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| As of 5:05 PM today. |
This is kind of bonkers, but it also underscores the popularity of Discworld.
I never read any of Sir Terry's work, even though I was very much aware of it, because I've been a bit intimidated by it. I'm aware that there's a lot of puns and humor in the novels, and my concern was that I simply wouldn't get the humor in them. Kind of like watching Red Dwarf, I know there's humor there, but a lot of it simply flew over my head because it was so British that I didn't get the context.*
Or maybe trying to understand some of the Monty Python's Flying Circus social commentary, particularly with (then) current political and celebrity characters appearing as caricatures. To me, I simply had no grasp of the context at all, so it could have been humor surrounding Warren G. Harding and the Teapot Dome Scandal for all I knew. The Parrot Sketch? Sure, I got that one. The Ministry of Silly Walks? Yeah, because every country has a blasted bureaucracy. But a lot of Terry Gilliam's cartoons? Eh, not so much.**
But given Sir Terry's popularity, underscored by the support for the Discworld RPG, I think I might give the series a chance.
Yay, one more book (or is that set of books?) for the TBR pile.
*Before you ask, yes, I gave Red Dwarf a chance. My brother-in-law loved the show, which is how I was introduced to it.
**Although I did see a graphic of Edward Heath in a couple of them. I know him not because of The Beatles' Taxman song ("Uh oh, Mister Heath"), but because I attended a question and answer session with Mr. Heath when he was in Dayton for something or another back when I was in college. Let's just say that Mr. Heath does not suffer fools very well, and I'm glad I decided I wasn't going to ask him a question even though the opening was there.
The early Discworld novels are pretty much parodies of generic fantasy tropes, humor that's very accessible to anyone who's read a few fantasy novels. As it goes on, the series turns more and more into a soap opera with an ever-increasing focus on social commentary. I can't say I ever thought of it as particularly "British" though. Pratchett's themes and concerns seem a lot more universal (I was tempted to say generic...) than that. Red Dwarf was far more "British" than Discworld and far less funny. Due to the sopa opera elements, I'd definitely recommend reading them in chronological order, even though the best ones are in the middle.
ReplyDeleteAfter the author died, I thought the series would slip quietly into obscurity. It was very much sustained by Pratchett's metronomic abilty to produce a new book every year at exactly the same time, ready for the Christmas market. We used to get streams of the same people every year coming in to buy the new one as a present for someone, the same present they gave them every year.
For a few years after his death, that did seem to be what happened. We'd got to the point where we were only keeping a handful of his back catalog on the shelves any more. And then whoever looks after the IP got behind it and started pumping out special editions and new covers and so on and interest picked right up again. I don't imagine Discworld is ever going to be LotR, let alone Harry Potter in terms of sales but the commercial future of the series looks brighter now than it did for a while.
The early Discworld novels are pretty much parodies of generic fantasy tropes, humor that's very accessible to anyone who's read a few fantasy novels.
DeleteAs in the same vein as Robert Lynn Aspirin's "Another Fine Myth" series? I could get behind that.
I was more concerned as to the depth of the puns and humor, with the potential requirement that I know a bit of British culture to understand them fully. Sure, the themes may be universal, but an author can easily torpedo that by making puns that would go over the head of an international audience.