Anyone see the Pratchett Alzheimer’s Documentary?
Thought it was really interesting. He’s one of my favourite authors anyway (especially Good Omens, Only You Can Save Mankind, Small Gods and the Rincewind novels are great) and this doc was following him as he lives with a rare variant of Alzheimer’s, which affects mainly the visual parts of the brain…leading to a wierd situation where a skilled author can perfectly articulate all he wants to, yet struggles to read out loud anymore because he keeps ‘losing’ words, similarly he’s gone from swift touch typist to one finger struggler to dictating to his (seemingly long suffereing) PA instead.
Refreshing too for a documentary like this to be highly unsentimental as well as highly informative, no heroic struggle set to strains of ‘M’ People in the background (I met Heather Small once…she really is small…I mean tiny. I always thought she looked really tall on videos…incredible the power of the camera, heels and biiiig hair)…instead just Pratchett’s own often funny, occasionally hopeful, but also sardonic and even ever so slightly bitter and angry commentary.
Excellent stuff and I will certainly watch the next one.
