A Hat Full of Sky

 

Terry Pratchett made me laugh more than any other author. A Hat Full of Sky is the first of his books to feature Tiffany Aching, and a good entry point within his phenomenally popular Discworld series. 

Right away, he's creating a humorous atmosphere. John Vorhaus' book The Comic Toolbox gave me a vocabulary and an awareness of techniques for comedy; Terry Pratchett taught me by demonstration over the course of decades and the forty-one books in the Discworld series. I am richer for both their work.

The first truth about humor is that no joke works for everyone. What brings one person to helpless laughter can leave another person cold. Terry Pratchett's writing worked very well for me and for quite a few others, as witnessed by the millions of copies of his books sold worldwide. 

What techniques make this sentence funny? First, there's a funny name. Vorhaus notes that this is a hard technique to pull off. "Nac Mac Feegle" has a sharp rhythm then a fade. With the hard endings of the final letter Cs, "Nac Mac" reads as two strong syllables. They are short, and, to pronounce them, we need a bit of a stop after each C, so that come as two separated raps. "Feegle" on the other hand, starts with an emphasis that trails off into the almost swallowed syllable "gle"– and it's an unknown word which is closest to the English word "feeble." The contrast between strong and weak syllables sets up a surprise. Much of humor comes from unexpected combinations like this. 

We have a variety of associations with fairies. The most popular are of bright, small, winged, and pretty creatures. Another strand views them as glamorous, dangerous, alien tricksters and warriors. So these ideas are already jostling as we attempt to place the Nac Mac Feegle as a fairy race. We don't associate either of these versions of fairies with "drunk." So the second beat of humor comes by placing that expectation-breaking word in the strong position at the end of the sentence. Vorhaus taught me very clearly that a twist on the final word was an essential comedy technique. Pratchett hits it perfectly here. 

There's another misfitting between the academic tone of "the most dangerous of the fairy races, particularly when" and the word "drunk" as well. We expect a serious, upright lecture. We get a popular word for a situation that very polite company would gloss over. That puncturing of staid behavior may be one of the reasons British humor works well for me. 

I miss Terry Pratchett. The first sentence of A Hat Full of Sky reminds me of some of the reasons, and the promise of laughter – and the mystery of a new group of fairies – would lead me to read on. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert