Go Pratchett!

[said_scarlett]

Terry Pratchett Verbally Bitchslap's JK Rowling

Yeah, I'm with Pratchett on this one. If JK honestly couldn't figure out her books were fantasy before they were published, there's some serious issues going on. And I'm sorry, but what Pratchett does with the genre is far more creative, clever, witty, original and riddled with much more social commentary. He's a genius, she's just an author with a good idea and a whole lot of luck.

Comments

[ciara-belle.livejournal.com]

What did she think the books were, exactly?

JKR did get kind of lucky with the success of Harry Potter. But if I could emulate the style of any one author, I'd want it to be Pratchett. I just reread Jingo yesterday, and really, that man is brilliant.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

That's what I'd like to.

Terry Pratchett is the king of modern satire. Everything he writes is so in depth and layered and sharp and enjoyable to read.

[balfrog.livejournal.com]

Pratchett: comic genius. yes.
:D

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

She... ohmigod. I must take a break from fandom today, as I'm not sure I can be involved in something created by a woman that abominably clueless.

It kind of goes without saying that Pratchett is a better writer than Rowling. But Rowling is wonderful proof of the old adage in the literature field: Most geniuses were disregarded in their own time, and most popular literature is the kind of stuff that later generations look at and think "well, that's okay, but why the hell did they make such a big deal of it?"

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

Half of me wonders if she didn't just say that to be 'cute'.

Terry Pratchett, in my opinion, is one of the best writers of the modern day. Because he did re-invent a genre, and he doesn't hold anything back. Everything he writes is full of life, full of detail, full of fun and is flawlessly executed.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly.

I don't think of it as reinvention, but that's primarily because I think of the fantasy genre as a nearly-ongoing line from ancient folklore and stories like the Odyssey and Beowulf up through the Arthurian legends and down to The Tempest, Midsummer Night's Dream, Lord Dunsany's Faerie Queen, Lewis Carrol, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and all the modern workers in the same field. I don't see anything about any of them that's a striking enough difference for me to say it's ever been 'reinvented.' So it's no insult to Pratchett for me to say that I think he's just doing something a bit different (and very good) with the genre as it's always been.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

I'd be inclined to say so because I can't think of any modern fantasy writer before him who wrote fantasy purely as satire and social commentary. Fantasy writers who included both, certainly, but not where those were the focuses and the genre just happened to be fantasy. And I can't call to mind any series that is remotely similar to his in any striking and definite ways, and I can't draw any major correlations between his series and any other authors. So I think that counts as being a striking difference.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting way to look at it... I'll have to think about it - I have a feeling as if Pratchett's writing in the Discworld series reminds me of other works, but I can't pull anything exactly to mind at the moment. Except a strange similarity to Mark Twain at his most cutting. ;)

I guess I'm just not much for divisions or 'reinvention' as a concept - I'm more likely to pick out the coherency in any given genre, or between genres, than anything else. At least that's how I'm feeling about it at this moment, subject to change the next time I get off on a literary rant. *g*

[kiana.livejournal.com]

Hahhaha yes. You know my thoughts already. ;)

I love Terry. ♥

[driftingwind.livejournal.com]

Although I haven't read Pratchett's books before, I agree with him on this issue. JK Rowling simply have no idea what current fantasy fictions are all about. :| Her over-generalised statement about the fantasy genre and obvious ignorance turn me off.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

I've never liked the woman, honestly. I've been bitched out for not liking her but still liking her work, but I don't see why the two have to be mutually exclusive. I don't like Mercedes Lackey, either, but I like some of her books. Same with Anne Mcaffery and Anne Rice. *shrugs*

[onefishjyuufish.livejournal.com]

Someone brought that letter to Neil Gaiman's attention and he seemed to think that the Times article that Terry was speaking of was 'astonishingly badly written and worse researched.' He cited a different article he'd seen a couple years previously wherein Rowling said that she liked the Narnia books and would reread them in an instant (where the Time article says that she's never read them and thinks that there's 'something about Lewis's sentimentality about children that gets on her nerves.')

So the article in question seems to be a load of bollocks. Journalistic license at its finest. ;)

http://www.livejournal.com/users/officialgaiman/213522.html

[sigelphoenix.livejournal.com]

I followed the link and found the Time article itself (http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1083935,00.html), and ... whether Gaiman or the journalist is correct about Rowling's opinion of fantasy, I can say that the journalist's description is quite possibly the most blatantly misinformed 'definitions' of fantasy that I've ever seen: "The genre tends to be deeply conservative--politically, culturally, psychologically. It looks backward to an idealized, romanticized, pseudofeudal world, where knights and ladies morris-dance to Greensleeves."

Um, what? I can't remember the last sci-fi/fantasy novel I read that matched even one of the qualities. Great research there, buddy. *rolls eyes*

[zinjadu.livejournal.com]

*raises Anhk-Morpork flag and waits to get stolen from*

Right there with you, my friend. Sure, Harry Potter is all well and good, but they have nothing on Discworld books. Like you said, he writes about humaity and the silly, stupid, and sometimes good and mostly bad things that we do. ... Now I think I have to go out and buy a whole stack of his books. =D

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

Terry Pratchett writes on the realities of human nature, rather than cliches and archtypes and - let's face it - stereotypes. JK Rowling, unfortnuately, goes in for all of the three. I don't see how her books redefined the genre.

[zinjadu.livejournal.com]

There's nothing wrong with going for that, of course, but yeah so did not redefine anything. Woman was a Classics major, she knew what she was doing.

[babydraco.livejournal.com]

If she really said that, she's probably trying to convince people that she's not a fantasy writer, so tehy won't lock her into a genre. I heard she doesn't want to write fantasy anymore.

But if she said it, she's clearly lying- because if anything her books so far have been giant, meta homages to the entire tradition of British children's fantasy. And judging from the things people ahve gleaned from her work, she's studied fantasy literature, mythology, and magick in *depth*. Which means there's no way she accidentally fell into writing this stuff.

But I've heard of other SF/F authors who insist that they're not writing "fantasy".

[simmysim.livejournal.com]

Awwww, did he have to say it on her birthday? :\

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

And as a Morris dancer, I am mortally offended. *snickers*