Mar 01
Videos: Terry Pratchett Lecture ‘Shaking Hands with Death’
Finally here are the videos of the Richard Dimbleby Lecture – Shaking Hands with Death. I have written recently about Terry Pratchett, so you can imagine my joy when I realised I can share these videos with you after all! The film quality isn’t brilliant, but the collaboration of writer and speaker very clear, passionate and funny. There are six videos in all, so you don’t have to watch the whole thing in one go. However, if you have the time – it’s worth it!
There are six videos and they should play one after the another. Just hover your mouse over the bottom of the screen or press the red square button to choose an episode.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
I don’t suppose the best way to start a comment is with a confession, but never the less, that is exactly what I am about to do. Because of Persephone’s website and my own incurable curiousity. My confession is that I have never read anything that has ever been written by Terry Pratchett. It’s not his writing as much as the man himself that inerests me.
This mild humble man, this humorous wizard of the pen, has taken his knighthood, and with sword in hand, ridden out on a quest; as the knights of old used to do. Not on a missiom, but a crusade. At the centre of Pratchett’s crusade, is what he calls, “the truth, to slay the monster you first have to name it.” And the truth he refers to, is his condition. That of an Alzheime sufferer, and the consequences coupled with this chronic decease.
He is a man that has lived from the contents of his brain, and it is that very brain that will eventually terminate the personality known as Terry Pratchett. A great loss to the world in general, but a greater loss to the man himself. He is a thinker, a dreamer, an artist in every sense of the word. To loose all that gradually, to one such as he, is unthinkable. The sliding down into a so called black hole, and yet remaining alive, is an option he does not wish to contemplate.
The alternative is of course, death, as opposed to living in a kind of no-man’s-land brainless limbo. He has always been sire over his own life. Rightly so, and cannot understand why he should not be allowed to be sire over his own death. He would also like to see the dissipation of all taboos, surrounding what he calls assisted death/dying.
We live in an age of incredible technolgy and, seeking deeper and deeper into the mysteries of our own universe, we search for answers concerning life. But we choose to forget that all life has a brother and sister, called Death. We also choose not to free ourselves from the tyranny of the ancient belief that dictates all life is sacred no matter what. But to me, the quality of life is far more sacred, and that can only be determined by the person who is living that life.
If you are reading this comment, then you have surely seen that truly wonderful lecture. I cannot think of another man better suited for this paticular crusade. The more voices we hear speaking out in this fashion, the more likely it will be that we can live in a world that retains as much respect for death as it seems to have for the prelongation of life.
February 27th, 2010 at 3:24 am
I don’t really have a comment…but I want to acknowledge that I’m grateful for the opportunity of seeing the speech. What more or is there to say? It’s a political game from here on.