Reviews with content warning for Dementia - Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography

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Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography by Rob Wilkins

8 reviews

tamarant4's review against another edition

emotional funny informative lighthearted sad medium-paced

3.5

...it was frequently said that no train anywhere in Britain was permitted to run until it was established that at least one passenger on board was reading a Terry Pratchett. [loc. 370]

Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes, by his assistant and friend Rob Wilkins, is always honest, sometimes sentimental and frequently very amusing. It shows us a man fuelled, to some extent, by anger, and perhaps by a sense of class inequality. He was told at school that he'd never amount to anything. Indeed, he left the education system to take up a full-time job as a reporter for a local paper -- but by then he'd already been published in John Carnell's 'Science Fantasy' magazine, at the age of 15. Some familiar names in the chapters about his teenage years: Rog Peyton, Christopher Priest, Dave Langford... and the British Science Fiction Association.

The early chapters focus on Pratchett's career as a reporter, and his work as a PR man for the Central Electricity Generating Board: but the book really becomes interesting after he gives up the day job and begins writing full-time. Some interesting insights into his process -- a combination of self-discipline and distraction. From the sound of it, he just wrote. (‘A 60,000 target, that means 212 days. No, let’s say by Christmas which means 370 words a night. Aim for 400!’ [loc. 3441]). Rob Wilkins started work as his assistant in 2000, and shows no reluctance in documenting Pratchett's less dignified moments -- argumentative, irritable and unreasonable. But it's also clear that there was great affection between the two of them. And Pratchett remained deeply in love with his wife Lyn, and devoted to his daughter Rhianna, until the end. (I still think he had the best possible death: at home, surrounded by family and with his cat on his bed.)

Wilkins' account of the Embuggerance -- Pratchett's term for the posterior cortical atrophy that killed him at 66 and affected him for at least a decade before that -- is moving and terrifying. Wilkins went from font-fixer and technical support to piecing together scraps of dictation -- as well as looking after Pratchett in more practical, physical ways. Dementia is horrific in its sheer randomness; the moments when Pratchett's brain failed him, leading to panic or incoherence or rage; the feeling of helplessness in the face of a disease for which there is as yet no cure. I watched my father's personality fragment and erode in the face of a similar illness (though he was much older, and had suffered multiple strokes). I hope it does not happen to me.

I can carry a grudge as well as anyone, and Terry Pratchett was once rudely dismissive of me, so I haven't read any of his books for many years. (Apart from rereads of Good Omens.) This is my problem and my loss. And hey, the books are still there waiting... I suspect I'd have enjoyed A Life With Footnotes even more if I'd been more of a Pratchett fan: I think it's about time I got over that long-ago dismissal and got reading. So many books! And who knows how much time any of us have?

Fulfils the ‘Nomination’ rubric of the Annual Non-Fiction Reading Challenge, on the rather shaky basis of this quotation: "...the idea of getting shortlisted for prizes and not winning them was worse to Terry than the idea of not getting shortlisted for them in the first place. This had been his mindset since at least 1989, when Truckers was nominated for a Smarties Book prize, only to be ruled out on the contentious grounds that the story seemed to be inviting – as indeed it was – a sequel." [loc. 3979]

For as long as he writes, he is still Terry Pratchett. So, for as long as he needs me to, I will help him to write. [loc. 6628]

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beeping_librarian's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

Detailed biography covering Sir Terry's whole life. Includes anecdotes and colorful stories. Had the sense the author was trying to be clever.

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lukerik's review against another edition

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informative sad fast-paced

3.0

Far more interesting than it deserves to be considering it’s about a man who spent most of his time sitting down. It’s one for fans of Pratchett rather than fans of biography. Don’t come to it expecting Ackroyd or Tomalin. Wilkins has the disadvantage of being too close to his subject.

On the other hand, he has the advantage of being close to his subject. It’s intimate. It’s not a hagiography. There are numerous examples of Pratchett being a total arsehole. Particularly well done is his charting of Pratchett’s dementia. This might make you tear up at times. Of course, I didn’t because I’m a big brave boy. Having read the books as they came out I didn’t notice any effect on them until Raising Steam. There’s obviously something wrong with the novel. But then The Shepherd’s Crown is incomplete but what’s on the page is fine. What’s shocking is what a state he was in long before that. It beggars belief how he was able to continue for so long. Wilkins’s account of the writing of these two novels is very interesting.

It’s well written. Very readable, and the tone is spot on.

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vimes_48's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny inspiring lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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arrianne's review against another edition

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funny reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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_m0's review

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emotional informative inspiring slow-paced

5.0

Things I liked:

The beginning was a little slow, but I did enjoy the many details and wry humor, and especially when it got to the part of his career when things were really taking off
Rob's description of their long working relationship and friendship made it much more personal and engaging
Fascinating to see behind the scenes of the progress of certain books -- for example, how closely the Tiffany Aching books drew on his own upbringing and experiences (the original trilogy is among my favorites, and this just goes to show why!)
The footnotes, of course!

And, of course, the ending was more than a little heartbreaking. GNU Terry Pratchett.

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cyluho's review

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emotional funny inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.75

This book made me happy and it made me furious and it made me laugh and it made me bawl tears on a Saturday morning: a perfect tribute in my mind.

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katiewhocanread's review

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emotional funny sad medium-paced

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