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| Death and Terry Pratchett |
There have been times when I have thought 'Do I mention Terry Pratchett and Discworld too much on the blog?', and 'Maybe I should review a book written by someone other than Pratchett of Neil Gaiman?' - Then I laugh at my own silliness and decide which one to re-read.
When the twittersphere told me about the death of author Terry Pratchett, on my lunch break at work, I genuinely got a little teary-eyed for this man I had never met. The death of anyone is sad, particularly when the death is as a result of something as depressingly unfair as alzheimer's, but I also felt as if a whole group of my best friends had passed away on the same day - Tiffany, Mort, Nanny Ogg, Sam Vimes, Carrot, Rincewind, Granny Weatherwax - I will never get to see them again, and I was devastated. This doesn't make light of the tragic death of a real man, but rather highlights how important his creations were, and what a huge effect on everyone's little lives he really had.
The last tweets of Sir Terry Pratchett (for the uninitiated, Death always 'talks' in capital letters):
AT LAST SIR TERRY WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.
Terry took Death's arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.
The End.
If you know Death like I do, and know Sir Terry like I feel I do, then you would be crying right now like I am.
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| Death - Discworld |
Some lovely things to read about Sir Terry and his effect on people:
Most importantly, we will be getting a final book, and we will get to see Tiffany Aching and the Nac Nac Feegle's again - see here.
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| Sir Terry Pratchett - an inspiration |
Less importantly...
My 'un-review' of 'Mort' -
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| Mort by Terry Pratchett |
'Mort' is one of my favourites, despite only being the fourth Discworld novel Sir Terry wrote, and the man himself feeling this isn't one of his finer, more nuanced works (see the links to radio 4 interviews above). What's not to love I say - Death himself is arguably the best Discworld character, we get to meet plenty of Wizards and at least one Witch, and the world almost ends - the makings of a perfect visit to Ank Morpork. Also, we get the usual combination of wit, warmth, danger, humour and familiarity we come to expect - I just adored it.
As I don't read the Discworld novels in the proper order I already 'knew' Death and his extended family members prior to reading 'Mort', so I got a giggly sense of knowing every time one of 'my' characters popped up, and a lovely glimpse as to where Susan Sto Helit came from *wink* - see my Hogfather review here. This is a joy a reader often gets to experience with Discworld novels, but new readers don't need to worry, 'Mort' is in fact the first real Death book and a great place to start.
Basically, the outpouring of love and devastation on the internet following the death of Sir Terry is like nothing I have ever seen, and there is a very good reason for this. You are doing yourself a disservice by not reading his books, and missing out on so much by not visiting and then re-visiting Discworld. 'Mort' is a great place to start, but not as good as 'Guards! Guards!' in my opinion (the City Watch are my favourites).
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| Sam Vimes - Ankh Morpork City Watch |
Read this book if: you want to enter a world and never really leave/you like to binge watch TV shows or anything on Netflix/you get obsessed with things easily/you want to feel better about a shitty situation/you want to come to terms with death or loss/you grow tired of normality/you need to escape but cant actually do it for real right now.
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