To Explain the Glorious 25th of May
For those of my followers who are confused, here’s a brief explanation.
In the Discworld book Night Watch, the 25th of May is the anniversary of the Revolution of Treacle Mine Road, otherwise known as the Glorious 25th of May. This was a relatively minor skirmish in the city’s great history, a struggle for power, a liberation that removed a madman from the throne to replace him with a different madman. But it was the city fighting back against oppression and cruelty and torture.
And in the fighting seven men died. Seven graves in the cemetery. And those who were there wear the lilac to remember them.
Discworld fans use this date as a convenient date to honour Sir Terry Pratchett and to remember his work.
Because there truly are no books like them. They are so amazing, with Pratchett having an amazing insight into fantasy, as well as the depths of the human condition.
Night Watch especially shows this. It’s dark, it’s funny, it’s grim, it’s silly. It’s a book about inevitably, it’s a book about change. It’s terrifying, it’s bleak, it’s hopeful, it’s warm! It’s about a man reliving the worst days of his past, but he still strives to protect those he knows are lost. Because they’re not lost yet. They’re in front of him and he does the job in front of him.
Where, as civilians riot against the cruelty of the law, a man defends his watch house by sitting out front with a cup of lukewarm cocoa in one hand and a cigar in the other, telling the rioters he’s on break.
A book where a man must mentor his own child self. A book where he must walk his own past through the horrors he witnessed.
Where he gets so close to changing fate, before fate spins round with a haymaker.
And it’s also a book where the chant of the revolution is “Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably Priced Love, and a Hardboiled Egg.”
Where there is an old soldiers song about angels sticking their arses in the air, that just might make you weep.
We love you, Sir Terry Pratchett.
