It's time for another review of the story so far: four novels read to date so only 37 to go.
For me Mort immediately leaps to the top of the chart in terms of favourites, with Equal Rites as number two and The Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic in last place.
Meanwhile I am enjoying Sourcery: it's good to meet up with Rincewind again, and to revisit the Unseen University.
The NY Times Best Seller List includes an electric selection of books including a fantasy novel called The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King. I didn't even know that Stephen King wrote fantasy novels and from the reviews on Amazon it looks quite interesting...
Apart from this the only books that I'd heard of were Misery (King again), Presumed Innocent, and Patriot Games. I've not read any of them, but I've seen and enjoyed the filmed versions.
On the Booker front the winner was Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively. I know it is supposed to be an overlooked masterpiece (I recall reading an appreciation by Susan Hill) but it would not be on my current list of reading priorities. With regard to the shortlist the only one that appealed to me was Chatterton by Peter Ackroyd.
I'd love to see a filmed version of Mort, but I suppose it is only in the post-Peter Jackson world that digital technology has advanced enough. I read somewhere recently (and then checked on IMDB) that PJ will produce a film based on Mortal Engines. That is a film I will definitely look forward to.
1987 must have been a good year - and was definitely a busy year - for Terry Pratchett as in addition to Equal Rites he also published Mort.
From various articles I'd read I'd realised that it is generally regarded as one of the best (if not just the best) Discworld novel and I'd been looking forward to reading it very much. Also I'd loved the way that Death had appeared in each of the books I'd read so far, so the idea of making him a main character seemed a fascinating decision.
I'd studied The Pardoner's Tale for A Level and had enjoyed the story so much that I later wrote a stage adaptation that worked reasonably well, and obviously Death had a major role in it. Unfortunately Chaucer did not mention if Death had a horse, and, even if he had a horse, what its name was. I'd been watching too many early Bergman films when I wrote the play, but loved the references in Mort to game playing - monopoly?
I like them all, and many of them made me laugh, but this one stood out particularly:
If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story
I realised from the few books that I've read so that Terry Pratchett like cats (don't we all?). The following quote beautifully sums up our current cat, once again a rescue from the Cat Protection League:
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods. They have not forgotten this.
While I was chatting to my (elderly) mum on the phone last night she mentioned that next month she was going to see an amateur production of a play called Wyrd Sisters and wondered if it was about witchcraft.
I quickly explained what it was all about and we had a rather eccentric conversation about turtles, elephants and Discworld. I then read her the blurb on the back of my copy of the novel and she decided to remind herself of the finer points of the plot of Macbeth.
It's too far to go to see the show but I'd be intrigued to see how it could be staged.
I've just watched the second part of Andrew Marr's history of popular fiction which this time covered fantasy, including a generous helping of George R R Martin and Game of Thrones.
It was a wonderful trip through the usual suspects - Tolkien, Lewis et al - but Marr also interviewed Frances Harding and Neil Gaiman and then showed some footage of Sir Terry Pratchett working with his assistant, ad then Marr interviewed the assistant about his working practices.
It was excellent television, and I look forward to reading Mort as the programme suggested that it was with this novel that Discworld started mirroring the Roundworld.
At the Oscars The Last Emperor won Best Film and Michael Douglas and Cher won the top acting awards. I've seen both Wall Street and Moonstruck, and although the former was better than the latter neither of them really figure on any of my "must see" lists. I did enjoy The Untouchables and Sean Connery did deserve his Oscar, but surely it was for his whole career rather than just this one film.
The Golden Globes had the intelligence to give the award for Best Musical or Comedy to Hope and Glory. It was a well-deserved win and a good film, but very different to Excalibur, which in my mind comes pretty close to The Lord of the Rings in sword and sorcery film making - and it has Helen Mirren as Morgana.
Other notable films that I actually managed to see were:
Empire of the Sun: Spielberg's adaptation of J G Ballard's masterwork.
Fatal Attraction: a good thriller but definitely not a date movie!
Good Morning Vietnam: early Robin Williams, before he became sentimental.
House of Games: first film by David Mamet - makes The Sting look like child's play.
Maurice: another Forster adaptation from James Ivory, but not in the same class as A Room With aView.
A Month in the Country: I'd read the book after I bought it for my wife and the film was just as good.
Prick Up your Ears: an early film from Alan Bennett and Stephen Frears which I caught on TV.
Radio Days: a wonderful Woody Allen film. Need I say more?
Robocop: I caught this in the US while on a business trip and found that I rather enjoyed it.
Spaceballs: a spoof on Star Wars and sci-fi films from Mel Brooks that intermittently hits its target.
White Mischief: an interesting murder story among expats in post-war Kenya that was better than my summary sounds.
Looking back at what I have written above it was quite an interesting year for film, with a good variety available to the discerning viewer, i.e. me.
Equal Rites was published in 1987. this was the year in which I got married so I had other things on my mind and managed to miss it. never mind, it has only taken me 29 years to read it. I could not find any information on numbers of copies published so assume that after the limited initial print runs and subsequent success of the first two novels this one had a more appropriate initial printing.
I approached the book in an open mind, wondering how it would link in to its two predecessors - I'd somehow imagined that Discworld was like Middle Earth - and thought I would be reading more of the same. But as soon as I started reading I realised that it was just as funny, but introduced a whole new range of characters.
As someone once said in a slightly different context:
"I've started so I shall finish."
Having attended a University that took too many centuries to offer mixed education I enjoyed the satire of the Unseen University and Granny Weatherwax is a character to savour. I understand that she will become a regular character in the Discworld books and look forward to meeting her and re-visiting the Unseen University again quite soon.
I'd intended to update my list each time I finished a book, but since The Light Fantastic could also be called The Colour of Magic II or Discworld II - The Light Fantastic then I will pass on this and simply declare that and the end of the second book we have a draw.
If Peter Jackson ever bought the film rights to the Discworld novels then presumably we could have six three hour films from these first two novels alone.
Reality can exist in many guises, and rather than setting stories on a disc that that travels though space on the back of a giant turtle it is possible to set a story twenty years ago, just make a few changes like having the Crimean War go on for more than 150 years, and create a heroine who can travel into novels - the Book World - as part of a police force to maintain narrative integrity within fiction.
Welcome to the world of Swindon in an alternative 1985 where Thursday Next has to rescue Jane Eyre (that is the real, i.e. fictional, Jane Eyre) after she is kidnaped and held for ransom.
The book is The Eyre Affair, it was published in 2001 and I came to it late, but since then I've read everything that Jasper Fforde has written.
The quote in the title of this post is by Terry Pratchett and it appears on the jacket of The Eyre Affair (and others).
This was an interesting year for films. There were no major fantasy films released, but it is clear that there were enough otherwise good films around to keep the average film club going for a whole season.
In an advance tribute to Moving Pictures here are my favourite films released in 1986:
The Mission: it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and I love the soundtrack.
Hannah and her Sisters: if not the best film that Woody Allen has ever made then certainly it has to be in the top three.
A Room with a View: I've never got on with Forster. After seeing and enjoying the film very much I staggered through the book and finished it with difficulty. The film is one of the rare adaptations where the film is better than the book. The brilliant casting helped, and HB-C's outfit for the trip to the country inspired my wife's wedding dress, so I am clearly biased.
Ran: I saw Kurosawa's samurai adaptation of King Lear in North Oxford and thought it was brilliant. When Peter Jackson released The Fellowship of the Ring one critic compared his handling of battle scenes to Kurosawa. Now everyone just tings of them as Peter Jackson's battle scenes.
Aliens: I missed this at the cinema but caught up with it several years later on TV and enjoyed the shooty shooty bang bang verve of Cameron's direction.
The Name of the Rose: This has to be on the list of books that would be impossible to film, but nonetheless I thought it was a brave stab that captured the spirit of Eco's original novel.
Until I started watching the DVD I did not realise that I had two 90 minute episodes to enjoy - wizard!
Despite my limited travels in Fantasy I had recognised some of the parodies of typical fantasy themes, eg horse lords and so forth. However the director threw in a couple of extra visual parodies: I'm sure that the Docks of Ankh-Morpork also appeared in The Golden Compass and there was a brilliant reference to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy in the sequence when various characters galloped aimlessly over hills and moors.
Additionally the casting was a joy throughout - David Jason was brilliant and with not a hint of south London on show. It would be interesting to construct a flow diagram that linked the actors to other key fantasy films and series they have appeared in: from my quick calculation David Bradley has one of the highest scores with major roles in all the Harry Potter films, Game of Thrones and Doctor Who.
One of the real joys of my current situation is that I am finally able to make a start on the list of books I've never had a chance to read. My current reading is A Brief History Of Time: I'd read reports that it is a difficult read, but I've not had any issues during the first few chapters.
However it was the opening that really struck me: a description of Bertrand Russell being interrupted in a lecture by a lady who insisted that the world was flat and carried on the back of a tortoise. Surely Nanny Ogg cannot have escaped from the Discworld?
Meanwhile in the real world Pixar Animation Studios opened for business, Microsoft held its IPO and Dragon Quest was released.
On the book front it seems to have been a pretty quiet year, with only a few fantasy novels published/recognised:
HP Lovecraft: a corrected version of Dagon and Other Stories. I'd read HPL as teenager so this was not something to follow up.
In the US the wonderfully weirs Illuminatus Trilogy won an award, but I'd read it many years earlier.
Postscript
There is one other book published this year that is worth mentioning: Howl's Moving Castle by Diane Wynne Jones. I've not read the book but loved the animated version from Studio Ghibli:
Several years ago I read The Tough Guide To Fantasy Land by DWJ: apparently some institutions have categorised it as a dictionary, but in fact it is a wickedly funny spoof guide book to the standard characters and situations you find in some fantasy stories. I have a copy on my shelf and refer to it regularly on my travels: what I had not realised until today is that it was shortlisted for a Hugo award for Best Nonfiction Book, and it is a shmae that it did not win.
I've seen various "best of" lists in terms of the Discworld novels, and from what I've seen I have some great treats in store.
From this early point in my expedition all I can say (with certainty) is that The Colour of Magic is the best Discworld novel I have read so far. It has also given me an incentive to explore much further into Discworld.
Since I wrote my last post there's been something niggling me: I described Star Wars as science fiction but on reflection I don't think I was correct.
I've just consulted the most authoritative source I could find - i.e. In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood - where she records a discussion that she had with Ursula Le Guin (and I'd love to have been present for that) about the difference between science fiction and fantasy.
Both Atwood and Le Guin define "science fiction" as speculative fiction about things that really could happen, whereas things that really could not happen are fantasy. Thus Star Wars belongs in fantasy along with Doctor Who and dragons.
On this basis the Discworld, although many of its elements strangely echo similar elements in the Roundworld, is definitely a creation of fantasy. I'd love to see a dragon for real but it's far safer just to read about them or watch them on a screen.
1983 was a good year for film. the top grossing film was The Return of the Jedi:
The top ten also included Trading Places and Wargames, which I enjoyed at the time but which I'm not too keen to see again.
I've lost count of the number of times I've seen the original Star Wars trilogy, but am pleased to confirm that I have only seen the prequel trilogy once. However I did enjoy The Force Awakens and am looking forward to the spin-off movie later on this year.
Following the success of the Star Wars films the cinema was full of sci-fi films of various quality: from Flash Gordon to Battle Beyond the Stars. However it was not until the success of the Harry Potter films and the two Tolkien trilogies from Peter Jackson that fantasy became a subject for cinema. If a big name film director "discovers" Discworld all I hope is that he/she is able to do it justice: Peter Jackson's vision of Middle Earth ties perfectly in with my imagination, and some of his casting was perfect (Galadriel and Gandalf especially).
I'm pleased to see that the DVD Cover has the following:
Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic
IMDB and Wikipedia both have the same spelling and it makes me happy: Sir Terry Pratchett's novels are definitely English, in the long tradition that includes PG Wodehouse and JRR Tolkien.
When the first Harry Potter book was published in the US the publishers changed the title from "Philosopher's Stone" to "Sorcerer's Stone" (on the basis that Americans do not understand philosophy presumably). The film follows the same naming convention, but my recollection is that the relevant dialogue was dubbed to make it work in the US.
My other grumble about name changes in books that I like involved Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The title of the first novel is Northern Lights (quite apt bearing in mind the action and plot) but for the US market it became The Golden Compass. Any fule kno that the item in question is an Alethiometer not a compass (golden or otherwise), and with this fidelity to the book the film bombed, although this was in part due to the pernicious efforts of evangelists who railed against its supposedly irreligious storylines.
I was fortunate enough to see both parts of the NT production of His Dark Materials in one wonderful day, and it will remain a high spot in my memories of plays that I have seen. I have also seen a one-man version of The Lord of the Rings, which while not particularly memorable was definitely brave.
Last night I started watching the DVD of Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic(as it says on the box) and was delighted to find that it is 189 minutes long, i.e. two films for the price of one. In effect I watched The Colour of Magic and still have The Light Fantastic to come.
The film was made for TV with (presumably) a TV budget but within these constraints it was excellent. The casting of the main roles was superb (I think David Jason gave a definitive Rincewind) and I finally know how to pronounce his name. inevitably there was some editing of the story but that is standard for any adaptation (especially in the disaster called The Golden Compass) but the effects were good, well up to the standard of Doctor Who (and I mean that as a compliment).
For me the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy came many years after I'd read and loved the books, but nonetheless managed to capture both my view of Middle Earth and its inhabitants:
I loved all the films and watched them all at the cinema and subsequently several times on DVD. I've even been to a concert performance of the soundtrack to The Fellowship of the Ring where a live orchestra accompanied the screening.
I came to Game of Thrones via the books, but watched all five series soon afterwards. I was impressed by the compression but the lack of budget sometimes showed: my imagination filled the screen with horsemen (like views of Rohan) although the screen showed a line of riders on the horizon.
Thus I'm approaching the film version of The Colour of Magic with caution, although the casting looks good and the reviews I've read seem positive.
I'd always realised that The Colour of Magic parodied the "classic" fantasy genre, but as my exploration of fantasy had been limited to Tolkien and Peake I thought that I might miss some of the finer points.
In the event I should not have been so concerned. Over the pasty few years the major TV series has been Game of Thrones. As a matter of principle I do not have a satellite subscription but finally managed to catch up with all the series on DVD. In parallel I read all five novels of Martin's proposed trilogy and as soon as I started on The Colour of Magic I found I was revisiting familiar territory: horse people, wizards, dragons.
Wikipedia says that The Colour of Magic includes echoes of the novels of Fritz Leiber and Anne McCaffrey; it may do, but it stands as a novel in its own right. It is also the first part of sequence far longer than even George R R Martin will (hopefully) finally produce.
The first printing of The Colour of Magic in 1983 consisted of 506 copies and I missed all of them.
In the Roundworld ARPANET was migrated to TCP/IP and the true internet began and I managed to miss that as well, although I've just used it to find out what books were popular in 1983 and which of those I have read.
The following are from a US list, but I was pleased to be reminded of the following old favourites:
The Name of the Rose: I'd never read anything like this before and Umberto Eco was quickly added to my "must read" list. Subsequently I read and enjoyed his non-fiction as well: his analysis of the opening sequences of Casablanca is a masterpiece.
The Woman In Black: I have read the book, seen the stage play, the TV film and the cinema film. I'd loved the ghost stories of MR James (led to them via the classic BBC adaptations) and TWIB is a worthy successor. Susan Hill's other novels, not just her ghost stories, are excellent too.
The Book of Lost Tales: Unfortunately this is where I gave up on Tolkien, although I have just bought his recently published translation of Beowulf.
The Meaning of Liff: It's by Douglas Adams, it's brilliant and I used to live in Didcot (look it up!).
Waterland: I came to this later on. It was a favourite of my wife: she has a copy but we did not meet until 1985.
Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges: this must have been an early entry in the now flourishing Bletchley industry. I enjoyed the film that used this as source, although it famously misrepresented key elements of Turing's life and depended on anachronistic tippex to move the plot on.
Other mentions:
GlenGarry Glen Ross: I missed this as a play but saw the excellent film version. it started my fascination with David Mamet's plays. Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum in Speed-the-Plow has to be the highlight so far.
First Among Equals: I'd heard a great deal about Jeffrey Archer's novels but had never read any of them. I borrowed a copy of this and managed just about three chapters before I had to give up. the best thing about this book is the title which Jasper Fforde memorably echoed in First Among Sequels.
I see that the Booker Prize went to The Life and Times of Michael K. I've not read it or any of the others on the short list apart from Rates of Exchange by Malcolm Bradbury
I'm sure I must have missed out many other books from 1983, but various house moves plus the Great Book Cull of 2016 mean that these will need to stay missing.
I got hooked on books at an early age. I blame my parents for this as they used to take me to the library on a regular basis and the habit stuck. As a child I worked through the collected works of Enid Blyton, Richmal Crompton and FrankRichards: once I'd discovered an author I liked I tended to work my way through the collected works.
We also had shelves full of books in the house and so at a relatively early age I read such wartime classics, as The Great Escape, The Wooden Horse and The Naked Island as well as far too many Agatha Christie novels than were good for a young teenager.
The set books we read in school were either too young (The Wind in the Willows which in any case I had already read) or just plain wrong (David Copperfield). And then in the third year we had a new English Teacher who staggered into class at the beginning of the year with a pile of thick paperbacks by a writer called Tolkien. The first few chapters were slow going, but once I'd reached The Shadow of the Past I was hooked and finished all three volumes in two weeks.
After this I read The Hobbit (unconsciously setting a precedent for Peter Jackson many years later) and everything else that Tolkien had in print. From this point on I was hooked on fantasy and discovered Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast as well as Michael Moorcock., Ursula Le Guin and Angela Carter.
There were the inevitable gaps in my reading career for things such as university, work and life in general but I've done my best to keep up to date with fantasy. But somehow in all this Discworld slipped under my radar. As the years went by I became increasingly aware of Terry Pratchett as he published his latest novel, but realising that they were a sequence I'd never had a chance to make a start and as the years went by the mountain became even higher.
Then shortly after the sad news of Sir Terry's death in March 2015 I had a stroke of luck: having planned to resign from my job I was made redundant literally days before my intended resignation date. I'm now a consultant with the security of an unplanned severance payment and time on my hands to start all those projects that up to now had just existed in my dreams.
I'd already read Good Omens, the novel jointly written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I've also read just about everything else that Neil Gaiman has written after being hooked on the first short story I read (A Study in Emerald, collected in Fragile Things) which was a superb conflation of Conan Doyle and HP Lovecraft.
Now finally it is time for me to pack my luggage and set off to explore Discworld.
