree that the style of his writing changed significantly over time. Equal Rites has stylistically little in common with e.g. Going Postal, so I could be persuaded to believe they are from different authors, if I did not know better.
    A huge loss indeed!

  3. Praise we Pratchett who passed away
    Mourn ye men his merit was high
    A voice of wisdom vanished this day
    Fountain of fun’s flow now runs dry

  4. Sad, one of my favorite authors. And so young, comparatively speaking. I’ve read many of his books, and still have a lot of catching up to do.

  6. Harmut, I’d agree that Pyramids was far from outstanding. It was followed by Guards! Guards!, though, and that marked a serious stylistic shift which only became more marked with time. Small Gods was a bit of a throwback, but other than that there was a change in tone and style that never was undone – far more pop culture references, and a great deal more self-indulgence. I kept reading up through Interesting Times, and even after that forced myself to read Jingo and The Last Continent, but the books seemed like nothing more than milquetoast, navel-gazing pop-culture pastiches.

  7. I still think that my favorite of his stories was Strata. Men as the next thing to gods . . . and still using their fantastic abilities to play sophomoric tricks. Sounds like way too many people I know.

  8. Well I’m going to plant a flag for the later ones. Going Postal (and its Sky TV adaptation) is one of the best, in my opinion, along with The Truth, dealing with the post office and the printing press respectively. But then I’m a sucker for anything with Vimes in it, and I enjoyed Snuff’s Downton Abbey send-up (while emancipating a species!). There is a definite shift in tone around Pyramids, but then Pyramids is easily my least favourite, by quite a long way.

  9. No love for Pyramids??
    Pyramids was my first Pratchett and I was instantly hooked: it was utterly and completely unlike anything else, a mashup of screwball comedy, sort-of history, and political satire. Read every other Pratchett as fast as I could get my hands on them… well, nearly every other; I’m not fond of Rincewind,and can only tolerate him as a supporting player in non-Rincewind novels…
    I’m heartbroken that there will be no others. At least, none by the Master. There were rumors for a while that his daughter might continue the Discworld novels, but I haven’t heard anything more about that lately.

  13. Pratchett’s death touches me quite deeply. He was, in fact, one of the first authors whose novels I read in English during high school and I am truly ingreat debt to him. I learned modern English, as far as I speak it, from his books. Beffore that, I had read only Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and Rawlinson’s translation of Herodotus and my English was simply unbearable.
    Pratchett showed me the beauty and versatility of the current English language like no other. I believe he will be remembered as one of the greatest Englishmen of his time.

  14. Lurker, I have read Pratchett’s books out loud to my family many times, so I know what you mean. It is a pleasure to have his speech come through my body. It is also a pleasure to share his humor and perception among friends.
    I’m grateful that he used his time to produce such a large body of good work for us.

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