Terry Pratchett diagnosed with Alzheimers

[Teremia]

Frelga, I just went backpacking with WINTERSMITH as our read-aloud book, and that scene in the Alzheimery Underworld did make me cry.

Great book. I love his witches!!!!!

[solicitr]

I've got to say I've been troubled by the tendency beginning in 5E and really, really to the fore in Thud! of making Vimes into an omnicompetent, dangerously close to an Everyman-as-James-Bond. We first met Vimes after all in a gutter sleeping it off, and Vimes was an attractive, even noble flawed figure precisely because in his pragmatic realism he was clearly aware of his abilities- and his limitations. Vimes is a great Watch commander because he was a beat cop, one who could locate himself in the dark by the feel of the paving through his thin boot-soles, one who grew up among the working poor on the fringes of the Shades and knows instinctively the people and rhythm of the world in which criminals tend to operate.

But you can't transfer that. To say that Sam "carries his own water with him" is to make him something he originally was not. Granny carries her own water, because she is sui generis and isn't really part of any environment, not even Lancre. Moist van Lipwig manufactures his own water, pretending to fit into environments through adaptive guile. Poor old Rincewind never even tries and wouldn't know how, which is why he's so funny.

Personally I think Thud! would have been greatly improved had Carrot been given the Vimes role.

[Inanna]

And this week, I re-read Wintersmith. As has happened with me and PTerry's books before, I loved it much more on the second go. But something gave me a solid punch that I missed the first time around. The boggles. The orange squiggle monsters of the Underworld that devour memories and leave their victims wandering around, staring at their hand, dragging useless boxes. When you take away memory, you take away the person.

He made Alzheimer's into a monster. It almost made me cry.

And I didn't get that till now.

Am thinking about what you said soli....

[Primula Baggins]

I don't think I could bear to read that, Frelga. Someone I love very much has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

[Teremia]

Prim, I'm so sorry.

[vison]

You know my motto, Prim.

It's a true motto.

[Primula Baggins]

Yes, dammit. Best advice I ever got (I mean that), if also the most painful.

No, we are cowboying up. Again.

It will be . . . not OK, but we'll manage. But reading Pratchett has a poignancy it didn't before.

[Inanna]

Am sorry, Prim

[Frelga]

Prim, I'm very sorry to hear that.

In a fantasy book, you can turn those horrible things into monsters, and once you've done that, they can be slayed and vanquished. Unfortunately, most of us don't have Nac Mac Feegles by our side.

We can only hope that advance of science will make this monster slayable in roundworld as well. PTerry is helping to do something about it at any rate.

It's... well, I'm sorry is all I can say.

Soli, interesting post. I'll respond when I have more typing time.

[Elentári]

Prim, you have my prayers and good wishes...

[Primula Baggins]

Thanks. And I'm sorry. I didn't mean to glum things up. It's just one of those things, when it first hits home that things won't ever be quite the same again, that now you've got to step up and be the utterly reliable one because the old roles are fading. It doesn't have to be something like this; age alone is enough.

[solicitr]

My deepest sympathies. My mother-in-law is a victim. It started, pre-diagnosis, with little quirks, uncharacteristic suspicion, and then angry tirades (by an otherwise lovely, mild-mannered person). And from there

Well, I deleted the rest. It's awful.

[River]

My grandfather got diagnosed with a form of Alzheimer's a couple years ago. We'd noticed something was up before then, but the diagnosis hit the family like a shockwave. In his case, he's just...spacey. No unpleasant, but nor present either. The scary part is how he doesn't seem to be aware of what he's lost, and is losing...

[Whistler]

My father is dying of Alzheimers' now. He is in a hospital bed in the downstairs bedroom. He has been unable to get out of it for six months. This is the final act of a miserable drama that began when he contracted encephalitis in 1980. The encephalitis somehow triggered the Alzheimer's. I don't know how that happened, but that's what they say.

When I get home at about 8pm, I help my 90-pound mother attend to whatever his needs may be. Then I go upstairs to my studio and paint until around two in the morning to put the whole sorry mess out of my mind.

I don't believe you can have anything worse. Certainly there are illnesses that involve vastly more suffering in the usual sense of the word; but this is something uniquely hideous and unnatural, an affront to man and God and anything else you care to name.

Heading home now to resume the ritual.

[WampusCat]

I am so sorry about your father, Whistler, and your grandfather, River, and your mother-in-law, solictr, and the person you love, Prim. I watched my mother-in-law succumb to it, and it is indeed hideous and unnatural.

I think it can only help to make fantasy monsters of our worst fears. Did Pratchett write that particular book before or after diagnosis? If before, it's eerily prescient. If after, it's a pretty darn good way to deal with the unthinkable.

[Frelga]

Wampus, I think he was diagnosed while writing Wintersmith. The boggles are really a small detail that the hero encounters when traveling into the Underworld, and a chilling thing they are.

I am very sorry about everyone who is dealing with this horrible monster attacking their loved ones. In Wintersmith, boggles can only be seen when your eyes are closed, a reference perhaps to the invisible nature of the disease, and the way the sufferers and the caregivers are often invisible to the world.

[River]

I think it can only help to make fantasy monsters of our worst fears.

The last time my sister was in the hospital, someone brought her crayons and a pad of paper. She drew a variety of monsters, though the one for fever is the one that sticks out in my mind for some reason. She's smart and articulate, but that was the only way she could really express the fear and frustration she was feeling. I'm not sure what happened to those drawings. I would not be surprised if she or my parents kept them.

My grandfather is in his late 80's. He's still in the relatively early stages of Alzheimer's. But I've seen what the late and end stages looks like - I saw the late and end stages of lots of things when I was an EMT. I am not ashamed to admit that I am hoping something else gets him first.

[Frelga]

River,

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS TO THE WATCH BOOKS. I will try to label them as I go.

I've got to say I've been troubled by the tendency beginning in 5E and really, really to the fore in Thud! of making Vimes into an omnicompetent, dangerously close to an Everyman-as-James-Bond.

I agree, at times Pterry fanboys Vimes a bit too much. I don't see it so much in the main plotlines, but a few books have a scene in them that receives a huge buildup, and then Vimes does something Incredibly Clever. I am thinking mostly about the oxen in Night Watch and the troll/dwarf clash in Thud!.

We first met Vimes after all in a gutter sleeping it off, and Vimes was an attractive, even noble flawed figure precisely because in his pragmatic realism he was clearly aware of his abilities- and his limitations. Vimes is a great Watch commander because he was a beat cop, one who could locate himself in the dark by the feel of the paving through his thin boot-soles, one who grew up among the working poor on the fringes of the Shades and knows instinctively the people and rhythm of the world in which criminals tend to operate.

Yes to all of the above. However, Vimes is more than that. He also has a keen sense of justice, of right and wrong, of what the law ought to be. That's why he starts out as an alcoholic in the gutter - because the system of the organized crime in Ankh-Morpork prevents him from acting in accordance with his need to serve and protect. As Ankh-Morpork becomes more of a law-respecting, if not abiding, place, Vimes is able to develop to his full formidable potential.

But you can't transfer that. To say that Sam "carries his own water with him" is to make him something he originally was not. Granny carries her own water, because she is sui generis and isn't really part of any environment, not even Lancre.

Actually, it's Granny who is played for fish out of water laughs in Witches Abroad. Of course, Granny being the most powerful witch on the Disc, too bad for water.

Vimes is at home everywhere because, like Nanny Ogg, he taps into something universal. Coppers are the same everywhere, or should be, in his view. This is a big theme in Pratchett - being yourself, as hard as you can. Where things appear terribly complicated, he makes it simple by treating everything as a crime. Even war. Even geography ("Did you see who carved out this valley?").

Personally I think Thud! would have been greatly improved had Carrot been given the Vimes role.

Hmm. I must disagree here. Carrot = Aragorn + Tom Bombadil of the Disc. Darkness simply has no power over him (see Men-at-Arms). He rarely gets angry, and he does not desire power. He does not need the Guarding Dark. Vimes, for all that PTerry lavishes on him, is still only human, and he can be pushed to the limit of breaking.

It could still be a good book, but it would be like having Aragorn carry the Ring instead of Frodo. Not nearly as poignant. And in Thud!

Hidden text.

Vimes very nearly fails at the end, and is rescued by Angua (as in 5E, BTW) instead of Gollum

[Inanna]

What Frelga said (says the lazy person)

[WampusCat]

I would have replied, but Frelga said what I would have said. Word for word. Honest!