British humourist Sir Terry Pratchett’s biography fills in for a voice we miss
Terry Practhett. Pic/Getty Images
When the biography of a beloved writer comes, it’s a voice from beyond you can’t ignore. And Sir Terry Pratchett has been accused of both: Literature; and of all dead authors, being the most alive. So when A Life With Footnotes, written by his assistant of 20 plus years, Rob Wilkins, popped up, this devotee booked a copy and a ticket to Sojha (Himachal Pradesh) to read uninterruptedly.
The prolific humourist (two to three releases a year) was the satirical dispenser of wisdom, pricker of pomposity and lifter of the veil over how the world works. His books are instructional manuals to life and humanity, and in the tradition of cantadoras, can be dispensed as medicine. A prescription follows: Small Gods for those wrestling with the nature of religion, Nightwatch for the essence of duty, Johnny and the Dead for mortality, and The Fifth Elephant for international relations.
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What can we say: Some live in the times of Sai Baba; we lived in the times of Pratchett. Based on notes the writer made for his autobiography—taken forward by Wilkins as posterior cortical atrophy (a type of Alzheimer’s) took over Pratchett’s brain—A Life… is a handbook on living with success and with imminent death.
When success came (later than expected, and slower), Pratchett chose to be “horizontally wealthy”. What’s the difference? The horizontally wealthy do not let increased income dictate their tastes. “You like books and now you have money? Buy more books!” Pratchett and Wilkins did a lot of ‘arseing around’ with technology, farming, books... and other pursuits giving heft to Henry Thoreau’s truncated adage, ‘To sit down and write, you must stand up to live.’ And Pratchett did so gloriously—he rigged his set-up at his office, The Chapel, such that by the time he entered the door, made himself a cup of tea and sat down to write, the computer had booted up to the page where he last left it.
He bought and refurbished a genuine shepherd’s hut, forged a sword with bits of Sikhote-Alin meteorite in a furnace powered by hay and sheep manure from his farm, when he was awarded the OBE. His complicated back-up was on an indestructible harddrive which would be ejected from the Chapel in case of fire, to land several miles away on his property. Luckily, both Wilkins and he realized that to test it, they would have to resort to arson, and didn’t. When the time came for making Discworld merchandise, instead of a multinational company, he chose a local sculptor to work closely with. Money bought him that greatest of freedoms: To follow one’s curiosity without a determined outcome.
When the illness came, he launched Operation Scream and Harangue, which involved diverting funds into research and making a case for assisted death: A good life followed by a good death. The man who had humanized Death into a concerned grandfather with a fondness for cats allowed a documentary crew to follow him to make three films: Terry Pratchett: Living with Alzheimer’s, Choosing to die and Facing Extinction. Besides these lessons, the book has special appearances of sci-fi and fantasy fiction rockstars: Douglas Adams, Arthur C Clarke and friend Neil Gaiman. And if you’ve missed his voice through the pandemic and general unrest, here it is now.
Amazon.com
Price: Rs 663
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