I maintain that a big part of the reason that Pratchett\u00a0was the preeminent comic novelist since P.G. Wodehouse, responsible\u00a0at one time for\u00a0almost 4%\u00a0of the entire British publishing industry’s sales, was that he wrote books that worked as stories<\/em>. His characters in the early books may have been cliches and stereotypes, but by his long and productive middle period he was writing characters with depth, complexity, growth and development.<\/p>\n There’s a subtle, but detectable, gradient from cliche<\/em> to stereotype<\/em> to parody<\/em> to character trapped in an unfortunate pattern of behaviour by habit and social expectation<\/em>, and Pratchett showed us the full spectrum in the course of his career. He was an insightful observer of humanity, as all the best comedians are, but he was also a compassionate one – not just holding people up to mockery but reminding us that, whatever their failings, however small-minded and ridiculous they might be, they deserved consideration as human beings. (Even when they weren’t, strictly speaking, human beings, but dwarves, trolls, golems, vampires, Igors or goblins.)<\/p>\n He’s often compared to other writers, most frequently Douglas Adams and P.G. Wodehouse, but his stories have more depth than either. In Adams, there are cosmic stakes, but they’re minimised by the absurdity. In Wodehouse, the stakes are seldom higher than social embarrassment. In Pratchett, the stakes are high, and we care about them, and yet<\/em> we’re laughing.<\/p>\n I’ll make a comparison myself. There’s a fairly obscure American humourist called Damon Runyon. Most people who’ve heard of him know him through the musical Guys and Dolls<\/em>, or perhaps\u00a0the Shirley Temple movie Little Miss Marker<\/em>, both of which were\u00a0based on his work, but he wrote a great many short stories in the 1930s set in the more dubious\u00a0parts of contemporary New York. They’re stories of revenge, lost love, family tragedy, violence and, occasionally, good triumphant with the help of rough, hard-bitten characters who have a sentimental side.\u00a0Yet, mainly\u00a0through the voice of the unnamed narrator (who observes much more than he participates; he’s never unambiguously the protagonist), they’re funny, both because of their wry, ironic observations and because of the distinctive language. They are, at the same time, slangy and poetic, and characterised by a total avoidance of the past tense.<\/p>\n My parents had an omnibus of the Runyon stories, and I read them a couple of times growing up. A while ago, frustrated by another would-be comic fantasy that I didn’t find funny or otherwise enjoyable, I set out to write my own version of the same premise, and for reasons connected with that\u00a0premise\u00a0I picked the Runyonese dialect to tell it in. To make sure I was getting the voice right, I re-read some of the Runyon tales, and I was struck by the fact that there’s often a dark, or at least heartwrenching, story\u00a0going on behind all the humour. So I strove to make that, too, a part of the story I wrote, which you can read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n I might\u00a0never have thought of attempting that, though, if it hadn’t been for the example of Terry Pratchett. Death (the phenomenon) isn’t funny. Death (the character, who makes at least a cameo appearance in every Discworld book and is a main character in several), while usually serious himself, is a cause of comedy in other people.<\/p>\n Let’s reflect on that for a moment. At least one person\u00a0dies in every Discworld novel. Often, it’s a minor character, but usually it’s someone with a name, though sometimes we don’t learn the name until Death says it in all caps. And these are primarily thought of as comic novels<\/em>.<\/p>\n That, too, was part of Pratchett’s genius. Nothing in life, not even death, was outside his warm, human, comedic insightfulness. Now that he has made the transition himself, it’s up to us who are left to try to carry on his legacy, not only of funny fantasy, but of kindness,\u00a0good storytelling, and reflection on the human condition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like millions of other fans, I’m saddened to hear of the death of Sir Terry Pratchett, one of my favourite authors. It seems like a good occasion to reflect on humour in SFF (science fiction and fantasy), a topic I’ve … Continue reading \n
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