The new Dickens

[Faceless Woman]

I'm studying Dickens' 'Hard Times' at A-level, and the comparisons are astonishing, considering that Pratchett is a fantasy author.
They are both social satirists, sending up the society they live(d) in, but pretending it's entertainment and nothing more. The both dislike the upper class, choosing them as their main target. They are both popular authors who reache(d) a wide audience, making their work accessable to everyone, even the people they were sending up. And they both used caricatures more than 3-D characters, which helped make them both accessable and amusing.
A prime example of a caricature in the discworld is, of course, the illustrious Nobby Nobbs, who has 'anti-charisma'.

 

[Urien]

It's a good point. Ankh-Morpork bears more than a pasing resemblance to Dickens' wretched London.

(According to the blue plaques, Dickens stayed in every third building in London.)

Hmm Pratchett as the new Dickens, with more magic, humour and less description.

I've also read of Stephen King being described as the modern day Dickens. In that it's high quality writing about ordinary folk, in extraordinary situations that the population at large enjoys.

 

[Allegra]

Interesting comparison. Did I read from somewhere that Ankh-Morpork was indeed based on London? Except the river Ankh seems more murkier than the Thames. Terry Pratchett's writing is a lot of funnier and his satire is warmer than Dickens, in my opinion. And his characters are more vivid - the adventages of having all the species in the pot - though they all remind us of someone we know.

Well. Charles Dickens and Stephen King? A bit far fetched I think.

 

[Pointfinder]

Hmm, hadn't thought of that; interesting take.

 

[Faceless Woman]

He is a little warmer. Dickens can get quite nasty sometimes, but TP seems to like his characters, even Nobby.

Humour is in the eye of the beholder.

Dickens and King? No. Both popular, but that's it. You'd be as well comparing Dickens to Tolkein as to Stephen King.

 

[akfarrar]

There are some significant differences though - Pratchett's use of Myth and previous writers (like Shakespeare) is much deeper than Dickens.

Also Pratchett's readership is very different - I suspect there is a far greater 'lower-class' element in it than in Dickens (who loved to write about the lower clases, but they didn't buy books); also I get a sense of more males reding Pratchett.

Publication practice too - Pratchett isn't serialising - and his use of chapters is somewhat hazy - in fact, the structure of the books is very different.

I also don't think "character" is as important to Pratchett as Dickens - plotting I find to be much stronger.

They did both start out as Journalists - and they do both have that sense of audience many "serious" writers scorne.

Finally, I like Pratchett (I don't like Dickens - although I do admit the quality of the books).

I think it has something to do with that little comment at the end - Pratchett likes his characters - Dickens doesn't.

 

[SpaceShip]

He is a little warmer. Dickens can get quite nasty sometimes, but TP seems to like his characters, even Nobby.

Humour is in the eye of the beholder.

Dickens and King? No. Both popular, but that's it. You'd be as well comparing Dickens to Tolkein as to Stephen King.

I think one has to consider the times in which each of these authors wrote. Dickens lived through a time when people experienced extreme poverty, a high mortality rate (especially among children) and a general unfairness towards the poor. There wasn't much joy in his day for the underdog - and many of them couldn't read so to whom was he addressing his works? He wrote to make a point. I believe our modern day scribblers write for fun.

 

[Thadlerian]

I believe our modern day scribblers write for fun.

No doubt quite a lot of them do, and most likely Pratchett is having a great fun writing these books, but he sure makes his points too. Books like Going Postal, Monstrous Regiment, The Truth, etc. make some pretty valid statements about contemporary problems like nationalism, racism and corporate crime. I don't know if we can really differentiate between past writers writing to make a point and present ones not so.

 

[akfarrar]

I believe our modern day scribblers write for fun.

Depends on the 'scribler'. Try reading Orhan Pamuk, winner of this years Nobel prize, as 'just fun'!

Dickens wrote to make money (so did Shakespeare) - and funny made money: He wrote A Christmas Carol don't forget - lots of fun in that one.

And Satire - using humour to highlight serious points - goes right back to the earliest Satyr Plays of the ancient Greeks.

 

[Sibeling]

Pratchett's books definitely make an important statement about what should be improved un our world etc., but Dickens wrote big and serious books (that's an opinion not based on facts - I haven't read any) and Pratchett's books are lighter in tone and more entertaining.

 

[Faceless Woman]

As I just said, I have read Dickens and find it hilarious. His works are serious in content, but the surface is totally the opposite.

Another way that they are similar is in thier use of names to comic effect. Obvious in Pratchett to everyone here, of course. My favourite Dickensian example is Mr M'Choakumchild the schoolteacher. Classic, literally.

 

[SpaceShip]

I stand corrected!

 

[akfarrar]

Interesting comparison. Did I read from somewhere that Ankh-Morpork was indeed based on London? Except the river Ankh seems more murkier than the Thames.

In Darwin's Watch, (Science of Discworld III) Hex describes Victorian London as:

"... many squalid areas and open sewers. The river bisecting it is noxious. ... [It] could be considered a high crime drainage ditch in a dangerous and dirty world."

and goes on to say the 'similarity' to Ankh M. is 'noticable'.

One difference with Dickens though is that Dickens seems to make London almost into a character - the fog at the openning of hard Times for example.

And other Victorian novelests also use an 'Ankh M. like London - not as well as Dickens.

 

[Allegra]

I've always been wondering where the name of 'Ankh Morpork' came from...

 

[Joel007]

I think the name was invented by Terry when he wasn't really expecting his books to be a great success, so he just made up an original name out of nothing

 

[Faceless Woman]

Another pTerry = D (not a smily) arguement is the contextual humour. pTerry links his world to ours all the time, while Dickens links his 'fictional characters' to real people of his time, or to biblical people, mostly saints like Stephen the martyr.

 

[Patrick Mahon]

I'd certainly agree that there are clear parallels between Pratchett's work and that of Dickens, and the Ankh-Morpork = London parallel is a really interesting one!

I've just read 'A Christmas Carol' in the original for the first time, having read far too many adaptations before now, and I loved it. The characterisation is great (even if a bit melodramatic).

I read 'Hard Times' a couple of years back, and I have to admit to getting very involved with the characters as the book wore on. But of course Hard Times is one of Dickens' shorter novels - so many of them are very long, which is where I guess he gets the 'serious' label from. But then, when they were originally published, many of these 900 pages novels came out in 20 monthly installments, and reading 45 pages a month can't have been too hard...

 

[High Eight]

I've always been wondering where the name of 'Ankh Morpork' came from...

It's a parody of the name of the late Fritz Leiber's fantasy city, Lankhmar.

 

[Joel007]

"Bravd and the Weasel were indeed takeoffs of Leiber characters - there was a lot of that sort of thing in The Colour of Magic. But I didn't - at least consciously, I suppose I must say - create Ankh-Morpork as a takeoff of Lankhmar." -Terry Pratchett

 

[High Eight]

"Bravd and the Weasel were indeed takeoffs of Leiber characters - there was a lot of that sort of thing in The Colour of Magic. But I didn't - at least consciously, I suppose I must say - create Ankh-Morpork as a takeoff of Lankhmar." -Terry Pratchett

I'm shocked! (there should be a smiley here, but the powers that be wouldn't let me). I had always assumed that Ankh-Morpork was a takeoff of Lankhmar!

Just goes to show where assumptions get you!