Fifteen in Fifteen: Terry Pratchett

3. Terry Pratchett

A few months back, I took a short break from my usual hidey-hole in the Department of Archaeology, York, in order to spend a few days teaching on a dig at the other end of the country. It was my first experience of camping, and, according to the rules of novices everywhere, I carefully packed into three large bags pretty much everything I was never likely to need. In between squashing in a pair of sandals, a large cow mandible, the world’s dinkiest pillow and industrial quantities of plastic bags, I committed a grievous error – I forgot to pack a good book. Two days into my stay, I’d completed two of my teaching sessions and had made it out to site just in time to get thunderstormed on. I hadn’t been sleeping well, was tired from having no personal space, and was discovering just how unpleasant it was to go to a Portaloo in the dark. The only book I had with me was a translation of Homer’s Odyssey. I was cold, wet, tired and miserable. And then I discovered that one of the students had with him a copy of Night Watch.

As the unknown writer of Ecclesiastes said, there is a time for everything. There are times you need a challenging book; there are times you need to read some utter junk. And there are times, particularly when I’m exhausted or lonely or far from home, when all I want is a book as familiar and comfortable and well-loved as a pair of old jeans. Night Watch is one of those books. So, in fact, are several other books in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series – Going Postal, Thief of Time, and Interesting Times (which was, incidentally, the book I read on my first night away at university). I’ve read every one of Terry Pratchett’s novels (excepting Nation, which I found unnecessarily apocalyptic), but, whether by accident or design, these four are the ones I’ve ended up owning, reading and re-reading until I can almost quote passages from heart. And there is something wonderfully comforting about revisiting characters and scenes you know so well. Especially when life is taking you on all sorts of voyages into the unknown, it is a gift beyond measure to be able to spend an hour with a familiar book, able to look forward to all the good bits, secure in knowing exactly what comes next.

It’s not only Terry Pratchett books which make it onto my list of “comfort reads” – Douglas Adams also features, as do Charlotte Bronte and Bram Stoker. But there’s a warmth to Terry Pratchett’s novels which make them particularly good for piercing the clouds, and a quality of writing which bears revisiting over and over again. Some sections just never grow old – like in Going Postal, when Moist von Lipwig finds the money to rebuild the Post Office after the fire. Or in Night Watch, when Vimes destroys Big Mary. Or what about Interesting Times, when Rincewind and Twoflower meet again in an Agatean prison after years of separation? (Non-Pratchett obsessives, please bear with me). Of course, there are the set-piece comedic moments – Fred and Nobby trying to shoot a dragon in Guards, Guards – and there’s the impeccably realised fantasy world (perched on the back of a turtle, no less) but it’s the cast which for me make the show. Pratchett’s best characters – Vetinari, Vimes, Moist, Granny Weatherwax, even Rincewind – are bright, cynical, and sharply observant of humanity’s foibles, without ever quite losing their faith in humanity. Much, you feel, like the author himself. And maybe it’s this fondness for how stupid the world can sometimes be which makes books like Night Watch such a great comfort.

Too much has been said about Terry Pratchett by too many people for me to continue eulogising here, quite aside from the fact that everyone seems to like different aspects of his books. If you haven’t read him, give it a try – although don’t bother starting at The Colour of Magic, dive in at Guards, Guards instead. It’s worth it just to see what everyone’s on about. But I’m grateful for books like Night Watch, which cheer up wet and muddy digs so well, in a way which goes beyond them being just the work of any particular author. In my opinion, nobody should be ashamed of reading their favourite book again for the third, tenth, thirteenth or even fiftieth time. These books are your lifelong friends.

With thanks to James - catch me travelling without a good book again...