Guide To Books: The Discworld

Terry Pratchett is a genius – of this I am more certain than I am sitting in a chair, sipping coffee and wondering how it can possibly be pitch black outside at 16:00. The expanse of his imagination is so vast that to even review a single one of his creations is to struggle like an Emu attempting to come to terms with fundamental metaphysics. Hence, instead of commenting on the man himself, his writing style or indeed any of his individual books; in this article I shall briefly explain the basics behind his most famous creation – the Discworld.

The Great A’Tuin is a Giant Star Turtle who floats through space, carrying on her back four huge elephants. Atop these elephants rests Pratchatt’s slightly convex disc-shaped world; a place fairly similar to our world, but in which magic is a principle force. As is the case for many fantasy worlds, the Discworld contains a number of races apart from humans, primarily including Trolls, Dwarves, Elves, Golems, Orcs, Gnomes, Gods and, of course, the Undead. Unconventionally, however, Pratchett’s has created a world in which many of these races often live in (some form of) harmony, sometimes in major cities like Ankh-Morpork – the setting for a fair number of Discworld adventures.

The most interesting part of the Discworld, however, is the structure of its reality. You see, the Discworld is not primarily governed by logic or physics, but by a general movement towards a kind of narrative destiny or the fulfilment of a story; what is believed to be the case (or meant to be the case) normally is the case, simply because it is believed to be so. For example, although dragons are clearly too large to fly in reality, the people of the Discworld believe the stories about flying dragons and, therefore, dragons fly in the Discworld – because dragons are meant to fly, whether it’s possible or not. The same is the case for existence; things within this world simply cannot be without there first being a story to around which their being and destiny can mould itself. In existential terms, nothing exists in-itself, but everything exists for-itself; in order to exist, every blade of grass must first have a purpose in a story – only then can it come to be and, invariably, fulfil its role.

It is features like these that emphasise the importance and impact of stories within this fantasy world; although magic is a primary force in the Discworld, a thorough understanding and knowledge of stories is one of the key ways of actually harnessing magical power (though it often comes with a price). For this reason, the Discworld is the source of an infinite number of possibilities, thousands of which Pratchett has captured in perfect detail in his thirty-six books based in this place.
To conclude; the Discworld is nothing short of miraculous and the series of books written about it are, without a doubt, some of the greatest of all time. Although they are all based in the bizarre world of Pratchett’s imagination and hence intrinsically linked, you don’t have to read them all or read them in order to immediately come to love them.

By: funk

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Ed Gamester is an avid fan of Terry Pratchett and highly recommends you visit www.priceminister.co.uk to get hold of his huge array of books.