The Official Terry Pratchett Forums

by **Dotsie** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 2:25 pm

I knew it!

by **Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 6:13 pm

poohbcarrot wrote:IT WAS ME!!

The desire is becoming uncontrollable... aargh!

by **Tonyblack** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 7:28 pm

Forcing the topic away from spanking (again :roll:

) and back to the book. This is from near the end when they find the remains of Mr Bunnsy:

'It's a lie,' said Peaches.
'Maybe it's a pretty story,' said Sardines.
'Yes,' said Dangerous Beans. 'Yes.' He turned his misty pink eyes to Darktan, who had to stop himself from crouching, and added: 'Perhaps it's a map.'

What do you understand Dangerous Beans to mean by that last comment?

by **Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 8:17 pm

Tonyblack wrote:Forcing the topic away from spanking (again ) and back to the book.

Muahahahaha! Tis all metaphorical, and I think Pooh actually likes it. :twisted:

Didya notice I spelt aargh like Mr. TP? :lol:

by **Dotsie** » Sun Aug 30, 2009 3:42 pm

Tonyblack wrote:What do you understand Dangerous Beans to mean by that last comment?

I think he means that although it's not literally true, they can take lessons from it, & live better lives. Like the bible.

by **poohbcarrot** » Sun Aug 30, 2009 11:19 pm

...but they shouldn't believe every word as "gospel" truth, because it wasn't written by God, but by man.

by **Tonyblack** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:08 am

You have just one week to read or reread Going Postal for the discussion starting on Monday 7th September.

by **Jan Van Quirm** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:37 am

poohbcarrot wrote:...but they shouldn't believe every word as "gospel" truth, because it wasn't written by God, but by man.

You just can't argue your way around that with true believers *shrugs*. The man who wrote it was inspired by the god - it's a self-fulfilling fantasy (as defined several times by the prophet Pratchett) and is the fundamental basis of all stories of which the author (often several in religious fields) is the keystone as enabler.

What made you start writing about Gloobs? We all have 'idols' lurking somewhere or other :wink:

by **Tonyblack** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:42 am

That was part of the problem the rats had - they realised that the book was written not by some divine creature trying to show rats how to live with humans, but by a far from perfect human who probably would have got the exterminators in at the first sight of a rat.

by **Jan Van Quirm** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:55 am

PMSL

by **Dotsie** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:46 pm

Jan Van Quirm wrote:
poohbcarrot wrote:...but they shouldn't believe every word as "gospel" truth, because it wasn't written by God, but by man.

You just can't argue your way around that with true believers *shrugs*. The man who wrote it was inspired by the god

Exactly, the man was inspired by the God, therefore as man is fallible, his interpretation can be flawed. Otherwise, in order to be a true believer, all Christians would have to believe in the creation of everything in 7 days. Of course they don't, but you can truly believe in god without truly believing in the bible as a work of fact.

As I said before, although the bible isn't literally true, man can take lessons from it & live his life by those lessons.

by **Fizz** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 3:37 pm

We just read this in my 20th C. Children's Fantasy course and I have to say I was impressed. This was the first book by Terry Pratchett that I've ever read and I loved it.

What I found interesting though is that aside from the world it is set in, it was not so much a novel of Discworld, but a beast fable that happened to be set in Discworld.

Those elements of the world that make Pratchett and Discworld what they are, seemed to be pushed to the side in favour of re-writing a common children's tale and creating more of an adventure story for kids to enjoy.

Cheers.

by **Jan Van Quirm** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 3:57 pm

Fizz wrote:Those elements of the world that make Pratchett and Discworld what they are, seemed to be pushed to the side in favour of re-writing a common children's tale and creating more of an adventure story for kids to enjoy.

Cheers.

The thing with 'young' adults (formerly known as children) books is that we're all children still in some measure - why else would Harry Potter be so widely read (spare me the theories about reading ages please - I was reading and getting bored stiff by Swift and Longfellow in the original (with great illustrations luckily) at 5.5 years old :lol:

). With fantasies in particular there's such a fine line between what's suitable for sub-teenage reading and what adults'll swallow (including the simplicity or otherwise of language) that it's almost not worth trying to define anymore aside from the sex and violence aspects and that's more a social/regional thing these days with movies and telly blurring the lines the whole time.

With Terry's young adult writing there's hardly any difference at all in his writing style to all intents and purposes - just that the age ratio for the characters are slanted to young more than old. The Feegles for instance, being wee and free, defy age categorisation and the Elf Queen might as well be Angelica in Rag Rats is terms of being a psychopath :twisted:

by **Tonyblack** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 4:05 pm

I think it's fair to say that most of Terry's Discworld books are 'fables' in that they have a deeper meaning than the obvious story. They make you think and draw conclusions about our own lives by comparison to the fantasy world that he writes about.

by **N1v3n** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 11:34 am

I had the audio book years ago. Think it was Stephen Kirby. He did a great job, one of the rats was Welsh and another sounded like Michael Caine :lol:

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