Actually, there are a myriad reasons. (And I can’t think of a single legitimate reason not to read him. Uninformed reasons, yes, and/or reasons based on the faulty assumption that fantasy/SF has nothing to do with reality — or that funny has nothing to do with serious. But legitimate ones? Nope.)
This brief bit from Witches Abroad pretty much boils it down for me. The bare context you need at this point is that a conversation is taking place among three witches. Old Mother Dismass, the subject of this passage, has the ability to see into the future.
“You can’t tell me that’s worth tuppence,” said Old Mother Dismass, from whatever moment of time she was currently occupying.
No one was ever quite sure which it was.
It was an occupational hazard for those gifted with second sight. The human mind isn’t really designed to be sent rocketing backward and forward along the great freeway of time and can become, as it were, detached from its anchorage, seeing randomly into the past and the future and only occasionally into the present. Old Mother Dismass was temporally unfocused. This meant that if you spoke to her in August she was probably listening to you in March. It was best just to say something now and hope she’d pick it up next time her mind was passing through.
The writing is just right; even that “as it were,” which in a lesser writer’s hands might function as mere filler, adds an ironic distance between the author and the things and events which he’s describing.
I love the turnings of the mind behind this passage. Given a common convention of speculative fiction — second sight — just stop. Stop, and ask yourself what it would really mean to have this “gift.” Mightn’t life and thought actually be a little more unpleasantly complicated for the (ha ha) lucky seer than we normally take for granted? How would this power, if someone actually had it, affect those who had to deal every day with its bearer?
Finally, take that whole reductio ad absurdum of a notion and package it up into a supremely funny digression…
Damn. I’d love to be able to do that, and do it repeatedly, over the course of 25+ years (and counting).
cuff says
I’ve never been a fan of science fiction or fantasy (beyond Lord of the Rings), but I do agree it has everything to do with our current reality. That passage reminds me, just in its tone, of Jeanette Winterson’s young adult novel, Tanglewreck.
Sarah says
I like the way the author uses second person viewpoint- at least that’s what I think it is? Many writing books say it’s a no-no but it works well here. I was a big SciFi fan in my late teens- Asimov, Bradbury, etc. Then I got away from it and into mysteries but I’m willing to be re-converted.
John says
cuff: Now that’s a connection I wouldn’t have made, like, ever. Well done!
I’ve read several of Wintersen’s not-young adult novels but not Tanglewreck. Now my curiosity is tweaked.
Sarah: [Following comments pertain to TP’s Discworld series, which are the only ones of his I’ve read.] Pratchett has done so many books, and they’re all standalone so you can pretty much read them in any order. If you want to give him a try, though, start with the first, The Colour of Magic. Besides being funny as bejeezus, it also introduces the notion of the Discworld itself — a flat planet, carried through the skies on the backs of four giant elephants which in turn all stand on the back of an enormous turtle.
Like you, I’d gotten away from SF/fantasy many years ago. Pratchett is just a delight on many levels, well worth a try. (I sprinkle a book of his every now and then between “serious” books.)
And yeah, I like the 2nd-person thing here too. Almost makes me feel like he’s actually invited me into the story, y’know?
marta says
I’ve never read Pratchett but he is on my list. (It is, however, a very long list. I’ll move him up.)
Clever and wise way to think about the second sight.
John says
marta: I’d never read him at all till a couple years ago. But I’d seen his name mentioned a lot on tech-geek Web sites and fora; when I finally dived in (with a fairly recent book, actually — not with the first as I just recommended to Sarah), I just could not believe I’d gone so long without experiencing the pleasure!
recaptcha: Why Crumbaugh
Why indeed???