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The Last Of The Scumble
Mar. 13th, 2015 08:54 amThere were things I didn't like about the Discworld books.
I never liked Granny Weatherwax. Mostly I didn't like the fact that she was always, always right. I wanted to see her be completely wrong, just once, and admit it. I wanted her to admit that sometimes reading books can be a good thing, or that once in a while having ideas above your station might not be bad, or that if a bread knife was just as good for magic as a silver dagger with runes on it, then maybe a silver dagger with runes on it might be just as good as a bread knife, not to mention less likely to have breadcrumbs on it. But it never happened.
Lord Vetinari grew on me, but I didn't like him, for much the same reason. Someone once wrote (I forget who) that in Sir Terry's books you could be Good, or Right, or Nice, or occasionally perm any two of three, but it seemed to me that the Nice characters were never Right and the Right characters were never Nice, and that irked me a little. I got used to it, and I think towards the end the boundaries blurred a little, but it irked me.
I didn't like the way he treated elves. Possibly after Tolkien's near-deification of them there needed to be some sort of reaction, but I thought by the time Sir Terry got round to them we had already had that, and that Discworld as we had seen it was not a place in which a species without any redeeming feature whatsoever could comfortably sit. I looked forward to seeing the gradual rehabilitation of the elves. (Their pivotal role in the development of Roundworld's history in the Science of... books was a step in the right direction, but those books had other problems for me.)
So yes, there were things I didn't like about the Discworld books. But, just as with nuWho, those minor quibbles bothered me more because the things as a whole are so very damn nearly perfect, so very damn nearly ideal. And that they exist is a great good, but that there will be no more from his hand is a great sadness.
(He was quoted as saying that the Discworld is "safe" in the hands of his daughter Rhianna, but thinking about that it's possible that what he meant was that he had enforced on her a terrible oath not under any circumstances to do a Christopher Tolkien on him and publish his plot sketches, false starts and laundry lists to the world. Which would be quite understandable, of course, and a perfectly valid definition of "safe," but there is that in me that would still have liked to see more. Still, who knows, eh. Who...knows.)
I think I may have spoken to him once or twice, certainly never at any length. I would have bored him anyway. But I did email him once, greatly daring, and asked (probably along with several million other people) if the railways would ever come to Discworld. I forget his exact reply, but it was the usual non-committal response that authors make to people who try to give them ideas, as if they might ever run short.
He did it. And that is a great good.
But that it was the last of the scumble...is a great sadness.
I never liked Granny Weatherwax. Mostly I didn't like the fact that she was always, always right. I wanted to see her be completely wrong, just once, and admit it. I wanted her to admit that sometimes reading books can be a good thing, or that once in a while having ideas above your station might not be bad, or that if a bread knife was just as good for magic as a silver dagger with runes on it, then maybe a silver dagger with runes on it might be just as good as a bread knife, not to mention less likely to have breadcrumbs on it. But it never happened.
Lord Vetinari grew on me, but I didn't like him, for much the same reason. Someone once wrote (I forget who) that in Sir Terry's books you could be Good, or Right, or Nice, or occasionally perm any two of three, but it seemed to me that the Nice characters were never Right and the Right characters were never Nice, and that irked me a little. I got used to it, and I think towards the end the boundaries blurred a little, but it irked me.
I didn't like the way he treated elves. Possibly after Tolkien's near-deification of them there needed to be some sort of reaction, but I thought by the time Sir Terry got round to them we had already had that, and that Discworld as we had seen it was not a place in which a species without any redeeming feature whatsoever could comfortably sit. I looked forward to seeing the gradual rehabilitation of the elves. (Their pivotal role in the development of Roundworld's history in the Science of... books was a step in the right direction, but those books had other problems for me.)
So yes, there were things I didn't like about the Discworld books. But, just as with nuWho, those minor quibbles bothered me more because the things as a whole are so very damn nearly perfect, so very damn nearly ideal. And that they exist is a great good, but that there will be no more from his hand is a great sadness.
(He was quoted as saying that the Discworld is "safe" in the hands of his daughter Rhianna, but thinking about that it's possible that what he meant was that he had enforced on her a terrible oath not under any circumstances to do a Christopher Tolkien on him and publish his plot sketches, false starts and laundry lists to the world. Which would be quite understandable, of course, and a perfectly valid definition of "safe," but there is that in me that would still have liked to see more. Still, who knows, eh. Who...knows.)
I think I may have spoken to him once or twice, certainly never at any length. I would have bored him anyway. But I did email him once, greatly daring, and asked (probably along with several million other people) if the railways would ever come to Discworld. I forget his exact reply, but it was the usual non-committal response that authors make to people who try to give them ideas, as if they might ever run short.
He did it. And that is a great good.
But that it was the last of the scumble...is a great sadness.