Me and Mr Pratchett

I have been thinking recently about getting rid of some of my books. After 25 years I've reached critical mass, with books in every room, every corner, on every surface and under every bed. I have boxes in the roof and two large bookcases in two different rooms, and in my wardrobe. I have course books on feminist medical history, comics, craft books, grammar books and enough fiction that I would never have to step out into the real world again. I have a lot of books. 

Getting rid of possessions is always hard, at least for me. Every time I pick something up with the intention of giving it away or selling it, I become hugely sentimental - even if the item is something I haven't touched in months or even years. I'm halfway between being a socially acceptable bookworm and a TV intervention hoarder. So when I decided that the time had come for a cull, my first thought wasn't to what should go, but what should stay. What meant more to me than anything else? What books do I read over, and over? What books do I want to pass to my children, should I spawn? 
The first name on my "Keep" list was Sir Terry Pratchett. 

I was probably 9 the first time I saw one of his books. The boy who sat next to me in class was reading Reaper Man as his quiet time book and I was instantly fascinated by the cover. Shortly after I read The Carpet People, Truckers, Diggers and Wings, all from my local library. I wasn't swept away, but I knew what I liked, even that young. My new school, at 11, had the biggest library I had ever seen, and more importantly, I could spend all my free time there if I wanted. Our fantasy section was about three shelves high and mostly consisted of Discworld. (I think there was some Pullman there, but I'm afraid he never got a grip on me like Mr Pratchett). I read everything they had, and then more, as I sought it out in my local library too. Moving Pictures and Thief of Time were personal favourites, Susan, I decided, was definitely who I was going to be when I grew up. Sensible, but incredibly, incredibly cool. This man was up there, I knew, with those other established greats of my personal canon: J.R.R. Tolkien and Brian Jacques. He was for real.

Reaper Man, cover from LSpace.org
"“It was the living who ignored the strange and wonderful, because life was too full of the boring and mundane.” 

My first self bought Pratchett was Reaper Man, bought on a Cornish holiday and devoured. I can't tell you what came next, only that they did. And they changed me. I looked at this man in his funny hat, and his funny stories and these characters who were really people, and spoke like real people and I suddenly, passionately, wanted to be an author. I had notebooks filled with scribbles and notes and characters and titles. He took the fantasy worlds I was used to and made them more real because the people in them were just like the people around me, and had chest pains when they were old, and worried about fitting in, and whose parents weren't malicious, just vague, and people who liked their eggs with the crunchy bits round the edge, and BLTs without the L or the T. Monstrous Regiment, bought on another summer holiday became a bridge between me and my mother, separated by the great divide of being a moody teenager, and being a mum who knew better. We giggled at socks, and quoted little bits to each other. Whether we're fraught or fighting or not, this book is something we'll always have in common. It's still her favourite of his books, and that it gave me that bond with my mother is a debt I could never repay, not in a hundred, thousand words of thanks.

Monstrous Regiment, cover from LSpace.org

“This was not a fairy-tale castle and there was no such thing as a fairy-tale ending, but sometimes you could threaten to kick the handsome prince in the ham-and-eggs.” 

I had already fallen to kinship with Vimes and the Watch, and found myself reading Night Watch whilst performing in Les Miserables myself. My copy is still annotated with quotes from the musical, notes about crossover points and, lots of exclamation marks at his brilliance. So I read Les Miserables. I did have to force it a bit, but I got through it, and I cross-examined it, and then I went back and read Night Watch again and annotated further. My copy (currently at rest in a bookvalanche somewhere) is furry, cracked, grimy and loved with all of my heart. With Carpe Jugulum came Dracula and with Good Omens came Neil Gaiman, and all of his books. My shelves exploded. My mind exploded, and it was fun. I bought the books I didn't have from charity shops, and as very special treats from the Waterstones in Exeter when I was at university. I read them on six hour train journeys, and in the sunshine outside the Cathedral, and in the bath, and mostly when I should have been reading other books.

Night Watch, cover from Lspace.org

“That was always the dream, wasn't it? 'I wish I'd known then what I know now'? But when you got older you found out that you NOW wasn't YOU then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp.” 

When the dream of writing fell off, to real life, and to depression and to sad, young relationships and the dread of earning money to pay for all the things I wanted (books, mostly), Mr Pratchett was there. And the Discworld was there. The old jokes, and the new ones that I don't get until my umpteenth read, and the one about the rhino that I won't get until I'm forty and married. It's still there when I get it into my head I want to try again, and get discouraged and fall out of love, and wonder if I should quit my job. Those books will always be there, even if they're never joined by another, The Discworld will always be there. The turtle moves.

But my god, will I miss you Mr Pratchett.