I talked a couple of posts ago about Neil Gaiman, and how his latest book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, is beautiful in its simplicity. The language is nothing fancy, but somehow Gaiman weaves together a stunning piece of prose. Now I’m going to zip to the other end of the scale, and to my favouritest writer in the whole wide world.
Obviously,¸I mean Sir Terry Pratchett.
Source: http://www.thejournal.ie/terry-pratchett-to-present-documentary-on-assisted-suicide-121577-Apr2011/
(For a detailed bio see here: http://www.colinsmythe.co.uk/terrypages/tpindex.htm)
TP is amazing in so many ways, WordPress isn’t fit to cope. So I’ll stick with the salient points.
First off: his productivity. This man is a writing machine – it’s not unusual for him to pump out two/three books a year. And what’s even more impressive is he’s been living with Alzheimer’s (see original announcement here http://www.pjsmprints.com/news/embuggerance.html) The man’s an inspiration even before opening a single book.
But of course his books must be opened and that’s where the real magic lies. While he’s written other works, I’m going to focus on the series he’s most famous for: Discworld.
Then it comes into view overhead, bigger than the biggest, most unpleasantly-armed starcruiser in the imagination of a three-ring film-maker: a turtle, ten thousand miles long. It is Great A’Tuin, one of the rare astrochelonians from a universe where things are less as they are and more like people imagine them to be, and it carries on its meteor-pocked shell four giant elephants who bear on their enormous shoulders the great round wheel of the Discworld…
…A world like that, which exists only because the gods enjoy a joke, must be a place where magic can survive.
And sex too, of course.
(Equal Rites)
The Discworld series has a host of recurring characters (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld for the run-down of titles and main characters). I couldn’t pick a favourite character. I think my favourite is whoever features in the book I just read. So right now, my favourite characters are the Witches, although last month it was Death, and the month before that: Rincewind the wizard.
Scrawny, like most wizards, and clad in a dark red robe on which a few mystic sigils were embroidered in tarnished sequins. Some might have taken him for a mere apprentice enchanter who had run away from his master out of defiance, boredom, fear and a lingering taste for heterosexuality.
(The Colour of Magic)
Why is Lord Pratchett so fabulous? For me, it boils down to his skill with the English language. He has a vibrant and varied vocabulary (I like to have a dictionary on hand!), and a talent for making up names that say so much about that person or place. My favourite has to be Ankh-Morpork (City of one thousande surprises!), closely followed by Greebo the cat.
There’s a saying that all roads lead to Ankh-Morpork. And it’s wrong. All roads lead away from Ankh-Morpork, but sometimes people walk along them the wrong way.
(Moving Pictures)
Granny and Mrs Plinge pushed their way through the crowds towards the Shades, a part of the city that was as thronged as a rookery, fragrant as a cesspit, and vice versa.
(Maskerade)
Imagine Gaiman using his simple words to tell his story. Now imagine Pratchett on the other side of the universe. Pratchett’s imagination reaches past plots and places and people; he never uses a tired metaphor, or turn of phrase. Reading his books is like flying through an effervescent, multi-coloured starfield (with added rainbows). There’s never a boring stretch where you think ‘aw yeah, heard this before’. I enjoy each novel even if I’m on the third read, because his prose is so entertaining, so sprightly and animated, it doesn’t matter if I know what happens.
All dwarfs have beards and many layers of clothing. Their courtships are largely concerned with finding out, in delicate and circumspect ways, what sex the other dwarf is.
(Moving Pictures)
He’s also hilarious, and here’s where other writers can only clap their hands and nod their heads. You can learn to be productive, you can read widely and improve your vocabulary; but you can’t learn humour. Or certainly, you can’t achieve such a high level of hilarity by studying and trying to imitate. You either have it or you don’t. Who else could pen a hero called Eric Stronginthearm or an architect/gardener/all-round extraordinaire called Bloody Stupid Johnson (on account of his inability to follow plans and the laws of physics)?
The Archchancellor was the first one to recover.
“Windle!” he said. “We thought you were dead!”
He had to admit that it wasn’t a very good line. You didn’t put people on a slab with candles and lilies all round them because you think they’ve got a bit of a headache and want a nice lie down for half an hour.
(Reaper Man)
This guy is why I write.
The good news is the 40th Discworld novel out in October. Woop! I still have many to read, and I’m taking my time about it. Can’t gulp a vintage wine, you know.
Hopefully this post has convinced any Pratchett virgins to read his stuff. If it hasn’t, you should bloody well do it anyway.
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