The Truth is the twenty-fifth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 2000.
Plot summary
The book features the coming of movable type to Ankh-Morpork, and the founding of the Discworld's first newspaper by William de Worde, as he invents investigative journalism with the help of his reporter Sacharissa Cripslock. The two investigate the charges of embezzlement and attempted murder against Havelock Vetinari, and help vindicate him.
The Ankh-Morpork City Watch characters also appear in this novel, but have limited roles and are seen mainly from de Worde's perspective which is not a flattering one. C.M.O.T. Dibbler also puts in an appearance.
In the novel the criminal group The New Firm (Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip) are employed by a group of so called "concerned citizens" to frame Lord Vetinari, in a conspiracy to get a new Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.
To accomplish this the New Firm find a shopkeeper who happens to be the spitting image of Vetinari and plan to use him as a double to make it seem as if Vetinari was trying to abscond from the city with a large amount of gold.
While the ploy works, it is touch-and-go for a minute or two--the New Firm's employers neglects to tell Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip that Vetinari "moves like a snake" and has been trained at the Assassins' Guild. They improvise, stabbing Vetinari's clerk, Drumknott, and pushing their Vetinari look-a-like into the hallway to "confess".
The only wrinkle is the escape of Wuffles, Vetinari's terrier, who tries but fails to get rid of the intruders by biting them at the ankle. The New Firm doesn't think much of this, but as Mr. Slant of the Lawyer's Guild is quick to point out, Ankh-Morpork has myriad ways to talk to anything, so the New Firm is forced to search for Wuffles.
When the Ankh-Morpork Times offers a AM$25 reward for Wuffles, hundreds of people show up to attempt to get the reward, and Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip quickly take advantage of the situation, and arriving disguised as Omnian clergy members.
They are about to kill William de Worde when the Times iconographer takes a picture using "Dark Light" exposure, which causes Mr. Pin to become aware of the large number of ghosts following him, waiting for him to die.
He runs from the scene, and threatens Mr. Slant in order to increase their fee, after which he goes to his employer's house, where he finds the Times reporter Sacharissa Cripslock.
Taking her with them, the New Firm go down to the Times office to wait for William to show up. A scuffle breaks out, which leads to a fire, from which Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip take refuge in the basement. When the basement begins to fill with hot lead as the printing press in the floor above melted, Mr. Pin takes advantage of his partner's trust and, under the guise of a plan, he shoots him and stands on his body in order to survive, claiming he "wasn't born to fry...".
When Mr. Pin finally gets out of the basement, out of habit more than anything else, he tries to strangle William, who accidentally runs him through with a paper spike.
Following this Mr. Pin ends up in the Desert of the Dead, where he meets Death and has his soul collected by the Death of Rats. Later, Death obliges Mr. Pin's wish to be reincarnated by sending him back to life as a potato, which is, ironically, deep fried and turned into chips.
William uses the gems on Mr. Pin's person to help the Dwarves buy a new press, and then confronts his father, Lord de Worde, at his mansion, almost getting captured. Otto Chriek, his vampire iconographer, saves him though, despite nearly falling victim to his species' bloodlust, and lets Lord de Worde go.
After the two return to the office, William learns of Lord Vetinari's reinstatement, and asks Sacharissa out. Afterwords, Mr. Tulip, reincarnated as a woodworm, comments on the "-ing good wood."
Popular References:
The opening line regarding rumour spreading like wild fire particularly since Ankh-Morpork had discovered fire insurance is a reference to the Colour of Magic when TwoFlower sells insurance to the owner of the Broken Drum only to have him set fire to the whole city in an attempt to collect on the policy.
As in previous novels, Pratchett once again plays with the term "Water Gate" and its associations when he centers action around this entry point to Ankh-Morpork. The Watergate scandal break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee in 1972 was traced back to the Committee to Re-Elect the President. Tape recordings proved Republican President Richard Nixon was involved in authorizing the break-in and led to his resignation before the House could impeach him. Later in this novel, Pratchett uses a similar line "'And now... this meeting of the Committee to Unelect the Patrician is declared closed.'" In addition, Gaspode says, "You can call me... Deep Bone." a play on Deep Throat who was the key informant in the Watergate Scandal.
Dibbler's remarks, "I could've done all right with the Fung Shooey, though." is a reference to Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese design philosophy where proper placement of objects like furniture and plants withing a house influence the fortunes of the house owner.
The two villains, Pin and Tulip who work for an organization called the "New Firm" are typical of the criminal partnerships found throughout real life, movies and literature. The name "Old Firm" was used to describe the Kray Brothers' criminal organization of 1960s London and has become a generic term for a criminal organization. Like Mr Wint and Mr Kidd in the James Bond movie Diamonds are Forever, Pin and Tulip refer to each other as 'Mr" as do Mr. Croup and Mr Vandemar in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (who also refer to themselves as the Old Firm). There are also many Pulp Fiction references in The Truth so the thugs might be partly patterned after Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega from that 1994 movie but in reality there are so many similar partnerships that it is unlikely that any one pairing was the prototype.
Pratchett's line "Stop the press" just as the wagon rolls over William de Worde is a play on the line from the newspaper world when a special edition needs to be printed but is also a reference to stopping the runaway cart which contains a printing press.
The dwarf Gunilla Goodmountain's name is Gutenberg translated from German to English. Johann Gutenberg invented movable type in the 1450s and printed the Gutenberg Bibles. The name of Caslong who is Goodmountain's assistant comes from the Caslon typeface named after its creator William Caslon. Boddony, another assistant is named after Bodoni another common typeface designed by Italian printer Giambattista Bodoni. Another dwarf is named Gowdie which is a reference to Frederic William Goudy, the American type designer who designed the Berkeley Old Style font as well as several Goudy fonts he named after himself.
The line "We are a bodyguard of lies, gentlemen." is a paraphrase of Winston Churchill's line "In war-time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies", an appropriate quote given the title of the book.
Pratchett pokes fun at the recent changes in communication and its resultant problems - the internet etc. Dibbler's pamphlet says "M-a-k-e-$-$-$-I-n-n-Y-o-u-r-e-S-p-a-r-e-T-y-m--." which is a common refrain and style of Internet spam and other chain letter pyramid schemes. Pratchett seems to enjoy poking fun at the pyramid scheme concept. In Carpe Jugulum, Agnes says, "You mean vampirism is like... pyramid selling?" Similarly, "Have you heard of c-commerce?" (C commerce being Clack Commerce - ie. using the semaphore system to buy things) is reminiscent of e-commerce, or doing business electronically over the Internet.
Vetinari says, 'A thousand years ago we thought the world was a bowl,' 'Five hundred years ago we knew it was a globe. Today we know it is flat and round and carried through space on the back of a turtle.' ... 'Don't you wonder what shape it will turn out to be tomorrow?' This is both a reference to the way our thinking has evolved and to the movie Men in Black where Tommy Lee Jones' character says: "1500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was the centre of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat. And 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know... tomorrow."
Goodmountain says that the Bursar's words are not properly justified - meaning that the spaces aren't set right in the typeface but which the Bursar misinterprets to mean that Goodmountain does not believe he has properly rationalize his argument.
The line "...what would it do to the pie?" is a reference to the cooking in the previous sentence but also refers to printer pie, a term for jumbled-up type, which will be sorted for the next job or recast into new type.
Goodmountain says, "...Never use spades, Farmers use spades. But I call a shovel a shovel." a reference to the old adage in regard to being plain spoken - calling a spade a spade.
Foul Ole Ron says, "Gottle o' geer, gottle o' geer," which is a reference to the old ventriloquist routine. When they wanted to demonstrate how good they were they included the phrase "bottle of beer" as part of their act. Since it is impossible to pronounce the 'B' without moving your lips, the phrase comes out as "gottle of geer". For someone like Foul Ron who has trouble putting two coherent words together beyond "millennium hand and shrimp" this seems an appropriate line.
"Mr. Tulip used his head all the time, from a distance of about eight inches" - a reference to the standard head butting tactic of this type of streetwise thug.
Mr. Tulip shows his range of interests when he talks about painting (ones he would like to steal) Woman holding a Ferret by Leonard de Quirm is a reference to Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine. The painter Gogli is likely van Gogh but Mr. Tulip adds"If -ing Gogli painted that, it was with his -ing foot" a reference to Christie Brown, the Irish artist and author of My Left Foot. His comments about "[...] the P'gi Su dynasty" is a reference to Peggy Sue', the title of one of Buddy Holly's hits and a reminder of the previous novel ''Soul Music.'
"the Tons acted like society lords" - The Tons are the muscle for the Troll gangs and Tongs are the Chinese Mafia in the real world but the name also conjures up "Ton" which was an eighteenth century Regency term for the upper levels of London Society.
Sacharissa Cripslock with the "nose alone ... capable of launching at least forty ships" is a reference to Helen of Troy with "the face that launched a thousand ships." Her name probably comes from the South African moth - Scythris sacharissa.
Foul Ole Ron as newspaper seller yells out "Hoinarylup!" "Squidaped-oyt!" and "Sheearna-pip!". The old time newspaper sellers yelled out the headlines of their paper in an almost incomprehensible fashion. However, that in typical Foul Ole Ron fashion his words really do mean nothing - which doesn't stop the Ankh-Morpork Times from selling out.
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