August 16, 2020
This is the second book I tried in my STP marathon re-read, after Fifth Elephant. Maybe I'm (much) older than when I read these the first time (very true) or maybe my tastes have improved (highly unlikely, but hey...) but I'm repeatedly amazed at how much meaning STP crammed into (and around) every. single. paragraph. of his texts!
He throws away puns, sly references to science, literature and history, pop culture, insights and "hmmn - hadn't thought of it like that" insights as though they're going out of style; and you find yourself examining character names that are spelt funny but sound different very carefully for any evidence of the above.
For instance the central character of this novel is King Pteppicymon XXVIII of Djelibeybi (That's the "Valley of the Djell" - allegedly).
He's just qualified as an Assassin (licensed to inhume) in Ankh-Morpork when his father - the previous king - dies and he's called back home to take over. Except he rapidly finds that the High Priest has a very firm hand on things in general, and really doesn't like 'modern' thinking - like plumbing, toilets and soft bedding.
The King - I beg his pardon, "His Greatness the King Pteppicymon[1] XXVIII, Lord of the Heavens, Charioteer of the Wagon of the Sun, Steersman of the Barque of the Sun, Guardian of the Secret Knowledge, Lord of the Horizon, Keeper of the Way, the Flail of Mercy, the High Born One, the Never Dying King."
...decides he'd like to go back being just Pteppic again thankyouverymuch and runs away - by camel.
At this point we meet the greatest mathematician in the world - who also happens to be a camel (just deal with it!) He's called "You Bastard" and he runs like this -
Camels apparently have more knees than any other creature and You Bastard ran like a steam engine, with lots of extraneous movement at right angles to the direction of motion accompanied by a thunderous barrage of digestive noises[2].
In course of running away they encounter various other... odd people, including this argument over a temporarily lost/ escaped tortoise-cum-experimental subject -
"It’s logically impossible for the arrow to hit them!" The fat man threw up his hands.
"It shouldn’t do it! You must be giving me the wrong type of tortoise," he added accusingly. "We ought to try again with faster tortoises."
"Or slower arrows?"The tall man sighed.
"You know, Xeno," he said, "I can’t help thinking you’ve got the wrong end of the stick with this whole tortoise-and-arrow business."
The little man glared at him. "The trouble with you, Ibid," he said, "is that you think you’re the biggest bloody authority on everything."
Now Xeno shooting arrows at Tortoises you could take as a reference to Greek history and Zeno's Paradoxes meant to prove motion was an illusion (despite all evidence to the contrary).
But the other character Ibid is actually the word you see when a referenced quotation comes from the same place as a previously credited comment - as in
a. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 471
b. Ibid.
...which means that the second quote referenced there comes from the same page in Tolstoy as the first.
(Don't try to read Tolstoy's War and Peace anytime soon by the way - I started about 10 years ago and haven't got past page 1,000 yet...)
Ibid is not an ancient Greek - he's what people quote when they're quoting an 'authority' on anything. Please yourself whether you find that recursively hilarious or just stoopid; but I think it's pretty funny.
Anyway. There's some running around in the desert, a multi-dimensional pyramid inversion that temporarily closes the valley to mortal eyes (but not immortal ones - turns out a lot of pyramids had unhappy tenants) - and an impending war. Oh - and smugglers. And Egyptian Gods[3] (real ones).
All in all it takes a bit of sorting out and dimensional unbending and someone gets kicked back several thousand years in time... I think.
There's a reference at the end to Ouroboros - a snake eating its own tail - that I think means everything reset - for that individual. But that was the last of what seemed like several thousand multi-layered references to everything under the sun.
My brain was overheating - I needed to go sit somewhere quiet and cool.
Where's a nice cosy quiet Pyramid when you need one?
So I'm going to take a brief break and clear my mental palate with a non-STP book, but we'll be back here soon with (I think) _Moving Pictures!+
[1] Tehp-pick-kai-mon - "pTeppic" to his friends - which includes the obligatory long lost half-sister Ptraci ("pTrachee")
[2] He also has a habit of eating his meals - several times - while 'ruminating' on mathematics. (See what I did there?)
[3] Plus crocodiles, embalming, priests, soldiers, Wooden Horses (one on rockers for the officers) and the traumatic experience for one young soldier when an entire river valley dimensionally unfolded right before his preoccupied eyes. There were also dreams about Elephants... There was a lot going on.