Jokes about characters with exclamation marks in their names and gags about specific fantasy books do require a certain amount of knowledge to work. Whereas later Pratchett satirised the real world, here his target is both softer and more obscure. Yet while they may work, these digs also open up the biggest objection to reading The Colour of Magic. As the failed wizard Rincewind and the proto-tourist Twoflower hurtle around the physically impossible, magically sustained geography of the Discworld, Pratchett makes sharp and telling points about the absurd skimpiness of female characters’ outfits, the daftness of riding on the backs of dragons, the ridiculousness of the average quest. In a speech back in 1986, he also said: “It was an attempt to do for the classical fantasy universe what Blazing Saddles did for westerns.” Terry Pratchett explained on the BBC that it was “written in protest” about a genre that he loved, but contained “too many dark lords, too much lack of thought”. The Colour of Magic is also effective as a satire of pre-1990s fantasy conventions. There’s also a very good Big Bang joke – but I won’t say more for fear of spoiling it. Late on, the use of the word “circumfence” to describe the barrier around the edge of the Discworld’s outer seas had me snorting. There are also plenty of jokes that are even funnier within the context of the book. Rincewind tried to force the memory out of his mind, but it was rather enjoying itself there, terrorising the other occupants and kicking over the furniture. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do.
I’m going to give in to it, because those quotes are so much fun: The temptation, as always with Pratchett, is to start quoting at length. The book contains, as the author himself once put it, some “ boffo laughs”. It’s still more than worth reading in and of itself. And partly, because this book is still good. Partly, because it’s already so fascinating to see the origins of the Discworld and the source of so many other stories. I say yes partly because it’s going to be so interesting to compare this book to one of his later masterpieces and to see how Pratchett developed his writing as the years went on. Even more so now that I’ve re-read The Colour of Magic, almost 30 years after it first introduced me to the delights of the Discworld.
But I’d still answer yes to both those questions. I wouldn’t introduce someone to the Beatles with Please Please Me, I’d go straight for Revolver.
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