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One year on: Terry Pratchett - the year I could never forget
Alzheimer's left Terry Pratchett sometimes feeling down - but definitely not defeated
Terry Pratchett
(Lauar Pannack)
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terry Pratchett cannot help wondering why it was this year - after 30 years as a bestselling writer - that he was honoured with a knighthood: 'All I know is
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Pratchett suffers from a rare variant of Alzheimer's known as posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), which appears to have spared his fertile mind from the disease's usual crashing wave. So when he looks around and asks for a second time, 'Did I drink my tea?', he puts the memory lapse down to the rushed way in which the tea was drunk. 'See, Alzheimer's can make you distrust yourself when in fact you may be right. Sometimes it is just old age. And no one is more neurotic about themselves than an author.
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Not usually a man who's lost for words, the only one he could muster on the day his knighthood was announced was 'Flabbergasted!' Today he says: 'That still applies! But seriously, as a science-fiction writer, it is an achievement. Despite its popularity, sci-fi is still a ghetto genre. So when a hand of welcome comes from the Establishment, you can do nothing but shake it.
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One year on: Terry Pratchett - the year I could never forget - Times Online
He is not science-fiction or fantasy. He is a"terrypratchett" starting a new genre that needs a new name. A bit like Tolkien, who single handily spawned the revival in fantasy and made it respectable. (Although I'm sure Terry would hate to be called "respectable").
He is among the world's top 3 selling authors. TP's books are life-affirming,great stories/yarns, irrelevant, satirical, funny, intelligent, iconoclastic, human, inclusive, gentle and strong, O shut-up MA
His books are multi-layered and are the only books I can read and re-read and still find something new. The only other author I can do that with is Shakespeare. (Who, given his play King Lear", had first hand experience of Alzheimer's too)
(What is it about journalist's and pun headlines-they can't help themselves can they?)
