Terry Pratchett RIP
I first started to reassess Pratchett while reading one of his early books which featured Commander Vimes of the City Watch.
The Watch House has an inscription carved above the entrance, 'Fabricati Diem', which means 'To Protect and Serve' or so one policeman explains.
Fabricati Diem ?
Lets see, 'Diem' means 'Day' in Latin, that's simple enough, But 'Fabricati ?'
To fabricate...to manufacture...to make...
My God ! He's taking off on Dirty Harry. 'Make my day'.
Inspector Harry Callahan's iconic line neatly meshed into an other-world police story - albeit a comic one - and just left there for the reader to decipher.
In time I came to appreciate Pratchett's other depths -- his deft mixing of the preposterous and the profound, his unrelenting send-up of prejudice in its many forms, the immense moral fibre at the core of his chief characters, whatever their other weaknesses...
And he did love a good spoof. I will never forget the giant woman climbing a skyscraper clutching a screaming ape, one of the vivid scenes in Moving Pictures.
He dug into history. He dug into myth. He dug into quantum physics. He parodied and stereotyped delightfully, making millions chuckle -- and then pause thoughtfully -- over matters as diverse as religion and gender discrimination.
Discworld, alas,is no more. And my world is a duller place.
I first started to reassess Pratchett while reading one of his early books which featured Commander Vimes of the City Watch.
The Watch House has an inscription carved above the entrance, 'Fabricati Diem', which means 'To Protect and Serve' or so one policeman explains.
Fabricati Diem ?
Lets see, 'Diem' means 'Day' in Latin, that's simple enough, But 'Fabricati ?'
To fabricate...to manufacture...to make...
My God ! He's taking off on Dirty Harry. 'Make my day'.
Inspector Harry Callahan's iconic line neatly meshed into an other-world police story - albeit a comic one - and just left there for the reader to decipher.
In time I came to appreciate Pratchett's other depths -- his deft mixing of the preposterous and the profound, his unrelenting send-up of prejudice in its many forms, the immense moral fibre at the core of his chief characters, whatever their other weaknesses...
And he did love a good spoof. I will never forget the giant woman climbing a skyscraper clutching a screaming ape, one of the vivid scenes in Moving Pictures.
He dug into history. He dug into myth. He dug into quantum physics. He parodied and stereotyped delightfully, making millions chuckle -- and then pause thoughtfully -- over matters as diverse as religion and gender discrimination.
Discworld, alas,is no more. And my world is a duller place.
