The badly written note of the banshee
In a better world, one where the profit motive was secondary to emotional well-being, and where our emotions functioned in more predictable ways, employees would be allowed to submit a bereavement list: a list of people whose deaths are, no questions asked, grounds for an employee to immediately go home and mourn. Of course, that's not the world we live in. My boss would laugh her ass off (and not with me, but at me) if I asked to go home because an author died and I just can't.... And of course, it's hard to predict exactly which deaths are going to have the most impact, once you get past parents and siblings and all that.
Of course, in this case, it wasn't hard to predict at all. Sir Terry Pratchett had been sick with early onset Alzheimer's for almost eight years, and the changes in his travel schedule plus the recent interview Neil Gaiman gave let us all know that his trip on this world was nearing its end. And I knew I would be wrecked when he went, and so I am, sitting here in this stupid cubicle, my eyes with with tears (for the second time in two weeks). My first Pratchett was The Light Fantastic, which was very much in the "Douglas Adams of fantasy" mold. It was funny as all get out--I'll never forget Mount Skund, whose name meant, in the local language, "Your Finger, You Fool." It wasn't very deep, though. It mostly said, "Yes, fantasy, with its pretenses and its reflections of the real world, is ripe for mockery and laughter as any other art form."
It probably wasn't until Guards! Guards! that I realized how amazing the Discworld and Terry Pratchett were. While Hitchhikers never really grew beyond the jokes, Pratchett's world did, in so many deep and wonderful ways. The satirist's eye grew sharper, and the deep and abiding love of his fellows shone forth more brightly, and of the humor remained as gleeful as ever. Death was "a shade reproachfully," and "Cantate and Fugue for Someone Who Has Trouble With the Pedals" was his idea of a simile. And now, of course, he's taken Death's hand, having finally succumbed to the embuggerance, and left us all behind, poorer for his loss but richer for having shared in his joy, and his wisdom, and his anger.
Farewell, Sir Pterry, I hope the harvest was as gentle and caring as the Reaper Man could make it.
Of course, in this case, it wasn't hard to predict at all. Sir Terry Pratchett had been sick with early onset Alzheimer's for almost eight years, and the changes in his travel schedule plus the recent interview Neil Gaiman gave let us all know that his trip on this world was nearing its end. And I knew I would be wrecked when he went, and so I am, sitting here in this stupid cubicle, my eyes with with tears (for the second time in two weeks). My first Pratchett was The Light Fantastic, which was very much in the "Douglas Adams of fantasy" mold. It was funny as all get out--I'll never forget Mount Skund, whose name meant, in the local language, "Your Finger, You Fool." It wasn't very deep, though. It mostly said, "Yes, fantasy, with its pretenses and its reflections of the real world, is ripe for mockery and laughter as any other art form."
It probably wasn't until Guards! Guards! that I realized how amazing the Discworld and Terry Pratchett were. While Hitchhikers never really grew beyond the jokes, Pratchett's world did, in so many deep and wonderful ways. The satirist's eye grew sharper, and the deep and abiding love of his fellows shone forth more brightly, and of the humor remained as gleeful as ever. Death was "a shade reproachfully," and "Cantate and Fugue for Someone Who Has Trouble With the Pedals" was his idea of a simile. And now, of course, he's taken Death's hand, having finally succumbed to the embuggerance, and left us all behind, poorer for his loss but richer for having shared in his joy, and his wisdom, and his anger.
Farewell, Sir Pterry, I hope the harvest was as gentle and caring as the Reaper Man could make it.