Terry Pratchett interview continued…

Never let it be said I am not responsive to emails! After a few pleading emails from subscribers who already received issue 12 in the post (many of them attempting to wrest back their copy from their significant other), I am posting the promised remainder of the Terry Pratchett interview here early.

But first — a little background for those of you who either haven’t received your copy yet, or who are coming here from a non-magazine-induced search. When Pratchett was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, members of the Ankh-Morpork Knitters’ Guild on knitting website Ravelry decided to team up to create an amazing handknit afghan for their favorite author, suitably named the Pratchgan. Here’s a photo of coordinator Shirley MacDonald (cherryred2001) presenting it to him, at left.

Not only do Pratchett’s characters knit, he knits and spins as well! The Tiffany Aching Discworld books (The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith) are particularly sheepy. YARN forward editor Shannon Okey talked about these topics and many more during an interview with Pratchett in December 2008. For the first half of the interview, you can find YARN forward on your local newsstand starting 16 March, or order a copy here.

(Overseas readers should note than issues tend to arrive in bookstores approximately 6 weeks after the UK date)

And so we conclude this wonderful interview a question or two from the end of the print version, to give context:

TP: Um, secret knitters…. The whole thing about secret…. I doubt very much if Granny Weatherwax could be bothered. It’s all to do with the cycle - and, indeed, the same thing with Nanny Ogg. Nanny Ogg would encourage other people to knit, and give her the sweater.

YF: When I imagine her house, I see the chair-back covers and everything, and I think “Oh, she wouldn’t do it herself. She’d get the daughters-in-law to make them”.

TP: In the nicest possible way, she’s a tyrant. A matriarch, just thinking…. ‘Cause when I was a lad, every woman knitted, or so it seemed. Even my mother - it was what you did, and I’m not quite certain why it faded out, because it wasn’t really being done for cost. It was just being done because that’s what you did. Have you ever read a book called A Midwife’s Tale?

YF: Yes.

TP: Now, that was a very helpful book to me, because I love the way the book deals with a hidden, second economy of the colony, that the women more or less ran everything, and at no point, as far as one could tell, did they ever stop doing something with their hands. You were always kneading dough, or patching something up, or spinning, or weaving, or carrying things. Where all the men were talking about building a new continent, and Congress, and stuff like that, women were doing all the work.

YF: Typical!

TP: I’m building a new character, he is an inveterate crossword-puzzler. In fact, in the last book, and in Unseen Academicals, (Editor’s note: a forthcoming Pratchett book) he is incensed with, he thinks it’s a female, that someone is setting up the most hideously difficult crossword puzzles in the Ankh-Morpork Times, and he can of course complete them, but he’s losing his record time. And he rails against her to his secretary every morning, because he prides the speed at which he can do a crossword puzzle. Oddly enough, one can’t help thinking that if he took up knitting, he’d do it very well, with extreme precision.

YF: Well, men generally do. Every time I’ve taught a man to knit, he picks it up faster than any woman I’ve taught to knit. In Jingo, Sybil’s knitting for the brave lads, she’s in the Aristo group. Is that the equivalent of aristocratic women sitting there cross-stitching all day, except, you know, you’re just a little more sensitive to the knitting?

TP: I think with Sybil, she’s an immensely rich woman, but God bless her, an incredibly kind one. There’s a thesis I’m working on that, actually, depending on circumstances, kindness is better than love, because love is ethereal, and kindness is a good meal when you need it. You know what I mean?

YF: Yes, exactly - it’s a little more hands-on.

TP: Yeah, God is love, but a good cook is kindness. (laughs) She thinks there are things she should do for her husband. So she cooks for him, I get the impression that she was brought up in, that her household was a literal one, so she does cook for him - not very well. And she worries about his health, and she knits socks for him, because that’s what a wife should do for her husband. The fact that she doesn’t do them very well makes it more charming, I think.

YF: So what did your mother knit? Did she knit everything, or was there something in particular she liked to….

TP: Oh, I remember going to school in jumpers that she’d knitted. I mean, she knitted stuff. It wasn’t, you know, like knitted - God, I think at one point, every kid in England had the knitted swimming trunks. Make sure you’re hanging on to them when you come out of the water!

YF: My test knitter is from Yorkshire, and her mother and all their friends would smoke and knit at the same time, and they just sort of shoved needles in her hand when she was small, put her in the corner and said “Okay, go knit!”. And that was that, it was the social thing to do.

TP: Oh yeah, yeah, usually, I mean, I’m familiar with a couple of women and, it was done pretty much automatically, too, which struck me as wonderful.

YF: Yeah, I still haven’t quite worked out how they ashed their cigarettes and still, you know, continued on. (laughs)

TP: I’m glad people have been noticing the bits in the Tiffany Aching series. Let me ask, are you a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism?

YF: No, but in school, my specialization was medieval German religious history. So, you know…

TP: I mean, I just find it a bit funny here, because I went to a convention last year, and yes, the SCA had some people there, and there was a King and a Queen. And of course all the guests had to go up and bow before the King and the Queen. So when it got to me, I bowed to the King, and I bowed to the Queen, and I did that for about a minute, and I turned to the audience and I said “I’m from England. This may take some time.”

Shortly after this interview, Terry Pratchett was knighted in the Queen’s New Year’s Honors List.

YARN forward would again like to thank our assistant transcriber Aimee Evans and Terry’s PA Rob / all the contributors to the Pratchgan who helped with this article, particularly the members of the Ankh-Morpork Knitters’ Guild on Ravelry.

Links from the article:

• Match It For Pratchett campaign
• Alzheimer’s Research Trust
• For UK taxpayers, donations to the ART qualify for Gift Aid.

We should also probably mention that Terry and Rob are now on Twitter, as is YARN forward.