Mort

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?

So now on to Mort...

 

Best Terry Pratchett Quotes

There was a link in the previous Telegraph article that led me to this list of Best Terry Pratchett Quotes:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/terry-pratchett-best-quotes/

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.

Now it's time to move on to my next book.

Ten Best Discworld Characters

The Telegraph is not my newspaper of choice - I've always been a Guardian reader - but its Arts coverage, especially its film reviews can be good.

Earlier this week I discovered a listicle of the ten best Pratchett characters:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/terry-pratchetts-10-best-discworld-characters/

I'm currently not too far on my Discworld expedition, and so far I've only met some of them. And even those that I have met I only know slightly.

My next novel is Mort and, strange as it seems to write this,  I'm looking forward to getting to know Death better.

Wyrd Sisters

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.