I’m not quite sure how Terry Pratchett does it, but every time I finish one of his Discworld novels, I’m convinced that the character set featured in that novel is my favorite in his repertoire. The witches, the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork, Death and his kin, the faculty of the Unseen University… all of them vie for the top spot, and all of them have held it at one point, depending on what I read most recently.
That’s pretty impressive, I think, to create a sprawling fantasy landscape and do it so even-handedly that every corner of it is a pleasure to explore. And it’s great to have that kind of reliability during the summer months, when my level of lethargy is at its highest. I know I’m at least going to enjoy any given Discworld offering, and I can be reasonably certain that I’m going to laugh out loud several times.
The latest lap in my summer Pratchett-a-thon was Feet of Clay, starring Commander Samuel Vimes and the variously odd public servants of the City Watch. As usual, the cast is huge – cops, dwarves, trolls, golems, werewolves, vampires, bureaucrats, aristocrats, peasants, and so on – and Pratchett handles them all with aplomb and affection. Even passers-by get vivid, funny, or telling moments that help fill in the picture of their fractious, absurd, yet utterly coherent fictional world.
Discworld is like fantasy literature’s rec room. It’s where all of the stereotypes and familiar themes go to kick back and relax and not take it all so seriously. They can play with expectations and step out of their usual confines. But at the same time, Pratchett doesn’t ride on parody and novelty. Even with all of the digressions and digs and playfulness, he still constructs his stories very carefully. Feet of Clay is a good example; it’s an extremely tight and involving mystery, and it still finds plenty of time to be hilarious and insightful.
This probably only pertains to me, but I’m usually very anal about picking up books in a series in order. (While I don’t like Sue Grafton’s books, I admire her use of the alphabet.) I think it’s to Pratchett’s credit that I make an exception for the Discworld books. He doesn’t spoil his own jokes, and he’s not so married to internal continuity that you need to read the books in any particular order. It probably doesn’t hurt if you do, but it doesn’t hamper the enjoyment if you don’t. (The comic geek side of me is screaming “Blasphemy!” as I type this.)
If there’s a problem with the Discworld books (and it really doesn’t count as one), it’s that they don’t seem to translate very well. I’ve seen a couple of animated versions of various installments, and taking the stories off the page has the odd result of flattening them. Everyone looked and sounded pretty much like I might have expected to, and I can’t fault the adaptations’ faithfulness, but there just doesn’t seem to be any way to successfully capture Pratchett’s voice. His prose is too packed with little gems and ironies and bits of wordplay.
While I wouldn’t want to see his work translated into comics, I do wish more comics writers shared some of Pratchett’s qualities. He’s an expert world-builder, an imaginative plotter, and has a fine handle on characterization. Above all, he’s generous with wit, detail, and creativity. He takes the most familiar toys and reconfigures them in fresh, funny, and even moving ways. He can turn the outlandish into something very human, and vice versa.