YOU'VE got to hand it to Terry Pratchett. Even
when discussing the difficult subject of his rare form of Alzheimer’s he
can’t help but look on the bright side and even throw in a few jokes
for good measure. We are sitting in a plush London hotel room to discuss
his new book and Pratchett is punchy and ebullient. Even as he tells me
that his condition means he can no longer tie his own shoelaces, he
glances down at the black loafers he’s wearing and adds: “On the other
hand a nice pair of slip-ons are okay and since I seem to be on flights a
lot it saves time at airport security.”
Since being diagnosed with dementia in 2007 Sir
Terry has hardly stopped for breath. The country’s best-selling adult
novelist, who has sold 75 million books, last year brought out Snuff,
the 39th in his Discworld series. This autumn will see the publication
of a Dickens-inspired work called Dodger and today we are discussing The
Long Earth, a novel about a chain of parallel worlds that he has
co-authored with award-winning sci-fi writer Stephen Baxter.
The
novel is published today and, he says, it positively explodes with
ideas for sequels. In short Terry Pratchett is not slowing down. If
anything he’s speeding up. It’s tempting to wonder whether this is
because his condition had given him a sense of urgency but he bats away
such suggestions.
“I’m a
writer so I write,” he says simply although he adds that he started
using voice recognition technology when he lost the ability to
touch-type.
It’s muscle memory and you’d think your muscles can’t get dementia but they do
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Sir Terry Pratchett
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“And that actually makes the process of writing easier because I’m telling the story rather than typing on a keyboard.”
Being unable to touch-type was the first result of his condition that really affected him.
He’s also puzzled by it: “It’s muscle memory and you’d think your muscles can’t get dementia but they do.”
Driving
is also impossible now meaning his wife Lyn chauffeurs him around and
he finds it “tricky” to read certain types of fonts. “Lately,” he says,
“I’ve also noticed that I’ll have a sentence lined up and something just
drops out of it and a moment later it comes back. But other people have
told me that happens to them too. In fact a lot of the things I notice
may be what it’s like to be 64 rather than what it’s like to be
suffering from this.”
H e has described his variant form of dementia –
posterior cortical atrophy – as a precursor to Alzheimer’s and refuses
to worry about what might happen in the future. His creative streak, he
maintains, is as robust as ever as his new book will show.
The
idea for The Long Earth was one Pratchett came up with in the
mid-Eighties but by then he had already written The Colour Of Magic, the
first in the Discworld series, which became a sudden bestseller.
“Woman’s Hour picked it up and the hard cover sold out immediately,”
says Pratchett. “I thought, hang on, I should start thinking of a
sequel.”
As the fantasy
Discworld series became a huge success so the fragments of his early
sci-fi work lay discarded in a drawer. “Then about two years ago I
picked them up again and thought there are some good ideas here. It
would be a shame for them to go to waste,” says Pratchett. “But I
thought I can’t do it by myself. I really need someone else who can look
quantum in the eye without flinching.”
In
other words he needed an expert, specifically in hard science fiction,
which is where Stephen Baxter comes in. The pair had met at book
conventions over the years so the next time they found themselves at a
dinner together Pratchett mentioned The Long Earth. “It’s such a rich
idea,” says Baxter, “And we were speculating about it so much over
dinner that I missed at least one cab and our hostess was trying to get
rid of us.”
The premise is
based on the quantum theory idea – that the Earth is one of an
immeasurable number of earths – and mankind has just discovered how to
step into them. Each of the earths differ slightly but none of the
others are inhabited by human beings.
Pratchett
and Baxter each took different plotlines – sometimes one coming up with
the idea and the other writing it. “In the end we weren’t sure who’d
written what,” says Pratchett, “though I’m sure there are some fans who
will say they can tell.”
On
the subject of fans I can’t help thinking I’m a disappointment to him.
Throughout our interview he refers to me as a “fan girl” (I brought
along the copy of Colour Of Magic that I read when I was 11) but when he
learns I’ve only read nine of his books he sniffs: “Not much of a fan
then.” Compared with his army of Discworld fans, I’m really not.
“Having
been to some Discworld conventions,” says Baxter, “ There are people
who won’t read anything other than Discworld novels.”
T
he fans might not be best pleased then, as Pratchett confides that he
has put aside the next Discworld novel to work on the second Long Earth
book. Ask whether he plans to wind up the Discworld series, however, and
the question is met with an exclamatory, “Good heavens no!” Pratchett
could talk about his books for hours but does he mind that he is now
asked as much about dementia as about his writing?
“No
because I made my own bed,” he says. “When I was diagnosed Rob, my PA,
said to me, ‘Who are you going to tell?’ I said, ‘Everyone’. When I was a
young journalist no one talked about cancer. Now they talk about it all
the time. That’s because Richard Dimbleby died of cancer and his family
let that fact be known. He was such a well-known person that the ice
was broken so I thought I wouldn’t mind doing a Dimbleby for
Alzheimer’s because it would actually do some good.”
As
well as raising awareness of dementia and highlighting the alarming
lack of research into the illness, Pratchett has also donated a million
dollars (£600,000) to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust. More recently, he
has also become vocal about assisted dying, making a Bafta-winning BBC
documentary called Choosing To Die.
He
concedes there are difficult issues to digest on the subject, not least
that an Alzheimer’s sufferer would still have to be compos mentis when
considering that step. “Would you consider me to be compos mentis?” he
questions, before signalling to Baxter and adding, “Personally I don’t
think he does.”
The joking is back and Pratchett concedes that his father gave him “a sense of humour you can’t break with an axe”.
As for his future he says he certainly has no intention of giving up the day job and will, he believes, be writing to the last.
“My
wife and my PA have been told,” he says, “that when they find me
slumped in front of my computer, the first thing to do would be to save
the work in progress.”
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