Hogfather
We recently watched a new-ish Christmas special. Due to the delay between airing a show in Britain and its availability online where Eileene harvests food for her BBC addiction (and, possibly, the time it takes even to learn of a particular show of interest), it was unseasonable, but hey, why not? I’ll file it under “keeping the Christmas spirit alive all through the year,” as so many smarmy shows ask us to do.
This show, happily, inflicts a minimum of smarm because it’s Hogfather, one of Terry Pratchett’s satirical Discworld novels. I was a little confused as to why the BBC should start with this one, instead of starting with his first (The Color of Magic), or one of the stronger titles (opinions vary, but there is a general consensus that the books got considerably better with time and practice), or at least something a little cheaper to produce, with simpler sets. Eileene figures the BBC started with this book because it was a relatively safe way to test the waters: they could count on a certain number of viewers simply due to the season, in addition to Pratchett fans. Then, if it tested well, they could consider producing other titles in the series, and if not, they cut their losses. I suppose Eileene’s theory is correct, but a second possible explanation occurs to me.
After watching the show, Eileene showed an interest in reading some of the Discworld books, and agreed that I should check a couple out for her from the library. This placed me in something of a dilemma.
I already mentioned the opinion that Pratchett improved as an author with practice. I share that opinion, as does Pratchett himself. I’d go so far as to say the first half dozen or so titles are pretty lame. The humor depends on a juvenile degradation of fantasy conventions—giving Conan the Barbarian false teeth and flatulence, for example. After this phase, Pratchett begins to find his own voice, instead of merely mocking someone else’s, but he still takes a few more books working past a thin repetition of the same plot, in which popular culture—films, rock music, shopping malls—threaten to open a rift to the dimension of unspeakable entities before he finally settles into a triumphant satirizing of human nature generally.
Like many readers, my first exposure to Discworld was The Color of Magic, and I didn’t bother reading any more. Also like many readers, it was only years later that I approached Discworld from the middle, picking up a different novel without realizing the connection, enjoying it, and becoming enthused about reading the rest. Eileene never got past The Color of Magic, which is hardly surprising: not a fantasy reader by nature, she didn’t even recognize the characters it satirized. Sensitive to such problems, I wanted to pick the best starting point for her to begin. The dilemma lay in the way that Pratchett recycles characters as running gags: the later, and generally more skillfully written, the book, the less readily a new reader will identify with the characters and appreciate the humor. And since, like any fan, I wanted Eileene to become as enthused about the books as I had, I needed to start where the optimum balance between these competing drives.
That decision is a judgment call: some fans would draw that dividing line a little earlier, others a little later. Coincidentally enough, I drew it at Hogfather, although I brought Reaper Man home as well, since Death, who Eileene liked so much in Hogfather, really begins his personal history there.
And so I wonder whether the BBC, in choosing to start with Hogfather, didn’t do so at least in part for much the same reason, in addition to a desire to cash in on the holiday season.