Vicarious Progress

WARNING: THIS POST IS ME SPEAKING TO MYSELF TO FIGURE OUT WHAT ME'S THINKING :END OF WARNING

These past few months I've been catching up with the enthusiasm that bookstore assistants share with me every time I bring a Discworld book up to the cash register.

If you're not familiar, Terry Pratchett has been writing books for the last, uh, thirty years or so about this place called Discworld.  A ton of people apparently enjoy it.  I wasn't familiar six months ago.  I now have just finished the eighth book that he wrote.  And now I'm beginning to see why a ton of people apparently enjoy it.  I am also beginning to understand the wincing I get from the bookstore assistants when I mention that I'm reading the books in the order that they were written.

The process that I have been able to witness by reading the Discworld books in the order that they were produced, that's really encouraging to me, though it's been universally discouraged by the bookstore assistants.  Here's my point:

Pratchett's first books are his weakest.  That stands to reason.  I won't get into the different storylines that the books get into, but by the eighth book, the four main storylines based in the Discworld are introduced with a standalone book included for seasoning.  So now, when someone at the bookstore says: "I like the Death stories best," or "the City Guard books are best," or "the Witches have the best stories," I now know what they're talking about.  Oddly, I haven't yet heard anyone say that the Rincewind stories are the best.  Of course, Rincewind stars in the first two books.  Perhaps it's the curse of the prototype.  And maybe it shows how smart Terry P is to abandon his first story to explore other options outright after two books.

All of the Discworld books are blanketed front and back with thick and high praise from many and all respectable press and periodicals and persons.  By book 8, it's beginning to earn that respect.  I finally laughed out loud like the quotes on the book promised I would since book 1.  That's a long time to wait to laugh out loud.  I don't consider myself too stonecold, at least when I'm on the couch reading.  I like laughing and it doesn't require high-intellectual material.  Ask my fishing buddies.  You wanna know what it took?  The word "statueskew".

Hilarious right?  I know.  To explain, it's just a mispronunciation of "statuesque" which, when you notice, is how someone would say "STAT-u-ESK" when they've only ever read the word without actually hearing it heard.  I suppose I only really laughed because when I was an English major, I mispronounced so many words that were new to me that I've only read without hearing...

bourgeoisie = BOR-g-WAH-see
chimera = CHIM-er-a
relevant = REV-a-lent (okay, that may be evidence for dyslexia more than anything else)

Okay, I'm being lazy.  Three is enough.

Anyway, the point!  It has been a pleasure watching Terry P's writing style improve immensely over the eight books I've read.  I don't think I've seen the same kind of progress with others, which makes me think that maybe Terry had the nuts and the good luck to get a book published when he was still basically a hack.  Good for him.  Especially because he developed into, what I am now seeing (and I have about twenty more Discworld books to read), a very accomplished writer.

It gives this unpublished hack a hope.