'My mother was the first pushy mum'
A good friend of mine has a bookshelf that is on the verge of falling down. It is groaning under the weight of well-thumbed tomes, all of which are written by Terry Pratchett.
This friend of mine is not a great reader, you see, except for where Mr Pratchett is concerned. His fantasy- cum-satire-cum-science fiction books shift at a rate of 2.5 million copies per year in the UK. They have the power to make one read rapaciously, ravenously – putting very nice oak bookshelves at risk in the process.
Of course, the past few years have seen Pratchett in the public eye for reasons other than his writing. In 2007, he was diagnosed with Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA) – a form of Alzheimer’s that causes the back of the brain to shrink. With characteristic jollity, Pratchett labelled the diagnosis an ‘embuggerance’ and carried on working. He also took a proactive approach to dealing with the sense of his own mortality, making a programme for the BBC in which he explored the nature of death. For this reason, the 65-year-old writer is now just as frequently drawn on for his (supportive) view of euthanasia as for his storytelling.
Six years on from his diagnosis, it would be both flippant and dishonest to imply that he bears no trace of the disease. Meeting him to discuss his latest novel, Raising Steam, there is that undeniable Pratchett spark in his eye – one part naughty schoolboy, two parts quick-witted scholar – but he is slower in his responses, and they don’t always answer the question being asked. That could be deliberate, however, as I am soon to discover.
‘Most of what’s wrong with me at the moment is I’m actually quite elderly,’ he remarks. ‘It’s the old legs and stuff like that. And the bowels. I could tell you about the bowels. But I shan’t.’ He smiles as he says this, and takes a sip from his glass of brandy. ‘When you are young, you want to be older. And when you are old you want to tell people about it. When you’re in the middle, you don’t really give a toss.’
He may produce spellbinding prose, but in conversation Pratchett does not mince his words. He describes his illness as a ‘nuisance’, but is both pragmatic and philosophical in his approach to it. The PCA has affected his sight and he’s no longer able to type, so he uses a hi-tech dictation programme to write his books.
‘I’m like my father – I’m stoic. Yes, I have PCA , but I also have a very nice computer and a talking pipe, which I can speak into. It understands my voice, and it knows the names of all my characters. The first word I taught it was a***hole, mind you.’
Writing, for him, has always been the time at which he feels most alive. Asking where he derives his inspiration, he responds with typical levity: ‘I’m buggered if I know. I snap my fingers and it turns up.’
He does divulge, however, that it’s a passion generated from a misspent childhood. Back when Pratchett really was a naughty schoolboy, his mother paid him to read in an effort to prepare him for the 11-plus exam.
‘My mum was a pushy mum,’ he says affectionately. ‘I don’t think pushy mums had been known by that time, but she was the first. She paid me a penny per book, but by the time I got to the fourth book, she didn’t have to pay me at all.’
That fourth book was The Wind In The Willows and Pratchett tells how he was enthralled by the world of talking animals. ‘The book was telling lots and lots of lies. Creatures who look like Edwardian people? Who live in houses and drive automobiles? It wasn’t possible. I became entranced by the way a writer can change the nature of what you think.’
Pratchett would while away his afternoons and weekends in Beaconsfield library. When his headmaster refused to make him a pupil librarian at school (‘he didn’t like me and I didn’t like him’), he decided to go, purposefully walking down the sacrosanct prefect’s corridor as he left. He phoned up the editor of the local paper, asked for a job, and within days was honing his writing skills as a local reporter. ‘And on my first day I saw a corpse. How’s that for real life?’
Just as Pratchett’s boyhood imagination was captivated by talking animals, his own writing challenges perceptions of what’s real. His Discworld series – for which he won the Carnegie Medal in 2001 – focuses on a world that is balanced on four elephants, which in turn stand on a giant turtle. Fantasy, humour and social commentary interweave, creating novels that are at once escapist and an astute commentary on society.
And that’s the thing about Pratchett – he does not shy away from the darker side of life, but he rarely allows himself to become morose. He is fascinated by experience – be it good or bad. ‘I call it the Black Mill,’ he explains, rolling the brandy around in the glass. ‘When my mother was grieving over my father, I was looking at her and part of me was saying, “So this is what it’s like holding your grieving mother because your father is dying.” A little pixie in my head was writing all of this down. Everything about yourself, people you meet, anything important – it all goes into the Black Mill. It turns and turns and eventually you get the gist of it, which later turns up in a novel somewhere.’
So writing is a way of categorising and cognising life? All of a sudden philosophical Pratchett is replaced by the more mischievous version.
‘Possibly,’ he says. ‘But I also just like words.’
Consciously or otherwise, he gives the impression that he is always one step ahead. With more than 40 books under his belt and a literary reputation that most writers can only dream of, Pratchett is gracious yet unashamedly gratified by the effect of his words. He describes instances in which parents have come up to him, gushing their thanks because his books have finally got their sons and daughters to read. ‘It happens quite often,’ he says.
In many ways, then, it has come full circle: the words borne from his childhood passion for reading are inspiring new generations. Pratchett merely shrugs at this suggestion. ‘If a lot of children and, indeed, adults are introduced to the wonderful world of writing, then I’ll be happy,’ he says.
As for him, he intends to continue writing until he is no longer able. Beyond that, he refuses to be pinned down. ‘I have the means of my death in my own hands. I don’t intend to use it, but you never know.’
Like his writing, Pratchett is determined to remain mysterious and fascinating to the last.
Raising Steam, by Terry Pratchett, is published by Doubleday, priced £20.
This friend of mine is not a great reader, you see, except for where Mr Pratchett is concerned. His fantasy- cum-satire-cum-science fiction books shift at a rate of 2.5 million copies per year in the UK. They have the power to make one read rapaciously, ravenously – putting very nice oak bookshelves at risk in the process.
Of course, the past few years have seen Pratchett in the public eye for reasons other than his writing. In 2007, he was diagnosed with Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA) – a form of Alzheimer’s that causes the back of the brain to shrink. With characteristic jollity, Pratchett labelled the diagnosis an ‘embuggerance’ and carried on working. He also took a proactive approach to dealing with the sense of his own mortality, making a programme for the BBC in which he explored the nature of death. For this reason, the 65-year-old writer is now just as frequently drawn on for his (supportive) view of euthanasia as for his storytelling.
Six years on from his diagnosis, it would be both flippant and dishonest to imply that he bears no trace of the disease. Meeting him to discuss his latest novel, Raising Steam, there is that undeniable Pratchett spark in his eye – one part naughty schoolboy, two parts quick-witted scholar – but he is slower in his responses, and they don’t always answer the question being asked. That could be deliberate, however, as I am soon to discover.
‘Most of what’s wrong with me at the moment is I’m actually quite elderly,’ he remarks. ‘It’s the old legs and stuff like that. And the bowels. I could tell you about the bowels. But I shan’t.’ He smiles as he says this, and takes a sip from his glass of brandy. ‘When you are young, you want to be older. And when you are old you want to tell people about it. When you’re in the middle, you don’t really give a toss.’
He may produce spellbinding prose, but in conversation Pratchett does not mince his words. He describes his illness as a ‘nuisance’, but is both pragmatic and philosophical in his approach to it. The PCA has affected his sight and he’s no longer able to type, so he uses a hi-tech dictation programme to write his books.
‘I’m like my father – I’m stoic. Yes, I have PCA , but I also have a very nice computer and a talking pipe, which I can speak into. It understands my voice, and it knows the names of all my characters. The first word I taught it was a***hole, mind you.’
Writing, for him, has always been the time at which he feels most alive. Asking where he derives his inspiration, he responds with typical levity: ‘I’m buggered if I know. I snap my fingers and it turns up.’
He does divulge, however, that it’s a passion generated from a misspent childhood. Back when Pratchett really was a naughty schoolboy, his mother paid him to read in an effort to prepare him for the 11-plus exam.
‘My mum was a pushy mum,’ he says affectionately. ‘I don’t think pushy mums had been known by that time, but she was the first. She paid me a penny per book, but by the time I got to the fourth book, she didn’t have to pay me at all.’
That fourth book was The Wind In The Willows and Pratchett tells how he was enthralled by the world of talking animals. ‘The book was telling lots and lots of lies. Creatures who look like Edwardian people? Who live in houses and drive automobiles? It wasn’t possible. I became entranced by the way a writer can change the nature of what you think.’
Pratchett would while away his afternoons and weekends in Beaconsfield library. When his headmaster refused to make him a pupil librarian at school (‘he didn’t like me and I didn’t like him’), he decided to go, purposefully walking down the sacrosanct prefect’s corridor as he left. He phoned up the editor of the local paper, asked for a job, and within days was honing his writing skills as a local reporter. ‘And on my first day I saw a corpse. How’s that for real life?’
Just as Pratchett’s boyhood imagination was captivated by talking animals, his own writing challenges perceptions of what’s real. His Discworld series – for which he won the Carnegie Medal in 2001 – focuses on a world that is balanced on four elephants, which in turn stand on a giant turtle. Fantasy, humour and social commentary interweave, creating novels that are at once escapist and an astute commentary on society.
And that’s the thing about Pratchett – he does not shy away from the darker side of life, but he rarely allows himself to become morose. He is fascinated by experience – be it good or bad. ‘I call it the Black Mill,’ he explains, rolling the brandy around in the glass. ‘When my mother was grieving over my father, I was looking at her and part of me was saying, “So this is what it’s like holding your grieving mother because your father is dying.” A little pixie in my head was writing all of this down. Everything about yourself, people you meet, anything important – it all goes into the Black Mill. It turns and turns and eventually you get the gist of it, which later turns up in a novel somewhere.’
So writing is a way of categorising and cognising life? All of a sudden philosophical Pratchett is replaced by the more mischievous version.
‘Possibly,’ he says. ‘But I also just like words.’
Consciously or otherwise, he gives the impression that he is always one step ahead. With more than 40 books under his belt and a literary reputation that most writers can only dream of, Pratchett is gracious yet unashamedly gratified by the effect of his words. He describes instances in which parents have come up to him, gushing their thanks because his books have finally got their sons and daughters to read. ‘It happens quite often,’ he says.
In many ways, then, it has come full circle: the words borne from his childhood passion for reading are inspiring new generations. Pratchett merely shrugs at this suggestion. ‘If a lot of children and, indeed, adults are introduced to the wonderful world of writing, then I’ll be happy,’ he says.
As for him, he intends to continue writing until he is no longer able. Beyond that, he refuses to be pinned down. ‘I have the means of my death in my own hands. I don’t intend to use it, but you never know.’
Like his writing, Pratchett is determined to remain mysterious and fascinating to the last.
Raising Steam, by Terry Pratchett, is published by Doubleday, priced £20.