When I was young, one of my favourite pastimes was reading. It still is, but it also was. Life wasn’t always great back then, but reading was both an escape and a luxury. I could engage my mind in many different ways; from trying to figure out whodunnits before the detective did to pretending to be as wise as Gandalf.
But few authors had me engaged as much as Terry Pratchett did. His writing was unique and spoke to me in a way no other author until then had.
The first book of his I ever read was ‘Guards, Guards!’ and it was an absolute barn-burner for my young mind. You’re telling me you can mix this much comedy into a fantasy setting with dragons, trolls, and dwarves amongst other things on a world held up by 4 elephants on top of a turtle? It beggared belief.
Yet I found myself laughing out loud in public and in private like I had never before. Here was an author who played with words and ideas in ways that tickled my mind.
Even in his descriptions such as the above, he painted metaphors in a affectionate yet humorous way.
There is also a sense of silly implication in his writing when he describes people and things, where he doesn’t outright point out the joke, instead he sets it up the frame and lets your mind complete it. A troll who is slow in thinking is never called stupid, even if their physiology makes them seem slow in thinking and working. Instead ‘reality just has trouble gaining traction around them’.
More than anything else though it was his sense of humour that often say with me. The Discworld of Terry Pratchett is never a silly place, but it does take itself seriously while being silly.
This is why Sam Vimes is my favourite Pratchett character, a man who is often surrounded by absurdity but treats it with the sort of stone-cold seriousness and professionalism that makes him such a foil to the ongoings around him. That is not to speak of the many hilarious and fantastic characters found within the Night Watch, of which I could write endlessly on.
But his writing isn’t just witty and intended to make you laugh, but rather they invite you in on the joke and makes you complicit in the setup, and the payoff is there if you’re paying attention.
Pratchett wasn’t just about comedy though, he often raised points about the problems of our world, from inequality to class and power. He did it though in such a way that it was almost subtle though. His comedy wasn’t just comedy, it was a joke about policing that makes you think about fairness or a comedic scene about the prejudices against Trolls and Dwarves that can make you reflect on racial inequality.
He makes your mind wander and laugh, disarming you with his wit and play on words. So when the seriousness arrives, it lands without your defences up.
You’re not asked to stop enjoying yourself in order to understand the points Pratchett makes, instead you’re merely asked to see it from his view, without any judgement. To see the implications and connect the dots.
It’s this unique way of blending the silliness and absurdity he sees and paints this world in with the observations he makes about our world and the systems in it that makes Terry Pratchett an author unlike many.
It does not escape me that while a very young Mose did not grasp and thoroughly understand the ideas and issues that Pratchett raised in his books, nearly 30 years later I still find myself laughing just as hard but now with more thoughts permeating those moments of laughter.