The Colour of Magic

Pratchett, Terry : The Colour of Magic (Corgi Books, 1985)

After a bit of a struggle, I managed to get to the end of this book.  It is the first of Terry Pratchett’s discworld novels.  I really don’t know what to make of it. 

It is a story without a plot rather in the style of Tom Jones.  Our hero, the ingénue, stumbles unawares into a situation which leads to a series of initiatory events, from which he emerges as an adult – older, at least, if not wiser.  The main character is the unattractive Rincewind, an inept and cowardly magician, and his confrere, the naive and gullible Twoflower.  Twoflower’s Luggage, with a mind of its own, and multiple sets of legs, is more endearingly characterised than our two main protagonists.  The story is set in an eccentric world, a discworld, supported by elephants on the back of a giant turtle.  The humour is what I would describe as ‘blokey’, of the ‘ha-ha-there’s-egg-on-yer-face!-hey-run-fer-it!’ variety.

Yet Terry Pratchett is enormously popular, so where is the charm? Perhaps The Colour of Magic is, as it were, an introduction, and its point and humour will become clear when I read volume two, The Light Fantastic.  Perhaps I myself will then be fully initiated – and Terry’s genius will be revealed.  Perhaps.