It was the King Colour, of which all the lesser colours are merely
partial and wishy-washy reflections. It was octarine, the colour of magic. It
was alive and glowing and vibrant and it was the undisputed pigment of the
imagination, because wherever it appeared it was a sign that mere matter was a
servant of the powers of the magical mind. It was enchanted itself.
But Rincewind always thought it looked a sort of greenish-purple.
Running the risk of sounding like a snobbish expert of
all things Discworld, I have to admit
that upon rereading The Colour of Magic
for the third time, it stands out far more than it used to compared to the rest
of the novels (that’s right, all five
novels of the series I’ve read so far). It’s structured differently. It’s
composed of four novellas or extended chapters (I guess you could also call
them parts or sections). Most of the novels in the series aren’t organized in
parts or chapters which means that the story isn’t organized that way either. The Colour of Magic reads more like
short story collection in which each all the stories flow from one to the other
as opposed to a novel which encapsulates one continued story for its entire
length.
I was a bit surprised to realize that Pratchett’s
influences were more obvious to me than they’ve ever been before. Part of it is
that the first two times I read this was during my teens. The other part is
that I recently finished reading Swords
Against Death byThe Colour of Magic isn’t one continuous
story per se, it’s more of a collection
of never-serialized stories. Four distinct stories that follow from one to the
other which, when read in sequential order, work rather well as a novel. The
fact that all four parts focus on a particular story or a long joke (made up,
of course, of several smaller and medium size jokes) serves to make me believe
I didn’t imagine the influence from Fritz Leiber. I think it’s interesting that
Pratchett, the writer being influenced, is better than Leiber, the one
influencing Pratchett. It’s not really a fair comment to make because Pratchett
has far many more influences than just Leiber and unlike Leiber he’s not afraid
to actually put his world building to good use, by which I mean Pratchett
doesn’t just throw fancy word combinations onto the page. Octarine means
something and some does hubward and so does the designation of “the disc” mean
the world.
Fritz Leiber who’s was a big influence for the first and second stories in this collection thought he wasn’t the only influence, that’s for sure. For starters, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (Bravd and the Brown Weasel) appear as characters in the book in the first few pages. The wonderful city of Anhk-Morpork is clearly based on Lankhmar. Heck, it’s right there in the name! The way the book is organized also shows signs of the influence from Leiber.
It’s a bit obvious to say but being the first book in the
series, The Colour of Magic is
responsible for introducing several staple elements of the series. To name just
a few, the planet itself is introduced: it’s flat, held up by four elephants
riding on the back of Great A’Tuin, the space turtle. Discworld, the planet, is
a very unique location in fantasy and it works very well. It’s one of my
favourite fantasy locations of all time (and it would make a great statuette to
have in ones living room). Pratchett also introduces the magical importance of
the number eight along with the eighth colour of the light spectrum, octarine
(which the title references). Anhk-Morpork, Rincewind, Twoflower and the
Luggage are also introduced. I love all of these characters, the Luggage
especially. They’re all so familiar (maybe not the Luggage) but maintain a
specific, how would you say, flavour or essence all their own. Pratchett
instantly makes these characters both unique and relatable in a matter of
pages. It’s made all the more surprising when you stop and consider how
ridiculous these ideas are. Let’s take my favourite (LUGGAGE), made up of a
rare tree called sapient pearwood, it has hundreds of tiny legs, has quite the
attitude, and is seemingly impervious to all sorts of natural and magical
injury.
World-building is actually the one thing that makes this
book work. It’s not just fantasy hijinks and magic jokes. For the uninitiated, The Colour of Magic tells four stories
involving three mains characters. Rincewind is a washout wizard who’s hired as
a tour guide to Twoflower, and in-sewer-ants
clerk who is on holiday. Twoflower is the first tourist ever on Discworld and it
works really well as an introduction because some of the sights he sees and the
places he visits are explained to him by Rincewind which, by extension, is also
explained to the reader. Accompanied by Twoflower’s Luggage, a sentient wooden
chest with an attitude and many endearing qualities (he, it’s, no I’m pretty
sure it’s he, is one of my favourite Discworld
characters) they go on several fun adventures. In the first story, they meet
up, many introductions are made, and half of Anhk-Morpork is burned to the
ground. In the second story they meet up with a caricature of a barbarian hero
are unintentional captured by an ancient god and defeat it. In the third story
the characters get into a bit of a misunderstanding with the Dragonriders of
Pern and the whole book ends with Rincewind and Twoflower getting into all
sorts of trouble on the Edge which inevitably leads them to travel beyond the
Edge of the Disc.
I quite like the idea that everything Pratchett throws
into his fictional world seems to work so well together. Discworld isn’t your typical pseudo-medieval setting with magic
thrown in, though there certainly is quite a bit of that. There are also modern
ideas that come into play in hilarious ways. Pratchett introduces a lot of
these elements in the first book making Discworld
a series, a location and a universe in which things are ever changing. The
overall constants remain the same, but immediately in the first story the
concepts of tourism, insurance and economics are introduced. We also learn that
as a failed wizard, Rincewind’s always toyed with the idea that there exists
something else other than magic. He’s thinking of science but he obviously wouldn’t
know that since he’s never encountered science before. He gets to, though, as
Twoflower has a few contraptions form his home continent that would quality as
a cross between magic and science. He has objects like a pocket watch and a
camera, both going by different names, which Rincewind gets to use throughout
the novel. The reader is made to understand that all these things were
completely unknown to the population of Ankh-Morpork before the arrival of
Twoflower.
The Colour of Magic
isn’t the typical Discworld novel, at
least not if I compare the five books I’ve read from the series. It’s got a bit
of a strange structure and it’s nowhere close to the funniest book in the
series, it’s hands down the best place to start reading. Perhaps unsurprisingly
it serves as an excellent introduction to a couple of the most well-known Discworld characters as well as some of
the most popular locations, like the twin city of Ankh-Morpork. More
importantly, The Colour of Magic is
the first time that terminology unique to the series such as octarine, the
Discworld compass: Hubwards (towards the Hub or the center of the Disc),
Rimwards (towards the Rim), Turnwise (the direction in which the Disc turns)
and Widdershins (the opposite of Turnwise). In order to truly enjoy all that Discworld has to offer, you also have to
be a pretty well-read fantasy reader. The more fantasy novels you’ve read prior
to reading one of the many Discworld
novels, the better the reading experience will be. That’s something I’ve only
realized the third time reading it which means you don’t need to have read
hundreds or even dozens of fantasy novels before it to enjoy the great fun that
Pratchett’s having at everyone else’s expense.
Note on the Cover:
Josh Kirby’s cover to The
Colour of Magic is pretty interesting. It’s not my favourite Discworld cover by any means but I do
like how he was able to capture the energy of the book inside. This cover is
also notable for putting the best character in the center (Luggage!) but the
rest of the characters are a bit lost in the mix. Twoflower happens to have
four eyes because Kirby catch on that Pratchett’s description of him was meant
to convey that Twoflower wears glasses. It’s ok, I didn’t catch on the first
tie either. I like how the cover shows a scene from the book. I love it when
artists do that but good covers don’t always have to represent something from
the story to be good.
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