Everyone knows and loves Terry Pratchett the satirist.
But once in a while, I read one of his books – particularly
an earlier one – and remember there’s also Terry Pratchett, the fantasist.
In particular, a recent re-reading of his “Lords and Ladies”
reminds me that Pratchett really knows fantasy and feels it all the way down to
the bones of the Earth, or at least to the bones of the elephants supporting
the Discworld on the back of the Great A’Tuin.
Witness the denouement in Lords and Ladies:
“Oh, yes. You know I
never entered your circle. I could see where it led. So I had to learn. All my
life. The hard way. And the hard way’s pretty hard, but not so hard as the easy
way. I learned. From the trolls and the dwarfs and from people. Even from
pebbles.”
The Queen lowered her
voice.
“You will not be
killed,” she whispered. “I promise you that. You’ll be left alone, to dribble
and gibber and soil yourself and wander from door to door for scraps., And
they’ll say: there goes the mad old woman.”
“They say that now,”
said Granny Weatherwax. “They think I can’t hear.”
“But inside,” said the
Queen, ignoring this, “inside, I’ll keep just a part of you which looks out
through your eyes and knows what you’ve become.”
“And there will be
none to help,” said the Queen. She was closer now, her eyes pinpoints of
hatred. “No charity for the mad old woman. YHou’ll see what you have to eat to
stay alive. And we’ll be with you all the time inside your head, just to remind
you. You could have been the great one, there was so much you could have done.
And inside you’ll know it, and you’ll plead all the dark night long for the
silence of the elves.”
The Queen wasn’t
expecting it. Granny Weatherwax’s hand shot out, pieces of rope falling away
from it, and slapped her across the face.
“You threaten me with
this?” she said. “Me? When I am becoming old?”
The elf woman’s hand
rose slowly to the livid mark across her cheek. The elves raised their bows,
waiting for an order.
“Go back,” said
Granny. “You call yourself some kind of goddess and you know nothing, madam,
nothing. What don’t die can’t live. What don’t live can’t change. What don’t
change can’t learn. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more
than you. You’re right. I’m older. You’ve lived longer than me, but I’m older
than you. And better’n you. And, madam, that ain’t hard.”
Headology. That’s the magic of Pratchett that I appreciate.
Granny Weatherwax has never needs spells (though sometimes she’s had to get
along with a bag of Nanny Ogg’s boiled sweets). The magic of Granny Weatherwax
is that she’s lived. It’s that she’s old.
Oh, to be old.
And secondarily – and this probably would annoy Pratchett –
I see a good level of Christian and even Mormon theology in this passage,
indeed, in this entire book. Pratchett the Humanist has come to the theological
realization that is perfectly in line with the theology I believe, in that the
Devil wants us to see him and his followers as far, far better than we – and it’s
the old (the old in experience, the old in knowing the Spirit of the Lord) who
can see the Queen for what she really is – an elf-woman, bent on our
destruction for her amusement and delight. That’s the Devil’s goal, always has
been.
So blessed be the old in spirit, and blessed be the tellers
of fantasy, who convince us to believe the little lies, so that we may in turn
believe the big ones.
I WILL GIVE YOU A LIFT
BACK, said Death, after a while.
“Thank you. Now . . .
tell me . . .”
WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED
IF YOU HADN’T SAVED [THE HOGFATHER]?
“Yes! The sun would
have risen just the same, yes?”
NO.
“Oh, come on! You
can’t expect me to believe that! It’s an astronomical fact!”
THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE
RISEN.
She turned on him.
“It’s been a long
night, Grandfather! I’m tired and I need a bath! I don’t need silliness!”
THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE
RISEN.
“Really? Then what
would have happened, pray?”
A MERE BALL OF FLAMING
GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.
They walked in silence
for a moment.
“Ah,” said Susan
dully. “Trickery with words. I would have thought you’d have been more literal
minded than that.”
I AM NOTHING IF NOT
LITERAL-MINDED TRICKERY WITH WORDS IS WHERE HUMANS LIVE.
“All right,” said
Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need . . . fantasies to make life
bearable?”
REALLY? AS IF IT WERE
SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE
WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies?
Hogfathers? Little. . .”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU
HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So you can believe
the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY.
DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same
at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN
TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH
THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY.
AND YET – Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER
IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME . . . RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT
MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have
to believe that, or what’s the point – “
MY POINT EXACTLY.
Out of the best books, they say, we will find God.
When I read Lords and Ladies, I hear this screaming at me,
from Ecclesiastes:
And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom
concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God
given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith. (Ecclesiastes 1:13)
I am, Mr. Pratchett. I am.
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