Detecting Dementia Using Lexical Analysis: Terry Pratchett's Discworld
mdpi.com
mdpi.com
The diagnosis was announced in 2007, meaning the shift occurred in 1997. 1997 was after Jingo and before Carpe Jugulum and The Last Continent, and 2007 was after Making Money and before Unseen Academicals.
The Last Continent is the first identified in the paper as below the cutoff for adjectives which they use to identify the start of the decline.
My own feeling is that many of his strongest works were before 2000, though he had several excellent ones after (the City Watch and first two Moist von Lipwig; I know the ongoing Tiffany Aching series are good, but in terms of writing I found them not as intricate as his earlier books.) I found Snuff harder to read, and Raising Steam, sadly, very difficult. I could tell the genius was there, but my memory of the writing was that it used much longer sentences, had less intricate plotting, and far fewer puns and wordplay. It was this book that made me really feel a sense of grief for what was happening to him, and it was this one where I first felt there was an observable threshold that was crossed.
I have sometimes wondered if it would be respectful if another author was brought into assist in editing or rewriting his last two novels. I know his unpublished works were destroyed, and any writing assistance is not his own voice. Yet I feel, in a sense, seeing books with such clear decline could in itself have let his legacy down. I don't know what his own view was or would be. While I admire Sanderson' continuance of the Wheel of Time, I would not wish such a drastic change in tone for some similar effort for the last of Pratchett's works. Yet I deeply wish that his last books were, somehow, different, more representative of him that I feel they were, in that his illness (in a sense, of course!) let him down. They cause me sadness.
GNU Terry Pratchett. (My own site sends this too.)
I don't think that any fan of his is under any illusion that those books are up to his standard, but he has so many good books that his legacy will be safe.
I'm currently in the middle of a complete chronological reread of the discworld books, just finished "thud" and "wintersmith" back to back and while they were definitely weak in places it's amazing how much of his genius still shone through. feeling a little apprehensive about the later books though, I remember some of them being really bad, especially "snuff" :(
Interestingly he hired Rob Wilkins in the year 2000. So, did Rob's presence affect the books? Or did Terry hire Rob because he subconsciously knew he needed to compensate for a decline that started to become apparent, by offloading some tasks?
Did they compare to authors with long careers who did not develop dementia?
Maybe "decreased lexical diversity" is simply natural artistic progression, and not a bad thing, or symptom of disease.
>Relatedly, as this is a single-case study, without a control author, it remains possible that the decline in lexical diversity reflects natural ageing. But note that previous research [15] has found that healthy authors can maintain stable linguistic diversity into their late 80s, suggesting that the decline observed in Pratchett’s TTR is indicative of pathology rather than typical ageing.
IMO still all very inconclusive but an interesting avenue to explore.
(Though I guess that cuts both ways and you could argue that writing more simply using the established parts of your legendarium is exactly what you might aim for if you were less consistently able to handle complex plot threads and novel worldbuilding)
> Eight titles were excluded from the analysis due to them being either shorter than the other full-length novels (Eric, 1990; The Last Hero, 2001), or because they are part of his titles for younger readers (The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, 2001; The Wee Free Men, 2003; A Hat Full of Sky, 2004; Wintersmith, 2006; I Shall Wear Midnight, 2010; The Shepherds Crown, 2015).
Depending on who you want to target, you may go one side or the other. For example, republicans tend to use simpler words than democrats to match what their electorate value.
Eg
I think it would work ok.
Would Sir Terry have appreciated or approved of this?
The younger Terry, unencumbered by dementia, would likely have loved the idea of analyzing his writing for most scientific purposes, he co-wrote multiple scientific fiction books together with physicists and other science communicators.
I actually regret making him upset, i did not know about his troubles at the time and i would not make the same (completely unrelated to his ailment) joke knowing about it, neither would i have brought his first book if i knew he disliked it.
Just imagine having your head full of a world you created, a world filled with more stories than you could ever write down, and realizing that you will never get a chance to do so and that it will all fade before you can share it. That experience must be extremely painful and for sure leads to changes in personality traits.
Right before i had my turn he signed the book of my girlfriend and he also signed her journal even though there was a strict "only one book per person" rule. When she asked him if he would sign the journal as well he said "I would even sign your hand, madam". This is the Terry i will remember, the charming and incredibly witty person that bestowed upon me the best stories i have ever enjoyed.
GNU Terry Pratchett, for Death can not have him!