If You Read Enough Books, You Overflow

One of the last books I checked out of the Lincoln Central Library before I moved away was Terry Prachett's A Slip of the Keyboard. Pratchett is one of those authors who has been on edges of my awareness for awhile--I was given a copy of Good Omens over a decade ago, and loved it (I could also go on, at length, about how much I adore the television show), but I hadn't stumbled into reading any of his other writings. 

A Slip of the Keyboard by Terry Pratchett

A Slip of the Keyboard changed that. It was, of course, helpful that I found it exactly at the right time--anthologies with short chapters are good for moving, or times of upheaval in general, because you can pick them up and put them down without losing the plot. The book collects Pratchett's essays, speeches, and other non-fiction pieces. It is full of delightful moments. Consider this reflection on his experiences at the start of his career:

I was lucky. Incredibly so, when I think of all the ways things could have gone. But when the floppy-eared Spaniel of Luck sniffs at your turn-ups it helps if you have a collar and a piece of string in your pocket. In my case, it was a sequel. (p. 21)

I can picture the Spaniel of Luck, can't you? It's probably the type of dog who gets excited and beats a tattoo with its tail. Neil Gaiman's introduction reflects beautifully on the contrast between Pratchett's image as a jolly funnyman and the outrage against injustice that drives much of his work. Outrage aside, moments of exasperation are among the delights of these pieces. One of my favourites is his pithy comment on the internet:

The ethos of the internet was evolved by people who did not have to pay their own phone bills. (p. 79)

But there's also his comment on the rebranding of librarianship:

Not long ago I was invited to a librarians' event by a lady who cheerfully told me, 'We like to think of ourselves as information providers.' I was appalled by this want of ambition: I made my excuses and didn't go. After all, if you have a choice, why not call yourselves Shining Acolytes of the Sacred Flame of Literacy in a Dark and Encroaching Universe? I admit this is hard to put on a button, so why no abbreviate it to librarians?....It seemed to me, even in those days, that librarians and their ilk were not mere 'providers.' (p. 143)

This is part of a passage describing his experience working as a volunteer librarian. I like his point that librarians do more than simply provide access to information, they help people navigate it. (I also think he's on to something about the way that information professionals can often struggle to "TAKE UP SPACE", as my middle school violin teacher would memorably shout at me when I slouched.)

Another passage I want to copy out and wave at everyone I know (the point of this post, if there is one), comes from his inaugural lecture as a professor at Trinity College, Dublin. It's a passage I want to put in a course handbook one day:

Vice-chancellor, venerable staff, guests, students, and graduates, I hope that no one will take it amiss when I say that what we are in fact doing today is celebrating ignorance. Ignorance is generally an unregarded talent among humans, but we are in fact the only species that knows how to do it properly. We've got where we are today by starting out ignorant. It wasn't always like this. A few thousand years ago, we knew everything--how the world began, what it was for, our place in it...everything. It was all there, in the stories the old men told around the fire or had written down in a big book. No more questions, everything sorted out. But now we now that there's vast amounts of things that, well, we simply don't know, Universities have made great efforts in this area. Think about how it works: you arrive at university, the gleam still on your A-levels, and you've pretty well got it all sussed. Then the first thing they tell you--well, the second thing, obviously, because they have to tell you where the toilets are and so on--is that what you've learned so far is not so much the truth as it is a way of looking at things. And after three years or so you've learned that there's a huge amount you don't know yet, and that's when they give you a scroll and push you out. Ignorance is a wonderful thing--it's the state you have to be in before you can really learn anything. (p. 149)

It's not quite correct--as a medievalist, I take issue with the idea that rigid, patriarchal certainty about the way the world works (or should work), is a thing of the past--it seems to be doing very well for itself in the twenty-first century. But the real point, that one of the outcomes of becoming truly educated is realizing with wonder and humility just how infinitely much there is to learn--is something I hope to convey in my own teaching.

Some of the loveliest moments in the book are when Pratchett reflects on his own development as a writer. I love his account of writing a fan letter to Tolkien and getting a response back.

...when I was young, I wrote a letter to J.R.R. Tolkien, just as he was becoming extravagantly famous. I think the book that impressed me was Smith of Wotton Major. Mine must have been among hundreds or thousands of letters he received every week. I got a reply. It might have been dictated. For all I know, it might have been typed to a format. But it was signed. He must have had a sackful of letters from every commune and university in the world, written by people whose children are now grown up and trying to make a normal life while being named Galadriel or Moonchild. It wasn't as if I'd said a lot. There were no burning questions. I just said I'd enjoyed the book. And he said thank you. For a moment, it achieved the most basic and treasured of human communications: you are real, and therefore so am I. (p. 76)

Writers on the craft of writing can be a bit hit or miss, and a secondary industry to the writing advice industry is the don't-take-that-writing-advice-industry, where people explain their allergies to old chestnuts such as "write every day". A Slip of the Keyboard is not a book of advice, but I found this passage especially useful.

Read with the eye of a carpenter looking at trees. Apply logic in places where it  wasn't intended to exist. If assured that the Queen of the Fairies has a necklace made of broken promises, ask yourself what it looks like. If there is magic, where does it come from? Why isn't everyone using it? What rules will you have to give to allow some tension in your story? How does society operate? Where does the food come from? You need to know how your world works. (p. 85)

And lastly, in a book stuffed with great one-liners, this is among the book's best:

And I went on reading; and, since if you read enough books you overflow, I eventually became a writer. (p. 126)

Inspired by A Slip of the Keyboard, one of the first books I checked out from my new public library, de Bibliotheek Utrecht, was their extremely battered copy of Reaper Man, which I loved. I'm currently testing the integrity of the tape binding holding together their copy of The Truth. There is more Terry Pratchett in my future. May we all read to overflow in what remains of this year and the ones to come, and thanks to Sir Terry for helping us do it.