More thoughts on Terry Pratchett

[pat]

It strikes me that the philosophical content of Harry Potter is easily grasped by children beyond a certain age. On the other hand, a lot of the philosophical content in the Discworld is geared towards adults. A teenager can read and love Men at Arms, for example, but it takes an adult to understand Sam Vines's struggle with "the beast" on anything more than a superficial level. (This is not a criticism of teenagers, it's just that there are things you can only understand when you've been around the block a few times.) A young adult can struggle through the intricacies of the mission of the History Monks in Thief of Time. You have to have years under your belt -- not a lot, necessarily, but more than a few -- to understand what it says about time and choice. As I said in a previous post, there is a great deal to think about in the best of the Discworld books, it just doesn't jump up and down screaming "Moral Content! Moral Content!"

Comments

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I much prefer my moralising the Pratchett way, but there are apparently enough people out there who don't notice that kind of thing if it isn't surrounded by multi-coloured arrow stickers.