{"id":470,"date":"2012-06-25T12:50:36","date_gmt":"2012-06-25T10:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=470"},"modified":"2012-06-25T12:50:36","modified_gmt":"2012-06-25T10:50:36","slug":"terry-and-charlie-the-victorian-connection-surfaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2012\/06\/25\/terry-and-charlie-the-victorian-connection-surfaces\/","title":{"rendered":"TERRY AND CHARLIE: THE (VICTORIAN) CONNECTION SURFACES <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

I must thank my PhD supervisor in Scotland, Prof. David Punter, for inviting me to overcome my prejudice against the colourful covers of Terry Pratchett\u2019s novels and kicking me head first into the Discworld. 17 years and 39 novels later I can only say \u2018thank you, thank you, thank you…\u2019 for so much literary pleasure. As happens, I have just started supervising a PhD dissertation on Pratchett (by Rosa Mar\u00eda Moreno), thus breaking the rule that treasured authors must be kept just for pleasure.<\/p>\n

Rosa Mar\u00eda\u2019s focus are five of the best novels and, in particular, how humour is constructed in them. Pratchett is a superb writer of comic fantasy and one of the best-kept secrets of English Literature, in view of the little academic attention he has received (talk about prejudice…). All his novels reach systematically the top of the best-selling list in the UK but I know very few academic readers of his work, if any, and just a handful of fans (Rosa Mar\u00eda among them). There\u2019s a book-length monograph about him called Accused of Literature<\/em> and that seems to be the problem: that calling Pratchett a literary author sounds pretty much like an accusation. I\u2019ve had the pleasure of teaching the 25th Discworld novel, The Truth<\/em> (still my favourite) and his collaboration with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens<\/em>, though I must acknowledge that Pratchett\u2019s dense web of allusions (he\u2019s a very sharp satirist) make reading his novels a hard task for many students. This is one of the paradoxes of popular fiction in the university classroom \u2013Joyce ends up seeming more accessible… (right, Rosa Mar\u00eda?)<\/p>\n

The reason why I\u2019m writing this posting is sheer serendipity. I have just gone through Charles Dickens\u2019s Nicholas Nickleby<\/em>, with the usual immense pleasure I find in reading his work. One of my colleagues, N\u00e9stor, saw the copy on my table and he launched into enthusiastic praise of Dickens. We both agreed that a) a non-native learner of English can only fully appreciate Dickens after reaching 40 (sorry, students!) and b) there\u2019s none like him to portray eccentricity and absurdity (Becket is just a would-be-Dickens…). <\/p>\n

Then I read Pratchett\u2019s latest paperback, Snuff<\/em>, and something clicked: hang on, this is<\/em> Dickens, passed, yes, through Tolkien and Monty Python. I have never doubted that Pratchett\u2019s chaotic Ankh-Morpork is<\/em> Victorian London and I have always found something endearingly Victorian in the Discworld\u2019s reluctant yet wide-eyed embrace of new technology. Yet, as Pratchett is otherwise very up-to-date in his social criticism, I had missed the Dickens in him (silly me, all that talk of justice and injustice!). <\/p>\n

To my immense surprise (and, yes, pleasure) Pratchett himself has pointed out the obvious: his next hardback, due September, is called… Dodger<\/em>!, and yes, it has Charlie Dickens in it, together with all those other Victorian eccentrics. I\u2019m teaching Oliver Twist<\/em> again starting next September and I do know it\u2019s going to be a long summer, waiting for the master to see what he\u2019s done with the<\/em> master in Dodger<\/em>. I\u2019m sure indeed that Dickens would have enjoyed reading any of Pratchett\u2019s books.<\/p>\n

Two more things. The Discworld series has been narrating over the years the progressive inclusion of \u2018ethnic\u2019 minorities other than human in Ankh-Morpork\u2019s society. The police force, its most symptomatic example of integration, already boasts among its ranks a werewolf, a troll, dwarves and, indeed, Igors and vampires in its \u2018CSI\u2019 team. Snuff<\/em> is all about Commander Vimes\u2019s heroic fight to have goblins acknowledged as full citizens. And, yes, also by sheer serendipity I have just read George MacDonald\u2019s Victorian classic for children, The Princess and the Goblin<\/em> (1872). I do know that goblins are much older creatures, possibly our guilty memory of the Neanderthal we exterminated. Yet, reading MacDonald\u2019s callous presentation of the goblins as pure monsters, I realised even with more clarity how Pratchett is following Dickens\u2019s wake in undoing Victorian (and indeed post- or neo-Victorian) prejudice. Perhaps the telling difference is that sentimentalism is (almost) gone. Um, well, instead of Little Nell you get a goblin girl move Ankh-Morpork\u2019s high society to tears… with a harp.<\/p>\n

To finish: Pratchett has Alzheimer\u2019s disease in its early stages, which is why, I\u2019m sure, his last eight novels or so, are much darker (or maybe the world is to blame for that). Also, why each new book is so precious to us, fans. Let\u2019s then, look forward to Dodger<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I must thank my PhD supervisor in Scotland, Prof. David Punter, for inviting me to overcome my prejudice against the colourful covers of Terry Pratchett\u2019s novels and kicking me head first into the Discworld. 17 years and 39 novels later I can only say \u2018thank you, thank you, thank you…\u2019 for so much literary pleasure. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-oliver-twist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}