Discworld and Why I Love It

As some of you might know, my favorite author of all time is an English author named Terry Pratchett. I've never been able to convince any of my friends to read his books with any lasting success, but nothing in the world will make me dislike his Discworld series.

Terry Pratchett

Discworld books are not nearly as popular in the United States as they are in Britain. Before the advent of the Harry Potter series, Terry Pratchett was the most successful living writer in Britain. There are Discworld conventions, Discworld video games, Discworld stores- there's even a town in England that is officially the sister city of the main city on the Discworld, Ankh-Morpork. 

But why do I, personally, love Discworld so much? Because I do love it, that's certain. I recently bought a copy of The Compleat Ankh-Morkpork (misspelled on purpose) that came with an enormous fold-out map of the city. I also own The Discworld Companion, Science of the Discworld, and The Wit and Wisdom of the Discworld, as well as of course many of the actual Discworld books. 

I love Discworld because Terry Pratchett captures for me the perfect balance between absurd and serious. Most of his books appear comedic at the start, and for some people, read like straight farcical humor. But there's more to those books than comedy. I tend to distrust anyone who says those books are satire or comedy, because they aren't just that. In Night Watch, a book that borrows heavily from Les Mis and is undoubtedly funny, Terry Pratchett uses humor to make his readers consider the nature of revolution and rebellion. Inside all the jokes and references are lines like "don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions," and "we who think we are about to die will laugh at anything”. Funny at first, but just think about them. Central to the plot of Night Watch is the idea that our ideological fervor and hope for the future is absolutely useless in the face of stark reality. Night Watch is the story of a "glorious revolution" that fails. It fails completely. Much like in Les Mis, the people of Ankh-Morpork don't rise. Pratchett uses humor to disguise his message until you are ensnared. He tricks you into thinking about important things.

Death in Soul Music

 In Thud!, another book featuring Sam Vimes, the commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, Pratchett discusses war, prejudice and the violence inherent in every person. Death is also a major character in most Discworld novels. Pratchett introduces Death as a detached anthropomorphic personality who amusingly tries to understand human life, and speaks entirely in capital letters. Death is not scary, nor is he inhuman, entirely. But he unfailingly does his duty. In Mort, he rightly says, "THERE'S NO JUSTICE. THERE'S JUST ME." 

Pratchett's attitude towards Death is uniquely influenced by his own situation. Several years ago, he was diagnosed with swift-onset Alzheimer's disease. In 2009, he announced his intention to commit assisted suicide once his disease reaches a critical point. When he was knighted for "services to literature", he chose as his motto "Noli Timere Messorem", which in Latin means "Don't Fear the Reaper". 

But I didn't need to know those things about him to understand how he feels about death, life, and humanity. All those opinions are woven into the funny, dark, magnificent book series, the Discworld.