Sir Terry Pratchett: shaking hands with Death
2015; Elsevier BV; Volume: 14; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s1474-4422(15)00004-6
ISSN1474-4465
Autores Tópico(s)Gothic Literature and Media Analysis
Resumo“He said that there was death and taxes, and taxes was worse, because at least death didn't happen to you every year.”Sir Terry Pratchett, Reaper ManThe character of Death, the feline-loving and capital-letter speaking personification of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series has spirited away the much-loved author. He died aged 66 in his home, surrounded by family. The sad news was announced by his publisher, Penguin Random House, and by his daughter, Rhianna, via Twitter. Using her father's account, she tweeted the following message: “AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER. Terry took Death's arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night. The End.”The renowned writer had penned over 70 books, including more than 40 volumes of his epic Discworld series, for which he was most famous. Set on a flat world, supported by four elephants atop a gargantuan space turtle, the novels might seem a hard sell to all but the most hardened of genre readers. Instead, however, Pratchett created one of the most entertaining and accessible literary universes, which not only provided the means to rib more po-faced works by writers like Tolkien, Lovecraft, and Shakespeare, but also gave him a lens through which to examine the human condition with his trademark whimsy and biting intellect.This wit allowed his Discworld and stand-alone works to tackle a multitude of issues without preaching or sliding towards sentimentality. Religion, gender equality, the role of the elderly in society, and the importance of the written word provided Pratchett with meaty topics over the years, and it is perhaps the last of these themes which is most heavily felt in his Discworld universe. Here, books and stories have power that is often overlooked in our own world. In the library of The Unseen University, the powerful tomes are chained for the protection of the students, while further afield, the witches of Discworld use their notorious fairy-tale reputations to practise arts more in line with modern midwifery and herbalism.Given this love of words, it was a cruel irony when they started to fail Pratchett. In 2007, increasing problems with spelling, memory loss, and hand–eye coordination drove him to seek medical help. Initial scans indicated the author might have suffered a mini-stroke several years previously. However, as his typing skills continued to deteriorate, and the once strong touch-typer was forced increasingly to use dictation to get his words onto the page, he was referred to the neurologist Peter Nestor, who re-examined the initial scans, and subjected the author to a variety of tests.Pratchett was ultimately diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), a rare type of dementia, in which the outer layer of the brain progressively degenerates, affecting a person's ability to process visual functions, such as typing, reading, and spelling. However, the nature of the disease's manifestations can vary dramatically for each patient. Pratchett himself emphasised this in a blog for Alzheimer's research UK, stating “I, for one, am the only person suffering from Terry Pratchett's posterior cortical atrophy which, for some unknown reason, still leaves me able to write—with the help of my computer and friend—bestselling novels.”The 2009 documentary Terry Pratchett: Living with Alzheimer's explored the author's reaction to his diagnosis, while also giving the condition an emphasis rarely discussed in mainstream media. In it, Pratchett describes his anger at the disease and at the piecemeal destruction it causes. Uncomfortable scenes of the author struggling to knot his own tie and fumbling for words at a convention were contrasted with his strong fighting spirit. Referring to his disease as an “embuggerance”, he refused to let it take him quietly, and went on to produce some of his best work in the years after his diagnosis.The making of the documentary also represented something of a shift towards activism on Pratchett's part, with his donation of $1 million to the Alzheimer's Research Trust in 2008, and increasing media appearances in relation to the disease. Giving the 2010 Richard Dimbleby lecture, he compared our reluctance to speak about the subject to the taboo surrounding cancer in the 1960s. He was determined to break this taboo.However, the main focus of the lecture, titled Shaking hands with Death, was assisted dying, for which Pratchett became an increasingly vocal advocate in light of his deteriorating health. Suggesting the creation of a tribunal to assess the mindset and motives of people wanting to end their lives, he gave an impassioned plea for the rights of the terminally ill to die at the time and place of their own choosing. This was reinforced in the powerful 2011 BBC documentary Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die, in which he followed Peter Smedley, a patient with motor neuron disease, to a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.Sir Terry Pratchett was a master at talking about such difficult subjects with ease and good humour, even though in his latter years his disease sometimes made it difficult to catch and shape the words. In writing that “no one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away”, he could not possibly have comprehended the magnitude of ripples his own life would cause. They are great waves, and will be felt for many years to come.For the IMDB page for the BBC documentary see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1929387/trivia?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu “He said that there was death and taxes, and taxes was worse, because at least death didn't happen to you every year.”Sir Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man The character of Death, the feline-loving and capital-letter speaking personification of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series has spirited away the much-loved author. He died aged 66 in his home, surrounded by family. The sad news was announced by his publisher, Penguin Random House, and by his daughter, Rhianna, via Twitter. Using her father's account, she tweeted the following message: “AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER. Terry took Death's arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night. The End.” The renowned writer had penned over 70 books, including more than 40 volumes of his epic Discworld series, for which he was most famous. Set on a flat world, supported by four elephants atop a gargantuan space turtle, the novels might seem a hard sell to all but the most hardened of genre readers. Instead, however, Pratchett created one of the most entertaining and accessible literary universes, which not only provided the means to rib more po-faced works by writers like Tolkien, Lovecraft, and Shakespeare, but also gave him a lens through which to examine the human condition with his trademark whimsy and biting intellect. This wit allowed his Discworld and stand-alone works to tackle a multitude of issues without preaching or sliding towards sentimentality. Religion, gender equality, the role of the elderly in society, and the importance of the written word provided Pratchett with meaty topics over the years, and it is perhaps the last of these themes which is most heavily felt in his Discworld universe. Here, books and stories have power that is often overlooked in our own world. In the library of The Unseen University, the powerful tomes are chained for the protection of the students, while further afield, the witches of Discworld use their notorious fairy-tale reputations to practise arts more in line with modern midwifery and herbalism. Given this love of words, it was a cruel irony when they started to fail Pratchett. In 2007, increasing problems with spelling, memory loss, and hand–eye coordination drove him to seek medical help. Initial scans indicated the author might have suffered a mini-stroke several years previously. However, as his typing skills continued to deteriorate, and the once strong touch-typer was forced increasingly to use dictation to get his words onto the page, he was referred to the neurologist Peter Nestor, who re-examined the initial scans, and subjected the author to a variety of tests. Pratchett was ultimately diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), a rare type of dementia, in which the outer layer of the brain progressively degenerates, affecting a person's ability to process visual functions, such as typing, reading, and spelling. However, the nature of the disease's manifestations can vary dramatically for each patient. Pratchett himself emphasised this in a blog for Alzheimer's research UK, stating “I, for one, am the only person suffering from Terry Pratchett's posterior cortical atrophy which, for some unknown reason, still leaves me able to write—with the help of my computer and friend—bestselling novels.” The 2009 documentary Terry Pratchett: Living with Alzheimer's explored the author's reaction to his diagnosis, while also giving the condition an emphasis rarely discussed in mainstream media. In it, Pratchett describes his anger at the disease and at the piecemeal destruction it causes. Uncomfortable scenes of the author struggling to knot his own tie and fumbling for words at a convention were contrasted with his strong fighting spirit. Referring to his disease as an “embuggerance”, he refused to let it take him quietly, and went on to produce some of his best work in the years after his diagnosis. The making of the documentary also represented something of a shift towards activism on Pratchett's part, with his donation of $1 million to the Alzheimer's Research Trust in 2008, and increasing media appearances in relation to the disease. Giving the 2010 Richard Dimbleby lecture, he compared our reluctance to speak about the subject to the taboo surrounding cancer in the 1960s. He was determined to break this taboo. However, the main focus of the lecture, titled Shaking hands with Death, was assisted dying, for which Pratchett became an increasingly vocal advocate in light of his deteriorating health. Suggesting the creation of a tribunal to assess the mindset and motives of people wanting to end their lives, he gave an impassioned plea for the rights of the terminally ill to die at the time and place of their own choosing. This was reinforced in the powerful 2011 BBC documentary Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die, in which he followed Peter Smedley, a patient with motor neuron disease, to a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. Sir Terry Pratchett was a master at talking about such difficult subjects with ease and good humour, even though in his latter years his disease sometimes made it difficult to catch and shape the words. In writing that “no one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away”, he could not possibly have comprehended the magnitude of ripples his own life would cause. They are great waves, and will be felt for many years to come. For the IMDB page for the BBC documentary see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1929387/trivia?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu For the IMDB page for the BBC documentary see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1929387/trivia?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu For the IMDB page for the BBC documentary see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1929387/trivia?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu
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