There are moments when I think Terry Pratchett is the funniest writer alive. Funny, that is, the clever sense of funny.
It is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact.
In the 1990s, he was the best-selling British author in the world—until a woman named J.K. Rowling usurped that title for eternity—and he continues to turn out a book or two a year, each funnier, as in cleverer, than the last.
Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.
The genre of comic sorta-science-fiction seems to have been an English invention, with Douglas Adams, Tom Holt, and Terry Pratchett its main practitioners, and there’s something deeply satisfying about Pratchett’s Discworld series—something that the others never quite found, good as they were: a fictional universe broad, strong, and weird enough that the author can do anything in it.
Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
But I actually wanted to talk about the Kindle, the reading device from Amazon. And how horrible, stupid, and unusable it is.
Gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at.
My wife bought me one for Christmas, and I tried. I really did. We go through a couple hundred pulpy genre books a year: sci-fi, mysteries, Napoleonic naval stories, and all the rest. Except Romance. Don’t know why we skip that one. It’s no worse written than all the rest.
Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they’re allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean.
And I think my wife’s idea was that, since the Kindle editions are always a dollar or so cheaper, in a year or two, the Kindle would have paid for itself. Assuming that we would keep buying that many books. And assuming we found the Kindle a good substitute.
In the second scroll of Wen the Eternally Surprised a story is written concerning one day when the apprentice Clodpool, in a rebellious mood, approached Wen and spake thusly: “Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom is sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questions and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?” Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: “A fish!” And Clodpool went away, satisfied.
But the text is simply a disaster. It’s like reading the old ASCII files of Project Gutenberg online: You could do it, if you really had to, but your eyes typically went on strike somewhere in the first half hour.
People’s whole lives do pass in front of their eyes before they die. The process is called “living.”
Why is the text on Kindle so awful—hundreds of years of lessons about typesetting, lost in an instant? Bad line breaks, bad hyphens, bad page composition, bad times.
Pets are always a great help in times of stress. And in times of starvation too, o’ course.
So I gave up. Or, at least, gave up until yesterday, when I found I had nothing to read. And downloaded a book, on the Christmas present that my wife gave me and has taken over herself for the occasional use she, at least, is willing to make of it.
Not a man to mince words. People, yes. But not words.
And I downloaded Terry Pratchett’s last book, Unseen Academicals, because—well, obviously, because I was desperate for something to read.
Bishops move diagonally. That’s why they often turn up where the kings don’t expect them to be.
And it was horrible. Oh, I read the book, since I was, you know, desperate, but the experience was again as disappointing as reading a Terry Pratchett novel could possibly be.
You can’t find a hermit to teach you herming, because of course that rather spoils the whole thing.
And here’s an easy illustration of why: A good number of the best lines in his work are at the bottom of the page; he employs footnotes as a comic device, and THE FOOTNOTES WEREN’T AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE. Gone. Lost. Astray.
Man, I hate the Kindle.
May 5th, 2010 | 6:54 pm
I balked at buying the Kindle specifically because I was worried about what it would do to Discworld. No footnotes? That’s a deal breaker for me. I’ll stick to the dead trees versions.
May 5th, 2010 | 6:58 pm
This is helpful. I’ve been considering an e-reader for a few months, ever since I had to stop reading a volume of St. Augustine on the subway because it was too heavy to carry in my briefcase. I’m delaying because the next-heaviest book in my briefcase, the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, is not available for any of the e-readers yet. I was just e-discussing this situation with my clergy. I used FT repeatedly as an example of the kind of market base necessary to get Amazon to carry text for Kindle.
May 5th, 2010 | 8:56 pm
My wife bought me a Kindle too and besides the ability to buy a book late at night when its too late to go to the bookstore, there’s not a whole lot to recommend it. Oh, except for the ability to download a sample chapter. That is an incredibly useful feature.
I’ve actually found, though, that it’s easier to read books using the Kindle app on my iPhone than on the Kindle itself. Oddly enough, I think reading fat novels (like Eliot’s Middlemarch, which I’m reading now) is easier in that format than in a paperback.
Also, I agree with you that Pratchett is a better world-builder and he’s certainly more quotable than the others you list. But I still prefer the droll humor of Tom Holt; his books are pure goofy fun. It’s a shame—and a bit surprising—that his work isn’t more widely read in the states. “Expecting Someone Taller” is one of my all-time favorites yet it’s nearly impossible to find in bookstores.
May 5th, 2010 | 9:15 pm
Wow, I couldn’t disagree more about the Kindle.
I love my Kindle.
Instant book delivery is amazing. eInk actually lets me read faster than on-paper.
Sounds like Prachett just has bad Kindle editions — were there no footnote hyper-links in-line with the text?
May 5th, 2010 | 9:44 pm
I don’t have a Kindle, but I do have the Kindle Reader for the PC, and I’m using it to read Pratchett books without any problems (it helps that my PC is a Tablet).
Personally I find the font clean and the breaks ok (unless you crank the font size up to Legally Blind). Footnotes are indicated by * links: clicking on the mark brings up the note, and the back button returns to the main text. For my money, that’s not very different from glancing to the bottom of the page and then returning.
Maybe the Kindle itself is problematic, but the PC reader is fine – I just wish it allowed me to make annotations in addition to bookmarks.
May 6th, 2010 | 1:00 am
Joe Carter is reading Middlemarch! Could we have a FT discussion of this book?
May 6th, 2010 | 1:09 am
Julie Could we have a FT discussion of this book?
I think that would be a great idea. I’m not sure how many people read it anymore but it would be great if we could encourage people to consider it.
Like me, they probably read “Silas Marner” at an age when they couldn’t appreciate it, discouraging them from giving Eliot a chance. But she is one of the most psychologically astute authors I’ve ever read. There are times when I get to the bottom of a page (or, technically, the iPhone screen) and wonder how anyone can write so well. Eliot is amazing. She has a better understanding of the human condition than I can ever hope to attain.
May 6th, 2010 | 7:38 am
I have had a love affair with books my whole life. No need to waterboard me – stick me in a cell without books for a week or two and I’ll spill the works. It is for me more than just consuming text, it is the tactile feel of turning each page, the wonder, or sometimes relief as the dwindling number of pages announces that the story will be wrapping up soon. (As a side note, is anyone else annoyed at the relatively new habit of sticking a teaser chapter of the author’s next book at the end of the one you happen to be reading? Things seem to be wrapping up, but there are 20 pages yet to go, so you read, anticipating the next twist, then thud. Its over. the last 18 pages are for the next book, as if I’ll read that when I can’t read the whole book. Rant off.) So reading on a kindle (which I think I would enjoy – this being the first negative review I’ve seen of the Kindle reading experience itself) would feel like cheating and I’ve just determined to avoid this particular near occasion of sin.
On the practical side, when I buy a book, I like to own something, not just a license to use something – e-readers are a different legal framework and one I don’t much like. Licenses can be canceled, as Amazon demonstrated a little while back. I am also concerned about format wars – what happens when there is an insufficient market for the Kindle due to Apple, Sony or some other company bringing a “killer app” to the field? Will Amazon maintain the format for those who buy now? For how long?
On the plus side, I used to travel extensively for business and it becomes a bit weighty to try to feed a two to three book a week habit when traveling internationally for two or three weeks at a time. If I ever went back to that I think I would get a Kindle, or something like it. Just to reduce the weight.
But I would feel guilty.
And I would hide it from my books when I got home.
May 6th, 2010 | 7:53 am
I love my Kindle.
As a Diaconate student, I have been able to find some Kindle-version textbooks.
Having them readily available is great! Not having to carry books all the times is even better.
I wish all books could be included.
By the way, when will First Things’ Kindle version be ready for download?
God bless.
May 6th, 2010 | 10:42 am
Strike two is that the Kindle doesn’t handle it well when the footnotes have footnotes, which is some of Pratchett’s best footnoting.
Strike three is NO PATRICK O’BRIAN.
May 6th, 2010 | 11:01 am
I second the call for a Kindle edition of First Things. I’d subscribe in a heartbeat.
May 6th, 2010 | 11:03 am
RS, you can find little lightweight editions of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer that will fit in a pocket. Look in used book stores or online.
May 6th, 2010 | 12:47 pm
Thank you. I own 2 small Prayer Books, and one lives in my briefcase. I can usually handle the 2 small volumes (Prayer Book and Bible) necessary for the Offices. It’s when I add a third book to the first 2 that it becomes too much. I’m planning a weekend at the beach involving a plane ride and would love to pack one device rather than Prayer Book, Bible, Missal, and leisure reading (though I’m not sure I would ever follow the liturgy in church with an e-reader).
Question for those using e-readers: How easy is it to switch between books using an e-reader? For example, from the Te Deum on page 10 of the Prayer Book to Hebrews 13, as I did with regular books an hour ago?
May 6th, 2010 | 1:01 pm
I love my Kindle.
The adjustable text size and pale grey background (rather than backlit screen) reduce eyestrain compared to either a printed book or the use of a computer and I can carry multiple books easily for travel.
That said, I would never rely on it as my only store of books I treasure enough to make part of my personal library. Those I buy, place on my shelves and dust regularly, secure in the knowledge that they are truly MINE and cannot disappear or change.
This can get expensive, but it does make for thoughtful discrimination; a book has to be really good if I am going to buy it twice.
May 6th, 2010 | 3:30 pm
Well, the consensus is shifting toward limited but real use of the Kindle.
Ugh. Eventually, that’s all books will be, but I don’t have to like it. You can’t make me. You can’t . . . you can’t . . .
May 6th, 2010 | 4:33 pm
I’ve not used the Kindle, but have the iPhone App. (Orthodoxy is a free download, by the way!). Along with all of the other issues mentioned by Mr. Bottum and others here is that I don’t have the same visual-memory interaction as with the paper version. If I want to go back to some thing in a book that I have not marked, I usually can do so by recalling about where in the book it was along with a fair memory of what the surrounding paragraphs looked like and where on the page it was. For me, this is completely lost on e-readers.
I, too, am a dead tree guy until someone comes up with a better implementation. I wonder if the iPad may prove better.
May 6th, 2010 | 8:28 pm
Don’t you people ever read in the bathtub? Books do that. Kindle, not so much.
I feel like the cricket-devoted priest in Brideshead Revisited who could not understand why anyone would pass up truly great, truly innocent pleasure…
May 7th, 2010 | 10:35 am
I don’t think anyone mentioned what’s most amazing about the kindle. I have read tens of books (I am a fan of victorian fiction) that not only are free, but are rare books that I have been looking to buy for years. I used to buy books online, used, out of print books. But only when i could afford it. Now they are free in many cases. I’ve more than saved the price of the kindle, which I thought at first was so extravagant of my husband to buy me for Christmas.
May 7th, 2010 | 10:36 am
Oh, and as far as the bathtub, yes, you can read it in the bathtub. I read it in the shower, but i’m sure that’s very wrong of me.
May 7th, 2010 | 10:11 pm
Um, Grace, did you really just say that you read in the shower?
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact