For more than two decades, Terry Pratchett has been
regaling readers with tales of Discworld-a flat world
balanced on the backs of four elephants, which are
standing on the back of a giant turtle, flying through
space. It is a world populated by ineffectual wizards and
sharp-as-tacks witches, by tired policemen and devious
dictators, by reformed thieves and vampires who have sworn
to drink no blood. It is a world that is vastly different
from our own . . . except when it isn't.
Now, in
The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld, various nuggets of
Pratchett's witty commentary and sagacious observations
have been compiled by Pratchett expert Stephen Briggs, a
man who, they say, knows even more about Discworld than
Terry Pratchett.
Within these pages, you'll find
musings on:
Interior
decorating: "It's a fact known throughout the
universes that no matter how carefully the colors are
chosen, institutional decor ends up as either vomit green,
unmentionable brown, nicotine yellow, or surgical
appliance pink. By some little-understood process of
sympathetic resonance, corridors painted in those colors
always smell slightly of boiled cabbage-even if no cabbage
is ever cooked in the vicinity." (Equal Rites)
Travel: "Any seasoned traveler soon
learns to avoid anything wished on them as a 'regional
speciality,' because all the term means is that the dish
is so unpleasant the people living everywhere else will
bite off their own legs rather than eat it. But hosts
still press it upon distant guests anyway: 'Go on, have
the dog's head stuffed with macerated cabbage and pork
noses-it's a regional speciality.'" (The Last
Continent)
Young men: "And
then there was the young male walk. At least women swung
only their hips. Young men swung everything, from the
shoulders down. You have to try to occupy a lot of space.
It makes you look bigger, like a tomcat fluffing his tail.
The boys tried to walk big in self-defense against all
those other big boys out there. I'm bad, I'm fierce, I'm
cool, I'd like a pint of shandy and me mam wants me home
by nine." (Monstrous Regiment)
Class: "'Old money' meant that it had been made
so long ago that the black deeds that had originally
filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant.
Funny, that; a brigand for a father was something you kept
quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-
great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port.
Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a
word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed
of." (Making Money)
. . . and
more! Culled from all the Discworld novels, The Wit and
Wisdom of Discworld confirms Pratchett's place in the
pantheon of great satirists and proves why the Chicago
Tribune has praised his Discworld as "entertaining and
gloriously funny . . . an accomplishment nothing short of
magical."
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