Pratchett: I Aten’t Dead
I discovered in the last week — via word of mouth and then via the BBC that my favourite author Terry Pratchett is suffering from a rare form of early Alzheimer’s diseases (or aald timer’s disease, as we would have it here in the North).
He explains (in the letter “an embuggerance” in which he makes it public) that he would have liked to keep it quiet for a while — presumably because he’s going to be snowed under with well meaning but rather hopeless get well soon cards, and also because no doubt various journalists, reviewers and bloggers will be getting started on writing obituaries.
After all, if he wrote a crap book and hadn’t been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, everyone would just say “zat is crap, Terry!”. They would use that mock French accent in order to make the phrase sound a little like “satisfactory”, in case you’re wondering. However, now he’s been diagnosed with a rare form of early Alzheimer’s, as soon as he writes something that isn’t up to his usual standard (or maybe just that a particular reviewer doesn’t like), people are going to start questioning his mental faculties.
And that’s not really fair.
He says that he thinks that “there is time for at least a few more books yet”, which is encouraging but also possibly indicative that he believes Pratchett the man has become subsumed within the monster that we call the Discworld. And that’s not fair on him, either.
Terry, mate – I enjoy your books. But there’s more to life than them. Do what you want to do. If you want to put them down for a while to spend some time with the family, you go ahead. If you want to keep writing, that’s great. Just don’t feel that you have to keep writing.
But then I’m doing the same thing as everyone else — treating him like an invalid. Maybe I should take a different approach?
Terry mate, I want to see at least another eight discworld books: two with entirely new characters; one based around the city watch; one based mostly around Vetinari, one based on the witches, one following the wizards, and I think it’s time to bring Rincewind back for another couple. And when you’ve finished them — and not before, d’you hear me? — then you can start to take it easy and or be poorly.
Now get cracking…
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