I HAVE TO KNOW. WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF I HAD NOT...LOST?
'At the cards, you mean?'
YES. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?
Granny laid the baby down carefully on the straw, and smiled.
'Well,' she said, 'for a start... I'd have broken your bloody arm.'
I keep trying to remember my fave Death quotes but that is what keeps coming to mind. Maybe I like it because it says that Death isn't all-powerful even if he is all-present.
I read and watch Hogfather every year and love seeing Terry's cameos in Discworld movies. When you see him there and hear his kind grandfatherly voice playing a police officer in BBC's stellar radio play of Good Omens, one tends to lose sight of truths like Neil Gaiman: 'Terry Pratchett isn't jolly. He's angry'.
So much as glance at a novel though - especially a later one - and one immediately finds the angry Terry again. In story after story, with character after character he hammers his point in with deadly clarity: 'Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.'It is no wonder that, as Neil Gaiman so eloquently - and yet so simply - puts it
Terry Pratchett is not one to go gentle into any night, good or otherwise. He will rage, as he leaves, against so many things: stupidity, injustice, human foolishness and shortsightedness, not just the dying of the light. And, hand in hand with the anger, like an angel and a demon walking into the sunset, there is love: for human beings, in all our fallibility; for treasured objects; for stories; and ultimately and in all things, love for human dignity.
In my opinion, John Green's 'slowly then all at once' quote doesn't come anywhere near this one:
"His heart beats faster every time he looks at you, and yours skips a beat every time you see him."
I finally understand those people who embrace Shakespeare or other writers as their religion now. One day, when I've researched the topic as thoroughly as I'd like, I will write a loooooong post about the religion one can pull from Discworld. Not the one with the gods who like atheists because they're something to aim at, but the one with principles like:
“But…but you can’t treat religion as a sort of buffet, can you? I mean, you can’t say yes please, I’ll have some of the Celestial Paradise and a helping of the Divine Plan but go easy on the kneeling and none of the Prohibition of Images, they give me wind. Its table d´hôte or nothing, otherwise…well, it would be silly.”
and
"Now if I'd seen him, really there, really alive, it'd be in me like a fever. If I thought there was some god who really did care two hoots about people, who watched 'em like a father and cared for 'em like a mother...well, you wouldn't catch me sayin' things like 'there are two sides to every question' and 'we must respect other people's beliefs.' You wouldn't find me just being gen'rally nice in the hope that it'd all turn out all right in the end, not if that flame was burning in me like an unforgivin' sword."
and
“Just because you can explain it doesn't mean it's not still a miracle.”
and
“Thou shalt not submit thy god to market forces.”
and
"As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn't measure up."
and
“Personal isn’t the same as important."
Great. Now I've practically gone and written the post. Good thing there's so much more to say.To borrow Rincewind's motto from 'The Last Hero' morituri nolumus mori (we who are about to die don't want to). Dear Terry, how so many of us wish you hadn't died. It is sooooo consoling to know that The Shepherd's Crown and The Long Utopia are on their way at least.
I'm one of those people who names their things. Not everything, just my personal possessions, and always literary - obviously. My USB sticks are Athelstane and Cedric (Ivanhoe), and von Lipwig.
Putting <meta http-equiv=”X-Clacks-Overhead” content=”GNU Terry Pratchett” /> into my Tumblr html and as a Chrome plug-in was a great comfort and still is. It soothes me to know that the most appropriate tribute to my favorite author possible is racing around the globe every day from a million accounts.
Read more about that here.
"Time is running out": Neil Gaiman on why Radio 4's Good Omens is really for Terry Pratchett
Good Omens was such a lovely Christmas present and the most apropos of Easter ones. I thank BBC and Neil Gaiman and all the rest of those involved for giving that to us and I'm so grateful Neil had the foresight and the care to get this done right in time.668: The Neighbor of the Beast, Terry Pratchett's autobiography/memoir, and Paper Soldiers are my top three unfinished books that I WILL read one day if I have to go to an alternate universe to do it!
This post is a mess because I want to say and show soooooo much that I can't. This will have to do for a start.
Until later, here are a couple more of my favorite articles and interviews from and with Neil Gaiman (another favorite of mine who will eventually have posts about his work here) about and with Terry Pratchett.
‘That’s how I want to remember Terry’: Neil Gaiman reminisces about Pratchett
Terry Pratchett - an appreciation
Gaiman & Pratchett, Together Again... Almost
Happy birthday, Sir Terry Pratchett.
Thank you for everything.
