From: ST102315@brownvm.brown.edu ()
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: lots o' questions&annotations for Mort
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 15:43:57 EST
Organization: Brown University - Providence, Rhode Island  USA
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In the last Annotated Pratchett file, there was a request for more Mort
annotations.  So I read Mort again, and came up with the following
annotations (hopefully not all obvious) and questions.  Actually, most
are questions, which is why I posted this to the list and didn't send
it directly to the AP compiler.

Oh, first I should mention that all page numbers are from the American
softcover version of the book, published by ROC.

OK, here goes...

p.27..."How did you get all those coins?" asked Mort.  "IN PAIRS."
  A reference to the practice of covering a dead friends' eyes with
  coins.

p.30...Albert's stove has a plaque on it that says "The Little Moloch
  (Ptntd)".  One of my friends told me that Moloch is a God of the
  Underworld, but had no real specific information.  Does anyone else
  have any?

p.32-35...refers to such stories as Karate Kid, where a young student
  is given many menial tasks to perform, which are revealed to be
  integral to his/her (OK, mostly his) education.

p.46..."No antidote to cold steel" sounded familiar to me, but this
  may have only been because I've read _Mort_ before.  Does anyone
  have a previous source for this?

p.62..."Igneous Cutwell, DM(Unseen)..."  DM may be a reference to
  Dungeons and Dragons, where the DM (or Dungeon Master) knows
  everything that is going on and controls what happens in the game.
  He is clearly not above trying to inflate his credentials, as he
  soon admits to Mort.

p.66..."Granny Weatherwax's Ramrub"  Granny Weatherwax appears in several
  Discworld books, in particular _Equal Rites_ and _Wyrd Sisters_ (and
  probably other books I haven't been able to get ahold of yet).

p.81..."if Mort ever compared a girl to a summer's day..."  A reference
  to a Shakespearian sonnet.  (A similar reference appears in _Wyrd
  Sisters_.)

p.86..."They could pee through a dozen mattresses..."  Albert here mangles
  a fairy tale.  Unfortunately, I can't remember how it goes.  Anyone?
  Anyone?

p.96...Caroc=Tarot, Ching Aling=I Ching, both very similar to their
  Discworld counterparts.

p.100...The footnote on p. 100 contains a poem that begins, "See
  yonder the stolid foeman slumber/Fat with stolen gold, corrupt of
  mind..."  I'm assuming this is a parody of something, but what?

p.110-111...Ysabell here lists off a fair number of tragic romances,
  some of which sounds familiar.  In particular, "And then she thought
  he was dead, and she killed herself, and then he woke up and so he
  did kill himself" seems to be a sort of reversed Romeo and Juliet.
  The other two that ring a bell are "...jumped off a cliff because
  her father insisted she marry this old man..." and "...swam the
  river every night, but one night there was this storm, and when she
  didn't arrive he...", but I can't remember the references, although
  for some reason the Hellespont is associated in my mind with the
  latter.

p.134...Alberto Malich was supposed to have disappeared when trying
  to perform the Rite of AshkEnte backwards.  Since the Rite is
  supposed to summon Death, it doesn't seem too unreasonable that
  performing it backwards would summon you to Death.

p.140...Is it Cleopatra who bathed in milk and killed herself by
  sitting on a poisonous snake?  (On the DW, Queen Ezeriel did.)

p.168..."When a man is tired of Ankh-Morpork, he is tired of ankle-
  deep slurry."  Something or someplace has a motto, "When you're
  tired of ____, you're tired of life" or some such.

p.172...All of this stuff about fireworks is a direct reference to,
  and parody of, Gandalf's fireworks at the beginning of the first
  book of J.R.R. Tolkein's "The Lord Of The Rings".

p.173..."Truly, he thought, the way of enlightenment is like unto
  a half mile of broken glass."  I'm morally certain that there's
  a real-world quote that starts the same way, but I don't know
  what it is.

p.176...Heavy metal=silver and gold
        irritated mollusks=pearls
        dead rodents=vermine (equivalent to real-world mink or ermine)
        thread wound out of insects' bottoms=silk

p.195..."I don't even _remember_ walking under a mirror."  I haven't been
  able to figure out what this means.  Has anyone else?

p.197..."...keeping a razor blade nice and sharp..."
  A reference to the reknowned pseudo-scientific "fact" that pyramids
  are supposed to have, among many other powers, the ability to sharpen
  razor blades if they are left in the pyramids overnight.

p.222..."Is this the face..."  A reference to Helen of Troy, over whom
  the Trojan War was started.

p.233..."TOO MANY YOUNG WOMEN LEAP INTO THE ARMS OF THE FIRST YOUNG
  MAN TO WAKE THEM AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS' SLEEP, FOR EXAMPLE."  A
  reference to 'Sleeping Beauty'.

Well, that's all of them.

A newbie,
jwgh
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