#00 Because I Could Not

We passed the setting sun. Or rather, he passed us;

This is HE KINDLY STOPPED FOR ME, a lachrymose fiction blog dedicated to the series of Terry Pratchett-authored novels referred to collectively as 'The Discworld.' I decided to make this page after I noticed that, despite the fact that the books tend to feel (to me?) like the literary equivalent of a semi-fatal head wound, most fanpages devoted to their digital veneration (awesome though they tend to be) are preoccupied with Pratchett's humor. Which is certainly preoccupying, priceless, and worth venerating! Of course. You know it is! But, I don't have any news there. Even A.S Byatt thinks Terry Pratchett is hilarious — and if A.S. Byatt tells you something, you can be sure it's true. (No, I'm serious. She's like the Sun.)

To elaborate, here is a brief version of the touching love story called Emma & The Discworld:
My first Discworld novel was Wintersmith, which I read in the winter of 2007. Pratchett gave me many gifts in Wintersmith, but chief among them was the Death of Harry Potter. For me, Tiffany Aching is everything Harry cannot ever be, because he is a boy, because he is an idiot, and because he is a victim of formal education. Somehow, distracted as I always was by the clatter of Potter's adrenal juvenalia, I failed to notice that Hogwarts is, among many other stupid, stupid, and distasteful things, a boarding school. Even worse, it is a boarding school for wizards built on the model of Unseen University as viewed through a filter of unhealthfully robust respect. (Hogsmeade is just embarrassing.) The farther into the Discworld I ventured, the more convinced I became that Rowling had crafted everything that appeared to be worthwhile in Potter out of Pratchett's unique milieu, transforming his painful social satire into the ruddy and inarticulate lessons taught — to whom exactly? — by Harry and his demographically-appealing clique of school chums. In the end and by comparison, I found that the worst and central Potter problem was one of perspective. When I was weighed down by the casual and apocalyptic depths of love Tiffany harbored toward the people she witched for, clouded as they were by smallness, grief, and ignorance, I was ashamed that I had ever loved, even for a moment, a book that celebrated segregation. When I looked at the world through the terrible maternal clarity of Tiffany's mind (as through a window-glass, brightly?), I was ashamed that I had ever loved, even for a moment, a book that manufactured more injustices than it disposed of.

And that's the Discworld. Pratchett sees everything and knows everything, and most especially he sees and knows everything you and I should've ever learned and didn't. I tried to think up a nice goofy metaphor to describe his novels in situ, but this is the best I could do: Imagine a troupe of mystery actors wearing classical theater masks and staging some horribly old, obvious passion play about kings and witches and dragons and other traditionally dull and archetypical characters — but, in the middle of the performance the actors remove their masks, and beneath them they reveal just the same fantastical faces, only shaded with suffering and quivering with life, and whoops! It turns out that this particular play is about you.

After a number of regular visits, I discovered something else: If the novels of the Discworld can be said to have a primary protagonist, then that protagonist is Death. This surprised me at first, given the anti-morbidity of the stories themselves, but as time went on I began to understand things a little better. In true romantic fashion, the Death of the Discworld is a reluctant and complicated hero, and he isn't much happier about the practicalities of his contract than his subscribers are — but still, and oddly, there is nothing in that abbreviated, paper world that is as comforting as perceiving Pratchett's Death grinning up at you. I think this is because Pratchett's focus is almost never on the Parting, the terrifying mortal goodbye; rather, Pratchett carefully arranges each story's Death to reveal that, even accounting for the panoply of macabre mysteries that define this and all universes, nothing could ever be as strange or wonderful as the years and years and years of life that stretch out like balloon tethers to connect every birth and every grave — often in ways that defy expectation.

Which is both horribly, drizzlingly depressing and unaffectedly inspiring. And that's the Discworld!

HE KINDLY STOPPED FOR ME works like this:
WHAT'S GOING ON HERE? I attempt to tell you what soul-fracturing element of reality this particular Discworld novel addresses.
ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTE(S): I pick a favorite sentence or two. Or nine.
TEDIOUS PERSONAL OBSERVATION: Did you really think you would escape without seeing some of these?
IMPLEMENT OF DESTRUCTION: I make a guess as to what tool you will wish to use to dispatch yourself after you finish the story.

Lastly, I want to say that, in addition to being a kind of fatal literary weapon designed to fillet the hearts of readers of all ages, cultures, and dispositions, the Discworld is populated by characters that remind me of people I know whom I love, and people I know whom I hate. And by "remind," I mean "depict in exacting portraiture, down to nearly-identical quotes." Mostly, I feel the warmth of acquaintance for Nanny Ogg and her family, Granny Weatherwax, the people of Lancre, Tiffany Aching, Mister Tulip, Vimes, and Mr. Saveloy. And also various criminals and some side-characters. If someone I know shows up in a particular book, I usually mention it.

BORING WEBSITE STUFF —
1. This site is named for the famous Emily Dickinson poem (of course). I made the graphics in Adobe Photoshop out of this image, which I found in this BibliOdyssey entry. The background is just the 'brown paper' pattern from Photoshop's presets palette (feel free to download it and use it yourself). The layout may be an homage to the second episode of the BBC's 2010 Sherlock series, You Sherlock, Me Chinee! The Blind Banker, but I'm trying not to think about it. I coded the page in TextMate. HE KINDLY STOPPED is link-free on all accounts. For all I know, the Discworld books are listed here in correct chronological order, although their titles are spelled American-style. If you have comments or questions about this page or anything in it or on it, please feel free to e-mail me or post on my Formspring.

2. I speak only of metaphorical suicide, and of the self-indulgent feeling of readerly depression. If you're experiencing the symptoms of real depression, or, even worse, genuine suicidal impulses: Seek help! Immediately. If the first person you speak to doesn't pay attention, or if you aren't taken seriously, find someone else. Keep talking until somebody helps you. Severe depression is an unpleasant but common medical condition, and with the right treatment it clears up like a bad case of shingles. (I am sorry to tell you that mild depression is the unfortunate side-effect of being alive for longer than 15 consecutive years.) Killing yourself is never an answer to anything, except the question: What is the worst idea in the world? Suicide should be reserved for terminally-ill people suffering unendurable pain, fictional samurai, and no one else ever. Especially not you.

 

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