The Annotated Pratchett File, v9.0 - The L-Space Web

The Annotated Pratchett File
For those needing a refresher course in Jewish magic, a
golem is indeed a clay automaton. The special holy word
is either the name of God, or the Hebrew word for truth,
‘emet’ (aleph-mem-tav). To turn the golem off, you erase
the name, or, if you used ‘emet’, the initial aleph, which
changes the word to ‘met’ (mem-tav), meaning dead.
– [ p. 235/206 ] “ ‘Artor! Nobblyesse obligay!’ ”
From the phrase noblesse oblige, meaning “rank imposes
certain obligations”.
– [ p. 246/215 ] “ ‘Bonsai!’ ”
A typical Pratchettian mix-up of two different things:
‘Banzai!’ is the Japanese war cry shouted by kamikaze
pilots as they performed their suicide runs. It means ‘ten
thousand years’, and was originally an honorary greeting
used in front of the Emperor, whom the kamikazes were,
of course, dying for.
‘Bonsai’ is the art of growing tiny potted trees shaped and
stunted into very particular growth patterns.
– [ p. 246/215 ] “ ‘Like. . . small trees. Bush-i-do. Yeah.’ ”
‘Bushido’ means “the way of the warrior”, and is
pronounced bu-shi-do.
– [ p. 247/216 ] “Occasionally people would climb the
mountain and add a stone or two to the cairn at the top,
[. . . ]”
My correspondents tell me that there are many such
mountains to be found around the world. In Ireland there
is one specific mountain called Maeves Grave. On the top
of it is a heap of stones which is believed to be the grave
of the evil Celtic Queen Maeve. To prevent her from ever
leaving the grave, each visitor to the mountain is
supposed to pick up a stone, and carry it up the hill and
put it on the grave.
– [ p. 258/226 ] “ ‘I’m just going out,’ he said. ‘I may be
some time.’ ”
A quote that Terry uses again in another, similar situation.
See the annotation for p. 236/170 of Small Gods.
– [ p. 259/226 ] The idea of a were-man and were-woman
who fall in love, but whose animal and human phases are
out of sync with respect to each other was the main plot
element in the 1985 fantasy movie Ladyhawke, starring
Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer.
– [ p. 264/230 ] “Azrael, the Great Attractor, the Death of
Universes, [. . . ]”
In previous editions of the APF, I said that the Great
Attractor was part of an astronomical theory that had
been discredited some time ago. It turns out that this is
far from the truth.
Basically, astronomers have discovered that there are
large regions of the cosmos being held back from the
smooth overall expansion (or Hubble flow) as dictated by
the Big Bang/Expanding Universe theory.
The culprit would seem to be something or some things
within a vast clumping of galaxies that appears to be
causing an acceleration of all the surrounding galaxies in
its direction. In an offhand comment during a press
conference, Alan Dressler referred to this galactic pileup
as the ‘Great Attractor’, and the name immediately stuck.
Although the theory was not universally accepted by all
scientists, I understand the evidence for it has held up
well, and in fact I saw a recent newspaper article
claiming that the Great Attractor had actually been
identifier by a group of international astronomers as the
cluster Abel 3627.
– [ p. 264/231 ] “LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE
FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN”
Some folks thought that this line sounded familiar and
wondered if it was a quote, but Terry has assured us that
he made this one up all by himself.
– [ p. 265/232 ] “YES”
In the hardcover edition of Reaper Man, this super-large
word appears on a left page, so that it takes the reader by
surprise as she turns the page. In the paperback edition
this is not the case, thus spoiling the effect entirely.
When questioned about this, Terry said: “Do you really
think I’m some kind of dumbo to miss that kind of
opportunity I wrote 400 extra words to get it on a
left-hand page in the hardcover — then Corgi shuffled
people in the production department when it was going
through and my careful instructions disappeared into a
black hole. Go on. . . tell me more about comic timing. . . ”
The American paperback edition, by the way, also gets it
right.
– [ p. 267/235 ] “To deliver a box of chocolates like this,
dark strangers drop from chairlifts and abseil down
buildings.”
A reference to a UK TV commercial for ‘Milk Tray’
chocolates, in which a James Bond-like figure does
death-defying stunts, only to leave a box of chocolates in
some place where a woman finds them at the end of the
ad.
– [ p. 267/235 ] “ ‘DARK ENCHANTMENTS’, he said.”
A reference to a brand of chocolates called ‘Black Magic’.
– [ p. 270/237 ] “ ‘Chap with a whip got as far as the big
sharp spikes last week,’ said the low priest.”
Refers to the Raiders of the Lost Ark movies, in which
Indiana Jones (with trademark whip) always steals stuff
from sacred temples loaded with spikes, big rolling balls,
and nasty insects.
– [ p. 271/238 ] “The priests heard the chink of a very
large diamond being lifted out of its socket.”
This is the sequence where Death enters the Lost
Jewelled Temple of Doom of Offler the Crocodile God and
purloins the massive diamond called the Tear of Offler
from the statue therein.
On p. 109/109 of the The Light Fantastic, however,
Twoflower tells Bethan the story of Cohen the Barbarian
stealing this very same sacred diamond.
There are ways around this inconsistency, of course. The
most reasonable one seems to me the fact that there is no
reason why we have to assume that all the stories told
about Cohen are necessarily true.
50 DISCWORLD ANNOTATIONS