Day Three:
Dragon’s Wisdom | Some dragons are known for being bloodthirsty and terrifying. Other
dragons are known for the wisdom they have to share. Share a book,
author, or booklr recommendation.
With a prompt like that, I have to talk about Terry Pratchett. If you’re looking for an author with great stores of wisdom, he’s your man.
There’s nothing about Sir Terry that hasn’t been said before. He was near and dear to my heart, as he was to a lot of people’s, and for good reason. On the surface, his stories were light fantasy, full of action and puns and mildly ridiculous characters, but underneath, they were all truth and vinegar. Social satire on a grand scale. Cautionary tales. Instructions on how to do right by people. There’s a Pratchett quote for every occasion, and a book for everyone.
I’m not just talking about the Discworld books either, though they’re his longest series and contain most of his best work. The lesser-known stories like Nation and Dodger and the Bromeliad and Johnny Maxwell trilogies are instructive too, if not always as well-written. (The trilogies predate the Disc and it shows.)
Really, the man was just good, and smart and incredibly well-read. His books make you think and often reconsider your outlook. He had a tendency to, as he’d put it, “go spare” about things like war and intolerance and nationalist thinking. He had a gift for presenting something as absolutely logical and then pointing out how it wasn’t, really. I’ve learned a lot from him, without really even knowing it.
I’m not going to even touch on his writing style, which I’ve also found profoundly influential and admirable, or start on specific book recs (unless I’m asked). I kind of want to recommend everything, which is silly, and anyway, like I said, there’s a book for everyone. But I do rec him, will always rec him, and need to figure out how he made his dialogue so good, for reasons.
Reading Update
Of Books and Bagpipes by Paige Shelton officially a DNF
London by Edward Rutherfurdtwo chapters done!
How the Marquis Got His Coat Back by Neil Gaiman done!
I’ve wanted to get into Discworld for a while but I have no idea where to start because there’s so much! I’ve looked at various guides/charts that recommend different books to start with (and most say to not start with the first book in the series), but what would you recommend as a big fan?
A few years ago I bought Raising Steam but it’s just been sitting on my shelf, would it be ok to start with that one?
@elfspectations I’ve read the entire series and my family is full of Pratchett fans. We’ve recommended his works many times over the years, and others can step in with their opinions, too. Raising Steam would probably be one of the worst places to begin – unless you just really adore trains – because it’s not only near the end of his writing career, it’s also last in it’s own storyline (and the last one published before his death).
When we’ve encouraged people to start Discworld, we usually suggest Mort (my daughter’s favorite and the first one she encountered, which introduces some of the more spectral denizens); Guards, Guards (my choice because it introduces a lot of important Ankh-Morpork characters), or A Hat Full of Sky, the first in the Tiffany Aching set (my husband’s favorite section, especially for younger readers). However, since you have Raising Steam, so one book in a set already acquired, you could begin with the first Moist von Lipwig story in his world, which was Going Postal, follow that with Making Money, and then Raising Steam.
If money isn’t an issue, starting earlier in the series is recommended, so you get a feel for his world. There are also a couple of books that work as standalones – Hogfather and Small Gods work as two of those. There was one book published after his death – The Shepherd’s Crown – which is actually the last book in several lines of his world. It may not even make a lot of sense unless you’ve read several of those lines. It was his farewell to his fans and his worlds.
Not to start with, no. In fact I firmly recommend reading it last if you intend to read the whole series. There are things about it that mean something different after reading everything else; it would be tough to start with for a new reader who wouldn’t have all that context.
That said, I do recommend reading it at all. I know some people have put their copies aside because they aren’t ready yet. I held onto mine for a year. I get it. Sometimes it takes time. But go easy on a resolution to never read it so it will never be over. It was written to be read. It has some important things in it. And after you read it, well, no, there won’t be any more. That was the last one.
But it isn’t over, not over over, the way things are when they’re dead. The Disc is too big for that; we know it because we’ve been there so many times and every time we go back it’s been moving even while we were away. I’ve been reading and re-reading these books for over half my life and I still find things I’ve never noticed in them before, little bits and pieces of the Disc that I’ve never ever seen. And sometimes things I’ve seen a hundred times look totally different through eyes just a few years older. And sometimes it’s places I’ve been and things I’ve seen before, all familiar, all recognizable, and that’s good too. It doesn’t have to be new. The familiar places just start to feel like home.
If you decide never to read it, I understand. Sometimes it’s just nice to know that it’s there, that there’s still an adventure that you can have for the first time. And, hell, reading it isn’t easy. It’s probably the hardest time I’ve ever had reading a book, if only physically because it’s hard to read while lying on the floor in the fetal position.
For me it was worth it. And I do recommend it. But ultimately it’s got to be up to you.
We had vegan friends who handled the cat food tin in the same way that people at Sellafield handle something that’s started to tick. In the end, they worked out a vegetarian diet with the occasional treat of fish. Their cat was a young Siamese. It thrived on the stuff. Of course it did. It used to go out and hang around the organic goat shed, and ate more rats and mice than its owners had hot dinners, which wasn’t hard. But it was very understanding about it, and never let them know. We occasionally saw it trotting over the garden with something fluffy in its mouth, and it used to give us looks of conspiratorial embarrassment, like a Methodist minister caught enjoying a pint.
Death turned up in the Discworld books in order to make a joke work. That was in The Colour of Magic. Suddenly he was and, twenty-one years later, still is one of the most popular characters in the series. People ask me to forge his signature in books. Sometimes I get nice letters from people who know they’re due to meet him soon, and hope I’ve got him right. Those are the kind of letters that cause me to stare at the wall for some time.
Terry Pratchett, regarding the popularity of Death in the Discworld series. (The Art of Discworld with Paul Kidby)
Sir Terry Pratchett is a master of the written word but he ain’t shit for the way he trained me to accept dumb naming conventions because i got three missed calls on my phone from Scam Likely and I spent like half a day wondering who I knew named Scam.
It’s political, sir. Apparently he wants a return to the values and traditions that made the city great, sir.”
“Does he KNOW what those values and traditions WERE?” said Vimes, aghast.
Female? He told you he was female?”
“She,” Angua corrected. “This is Ank-Morpork, you know. We’ve got extra pronouns here.”
She could smell his bewilderment…
“Well, I would have though she’d have the decency to keep it to herself,” carrot said finally. “I don’t think it’s very clever, you know, to go around drawing attention to the fact.”
“Carrot, I think you might have something wrong with your head,” said Angua.
“What?”
“I think you might have it stuck up your bum.
I read everything from Mort to Reaper Man in first draft, and gave Terry notes, and then moved to America, and this was back in the days when you couldn’t just attach a file and email it. So after that I read the books as they came out. When Terry got ill I slowed down, and decided I’d keep a few unread for when I needed them, and I have three or four still unread, waiting for a day when I need to go and spend some time with Terry’s mind.
I woke up this morning with the urge to post a brief and thoroughly non-exhaustive list of Discworld pun/reference names of varying levels of obscurity that people may or may not have gotten, and HERE IT IS.
Vetinari is a play on “Medici,” the extremely powerful Italian political family who inspired Macchiavelli’s “The Prince.”
The philosopher Didactylos’s name literally means “two fingers,” which refers to a rude British gesture roughly equivalent to flipping someone off.
Death’s manservant Alberto Malich is named after Albertus Magnus.
The feuding Ankh-Morpork Selachii and Venturi noble families are named, respectively, for the scientific name for sharks and a part found in jet engines. This is a reference to the feuding Sharks and Jets street gangs in the musical West Side Story, which is itself a retelling of Romeo and Juliet.
“Nobby” is a slang term for a policeman. Nobby’s dad, Sconner, gets his name from- well, you know how the Nac Mac Feegle call people “ya wee scunner”? Same word.
The guide to nobility Twurp’s Peerage is named after the Roundworld equivalent, Burke’s Peerage.
Mrs. Rosemary “Rosie” Palm, head of the Guild of Seamstresses, is named for. Um. Something a bit… rude.
All the golems mentioned in Feet of Clay have Yiddish names, and mostly uncomplimentary ones. “Dorfl” means “idiot” and “Meshugah” means “crazy.”
The head of the dwarves running the printing press in The Truth is Gunilla Goodmountain, whose surname is a literal translation of “Gutenberg,” the inventor of movable type.
“Greebo” means… well, I’ll quote the Annotated Pratchett File: “’Greebo’ is a word that was widely used in the early seventies to
describe the sort of man who wanders around in oil-covered denim and
leather (with similar long hair) and who settles disagreements with a
motorcycle chain – the sort who would like to be a Hell’s Angel but
doesn’t have enough style.”
Nanny Ogg’s house is called “Tir Nanny Ogg,” a play on “Tír na nÓg,” the otherworld in Irish mythology.
Miss Treason’s given name, Eumenides, is another name for the Erinyes, Greek goddess of vengeance.
Erzulie Gogol’s first name is shared with a Vodou goddess, and “Baron Saturday” is a play on “Baron Samedi.” (EDIT: somebody said it’s actually a straight English translation, which I was not aware of.)
Desiderata Hollow, good fairy godmother, has a first name derived from the Latin word for “to wish.”
“Lilith de Tempscire”‘s surname is just a French translation of “Weatherwax.”
The terrible pun in Casanunda’s name (he’s a dwarf, so he’s UNDA, not OVA) is probably obvious to a lot of people, but it took YEARS for me to notice it, so I’m including it on this list.
The old Count de Magpyr’s name is Bela de Magpyr, after, of course, Bela Lugosi. (And Vlad also mentions an aunt Carmilla.)
“Djelibeybi,” for those unfamiliar with British sweets or classic Doctor Who, is pronounced identically to “jelly baby.” The country of Hersheba was introduced after many, many Americans failed to get the joke- with limited success, because it’s less immediately recognizable as a play on “Hershey bar.”
“Omnian” is a multilingual play on “Catholic.” Omni- is a root meaning “everything,” and “Catholic” originally meant “universal.”
Lu-Tze’s name is a play on Laozi/Lao-Tzu/Lao-Tze, founder of Taoism.
Dr. Follett, head of the Assassin’s Guild thirty years ago in Night Watch, is named for… author Ken Follett, in exchange for a significant monetary donation to charity.
Let me introduce you to the Annotated Pratchett File. More annotations than you can shake a banana at.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 