Jan 02 2009
Good and Bad News for Terry Pratchett
Yesterday evening, Mr. Hall turns to me and goes, “Say, did you hear Terry Pratchett is going to be knighted?”
I’m something of a fan of Mr. Pratchett, so this was good news. It’s always nice to hear that an author you like is getting the acclaim he deserves. (Well, sometimes. Sometimes I’d rather that nobody but me knew about a certain author… but that situation probably wouldn’t be very good for the author in question. Anyway, I’m badly digressing here.) Terry Pratchett, in case you don’t know, is a British author of humorous fantasy. He’s also one of the few (well, the only, really) authors who once sat on my “favorite author” list who I have also met in person! Charming, charming man. Wonderful sense of humor. I asked him to sign my copy of Maskerade; he signed it, “Unmasked! Terry Pratchett.”
Then John went on, “He also announced that he’s got Alzheimer’s.”
Talk about a change of direction.
What terribly sad news. Click here to read the speech he gave to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust UK. It has all his characteristic wit and good humor. Although he is, of course, not happy with the situation and would much rather (as he put it) “die like my father did - of cancer, at 86″ - this 60-year old author seems to be approaching it with a good attitude and a fighting spirit, which is of course the best possible way to approach an illness.
And, of course, he just got knighted (December 31st! Hot off the presses!) which seems to have perked him up a bit. “I’m having difficulty fitting it into my head. I’m very pleased indeed. It cheers me up no end,” he said in an article called Knighthood Stuns Pratchett from The Independent (from which I also got the photo I used in this post).
So now he’s Sir Terry Pratchett! I know extremely little about how the British knighthood system works - I don’t know if this means that he’ll be credited on his books now as “Sir Terry Pratchett” or as “Terry Pratchett, OBE”, or if it even effects that at all… I rather hope he does use it on his books. Could look a little pretentious, I suppose, but in my opinion this is definitely a case of if you’ve got it - flaunt it!
But it’s just nice that a nice person got a little pick-me-up after receiving such bad news last year. — Mrs. Hall
