I, Too, Am Begging You to Read Terry Pratchett
by Ilana Masad
Ankh-Morpork, the beautifully chaotic city-state where many of the late Terry Pratchett’s beloved Discworld novels take place, has a beggars’ guild. It’s basically a protection racket: if you don’t want any of the “Twitchers, Droolers, Dribblers, Mumblers, Mutterers, Walking-Along-Shouters, Demanders of a Chip, People who call other people Jimmy, People who need Tuppence for a Cup of Tea, People who need Eightpence for a Meal, People with placards saying ‘Why lie? I need a beer’ and Foul Ole Ron” to show up and bug you at your special event, you can pay the guild for its members to stay away.
No such arrangements exist, unfortunately, for paying critics to stay away from Terry Pratchett. In a recent piece, “I Am Begging You to Read Terry Pratchett,” Atlantic staff writer Helen Lewis starts off by worrying that because Pratchett’s books are unfilmable, the author will disappear from public consciousness. This is a pretty bleak outlook that doesn’t put much faith in the books themselves, nor in the curiosity of readers.
Pratchett, who died in 2015, has a broad and loving readership; his books have been translated into dozens of languages, and sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. In 2009 he was knighted for services to literature, although, according to his website’s official timeline, “he maintained that his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any.” I love his books because they’re funny and smart, often taking the shape of tightly plotted mysteries wrapped in riotous Discworld lore. Pratchett succeeded in making fun of everyone and everything without ever being cruel, or letting cynicism take over.
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