On the Passing of Terry Pratchett

‘The storm walked around the hills on legs of lightning, shouting and grumbling.
The wizard disappeared around the bend in the track and the goats went back to their damp grazing.
Until something else caused them to look up. They stiffened, their eyes widening, their nostrils flaring.
This was strange, because there was nothing on the path. But the goats still watched it pass by until it was out of sight.’
– Equal Rites

I was eight year’s old when I read my first Terry Pratchett novel. My friends from Yorkshire had loaned me a copy of Equal Rites  while on holiday in France. Although it is, chronologically, the third Discworld novel, it was a great entry point into Pratchett’s fantastical alternative world. It was a compelling read for me, not due to the wizards and witches battling each other but for the humour that soaked every page and paragraph.

I quickly caught up, reading The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic in quick succession and was hooked, eagerly devouring each new book from that moment on. On Thursday, just shy of thirty years later, the news came through that Terry Pratchett had died, after an eight year battle with Alzheimer’s.

It is profoundly sad when a literary voice, one which has been your companion for the largest part of your life goes silent. Especially a voice that contained such wry insight, one that was always willing to poke fun at the frailties of the human condition in such an unwaveringly positive and light-hearted manner.

‘What sort of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.’
– Going Postal

The world in which Pratchett’s stories come to life exist in what is, irrefutably, a fantasy universe. His Discworld is flat, circular, and held together by magic and belief. It rests on the backs of four huge elephants who in turn are transported through the cosmos atop the shell of Great A’Tuin, the star turtle. No, this is not our world.

And yet, undeniably, it is. Ideas leak through from here into the Discworld, simple concepts or advancements that appear too unnaturally ‘normal’, and preposterous, within this magical world. Yet to Pratchett, ideas were cross-dimensional forces that have power, ones which change the Discworld, forcing its societies to modernise, to lurch dangerously forward with each novel, until they more closely resemble ours.

‘A third proposition, that the city be governed by a choice of respectable members of the community who would promise not to give themselves airs or betray the public trust at every turn, was instantly the subject of music-hall jokes all over the city.’
– Unseen Academicals

Pratchett’s vast universe has been constructed, brick by conceptual brick, over the course of forty books. His writing skilfully intertwines parody and satire, each story toying with the effects of these different emerging societal concepts, a list which, while including themes such as the emergence of the printing press, law, belief systems and cinema, goes on and on. Amidst these shifting tides of change, Pratchett’s (generally woefully inept) protagonists struggle to maintain a compassionate, or at least brutally reasonable social order against the constant threat of the more dominant and dumb human vices of greed, cowardice and stupidity.

Many of these seemingly hapless heroes continue their own branches of stories, often continuing a thematic genre with each, such as the detective style of Commander Vimes and the City Watch, Granny Weatherwax and the witches, defending common people from the dangerous temptations of belief and ambition or Death’s struggles with the concepts of fate, mortality and identity.

‘LET ME PUT FORWARD ANOTHER SUGGESTION: THAT YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A LUCKY SPECIES OF APE THAT IS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITIES OF CREATION VIA A LANGUAGE THAT EVOLVED IN ORDER TO TELL ONE ANOTHER WHERE THE RIPE FRUIT WAS?’
– Death and What Comes Next

Even the transitory characters who appear, sometimes momentarily before being killed, are fully fleshed-out personalities; humanly flawed and conflicted, confused and bewildered. They bear witness to grander movements that they can have no comprehension of and have no power to affect. Whether they are ‘good’, ‘bad’ or inconsequential, they are, recognisably, us.

‘Of course, Ankh-Morpork’s citizens had always claimed that the river water was incredibly pure in any case. Any water that had passed through so many kidneys, they reasoned, had to be very pure indeed.’
– Sourcery

The dirty, sprawling city of Ankh-Morpork, a mirror image of London, is a character in itself, one as ‘colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.’ This was Pratchett’s magical ability; that he could build this preposterous world, populate it, convey all that is least noble and most dangerous about the actions of humans en masse and yet maintain a consistent level of positivity, instilling a distinctive comedic flourish to every scene, dialogue and monologue, a humour that is laugh-out-loud funny, to the extent that I have been publically embarrassed by it.

Terry Pratchett’s style of writing and the short, breakneck chapters that propel you through the books appeals to both children and adults alike. The intricacy of the plots and the frantic adventures form a foundation from which the satirical parodies can be enjoyed and they consistently provide a deeply rewarding experience.

Moreover, what resonates throughout is the spirit of Terry Pratchett himself. His insight, sense of humour and optimism permeate every page of his work, as well as coming through in his public conduct. The manner in which he faced the onset of Alzheimer’s was inspiring, and his championing of the assisted dying cause was admirable.

Pratchett’s literary output was prolific and across his collaborations and children’s books totalled over seventy novels. I am glad that he has left behind him such a large body of work, and that the Discworld will also continue to expand through his daughter’s writing, but with Terry Pratchett’s passing, it does feel like the loss of a lifelong friend.

So thank you, Terry Pratchett, for teaching me that satire and social commentary could be so compelling and so consistently, ridiculously funny.

‘I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES. I TURN UP ONLY ONCE.’
– Feet of Clay

My Ten Most Formative Books

I was recently asked what ten books that I can think of that have had a significant impact on me, and I thought I would use the exercise to write a little about them.

Many of my favourite books were from when I was young. As such, and for the sake of not offering any favouritism, I’ll list them in the order I read them; a developmental chronology, if you will.

Oh, and favouritism is moot anyway. 1984. Most important book of my life. But I digress…

Fantastic Mr Fox – Roald Dahl

The beauty of Roald Dahl’s storytelling lies in the ease with which he wraps the fantastical with the horrific. Kids love to be scared by a nasty fairytale and Dahl pitched every story perfectly, projecting its young heroes into terrifying and wondrous peril and against villains so grotesque that no adult would ever have believed the stories. I could as easily have picked James and the Giant Peach though, or any other number of his books. I adored Revolting Rhymes, but if I move toward rhyming then where does Dr Zeuss figure… But the list is merely ten books long, so alas, alack, the rhyming tomes are gone.

Lord of the Flies – William Golding

I read this when I was quite young, and didn’t completely understand the complicated societal issues that were being played out on the island until later, but the intensity of the atmosphere, as the layers of societal protection so quickly slipped away, was palpable. The believably cruel actions of the child survivors as they slowly lose the ties connecting them to their old lives and descend into savagery gripped me at the time. The seeming ease at which the initial ‘protection of parents and school and policemen and the law’ slipped away, and how naturally the children adopted brutality over the old order was an early, and chilling lesson on the fragility of civilisation.

Lord of The Rings – J.R.R.Tolkien

What do I need to say? It’s Lord of the Rings. It’s an entire world, set over (at least) tens of thousands of years, with an entire history from creation through four ages of civilisations. The richness of the world comes from the wealth of history and culture that Tolkien, a student of linguistics and mythology, created. It is a stupendous endeavour and I loved it as a kid, reading it every year on holiday. I got the entire trilogy down to nine days by the fifth year…

Animal Farm – George Orwell

Orwell is the only author to feature twice on my list but justifiably so. In Animal Farm, he wraps up the glorious, righteous rise and ignominious, corrupted fall of the Communist revolution in a sumptuous allegory. Our investment in the animals carrying the bloody weight of the revolution, our sadness at their betrayal and the inevitable slide of the pigs towards corruption, makes the entire experience one of final, crushing futility. It is at times triumphal and brutal and shocking, right up to its final, absolute moment of capitulation; ‘some animals are more equal than others.’ Boom.

Equal Rites – Terry Pratchett

Again, I could have picked any of the first set of books, be it a Rincewind tale, the witches, the guards or wizards’ books, so I’ve again picked the first one I read. Every book is fantastical and wrapped in satire. They are multi-layered to seamlessly merge a frantic, funny narrative with societal allegory. Pratchett’s world is as extensive as Tolkien’s, and he explores genres with his different sets of characters, veering from detective novel to romance to mysticism without ever losing the fantastical, twisted reflection his Discworld series holds up to us.

1984 – George Orwell

The daddy of all dystopian novels. A prophetic, crushing, claustrophobic… Look, if you need me to tell you why this one is so important then you should probably just leave right now. Go on. Out.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

Ah, what a great loss Douglas Adams was, and so young. His brilliance and silliness are divinely played out through the Hitchhiker series, and his other existing works, such as the Dirk Gently books and the Salmon of Truth. I love rereading Hitchhiker’s Guide, and watching the seventies TV show, and I even watch that fairly appalling film once in a while. I love it so much that I might have to name one of my children Slarty Bartfast… Poor little blighter.

London Fields – Martin Amis

This was my first Martin Amis book and, although Money is a close contender, is still my favourite. In typically Amis postmodernist style, the author is also our narrator and details the interactions between our femme fatale, Nicola Six, and two men she meets in a pub, Keith Talent, an East-end knuckle dragger and darts enthusiast, and Guy Clinch, a repressed upper-middle class businessman. Nicola Six enlists the author to document her pushing them both to their limits over her final days. She knows that they are her final days because Nicola Six has a talent; she can see the future and already knows who it is who will kill her.

Glamorama – Brett Easton-Ellis

Damn, this is still the most upsetting book I have ever read, even more so than 1984, due to the inexorable slide into depravity and wretchedness its lead character takes. I had read American Psyche before but that didn’t even touch the overwhelming sense of muted despair and apathetic futility of Glamorama. It is dark, depressing and brutal. I love it.

Beyond Good and Evil – Friedrich Nietzsche

And finally, a philosopher. I considered that I should probably have Marx in this list somewhere but, however useful Marx was as a tool for awakening societal understanding in terms of epochs and means of production, his manifesto was not the most thrilling read. However, Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil is something else entirely. Before I’d read Nietzsche, I wouldn’t have believed that a philosopher could be cutting, and sharp, and yet still mischievous. There is a literary beauty to Nietzsche’s writing that inspires radical thought and challenges dogmatic societal structures. He also had ossibly the most badass moustache of all time.

And that’s the lot. Undoubtedly I will regret the omission of certain names the moment I press submit but so be it. I would already like to make an honourable mention of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, another sublime, disturbing masterpiece that I only read in recent years. This, and so many other wonderful books unfortunately didn’t make the list.