SPOILERS Feet of Clay Discussion **Spoilers**

[Discworldpadawan]

Yes, I remember I got it as well. Don't think you are imagining things that are not there, in Discworld books double meanings are everywhere.

Hey! Let us know your opinion when you'll finish the book. I enjoyed it a lot... DW series really get better and better book by book. Especailly the Watch one.

Mx

Just finished it tonight Mixa! I must say I enjoyed this the most out of all the Watch books so far, and they've all been fab! Nice to see Vetinari finally starting to be the cunning, critical-thinking tyrant I love from later books, also the start of the Drumknott faithful servant - to- master relationship starting to develop. As well as this, Vimes in this book is more like he is in Discworld novels further on down the timeline Glad Dorfl diddnt die, even better he's now in the Watch! I've already got Jingo waiting in the sidelines to start reading over the weekend, cant wait to see what happenes to the watch next!! Well done Sir terry, this was a cracker :clap: :clap: :clap:

 

[Mixa]

I’m so glad you liked it!

Yes, I know how you feel. Rereading the Watch series it has happened to me exactly the same. Observing how everything started, why Drumknott arrived to Vetinari (in my opinion they have the best clerk-boss relationship in the world! ), how the agents join the Watch, Vimes evolution (if the plot of G!G! wouldn’t had happened, he’d still be lying in the gutter completely drunk XP)... For me it’s one of the best series relating to its development.

I encourage you to start “Jingo” without delay. In my opinion is the book where Carrot unfolds more his abilities, but you get to discover another facet of every character (especially Vetinari... Chapeau! :clap: )

And that’s all I can say! If you want to know more,HERE I published my opinion about it.

Mx

 

[kogera13]

I think Feet of Clay is the book in which one of Pratchett's great re-occurring themes, the performativity of gender, begins to be crystalized. Look at how Cheery has to perform her femaleness to bring this gender category into being.

 

[Teppic]

I know it's not exactly the most devious mystery in the history of literature, but given that most of this book is taken up by the search for what could be poisoning the Patrician, does anyone else find it strange that the cover of the book has a bloody great candle on it?

Or is that just me? :shifty:

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

This is my cover,

no candles unless you have a newer version.

 

[Tonyblack]

There are candles there and a candle making machine - but unless you know they are candles, it's hard to know.

Interestingly, some candles did actually contain arsenic and these were becoming so popular that there was concern about people being poisoned this way. This link is from a meeting of the Westminster Medical Society in 1837, to discuss this very matter.

 

[Teppic]

I meant this one (unless that's just the audiobooks)...

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Just checked it's the audio book.

 

[raisindot]

I meant this one (unless that's just the audiobooks)...

That is a really, really, really stupid (and cheap) cover image choice for this book, even it is an audiobook. Looks like whoever designed it found the cheapest royalty free image and slapped it over a black background. Candles are really the macguffin of the book--a much better image would have been of two mysterious red golem eyes peaking through a ghostly outline of a golem's head...or maybe a crumpled chem with the word FREE on it....

 

[Mixa]

There are candles there and a candle making machine - but unless you know they are candles, it's hard to know.

Interestingly, some candles did actually contain arsenic and these were becoming so popular that there was concern about people being poisoned this way. This link is from a meeting of the Westminster Medical Society in 1837, to discuss this very matter.

What interesting, Tony. It looks like Pratchett is on top of everything.

And I agree with you raisindot. In my case I’ve got some Harper Collins editions and I find them a bit dull. :handgestures-thumbdown:

Mx

 

[raisindot]

And I agree with you raisindot. In my case I’ve got some Harper Collins editions and I find them a bit dull. :handgestures-thumbdown:

Mx

Oh, yuck, did you have to bring those up? That's what we're stuck with for covers in the U.S. And why I spent a small fortune in "importing" the Kirby-cover Corgi DW paperbacks from the UK. When the new books come out I still try to get the UK versions (from Amazon Canada) rather than U.S. versions when possible.

 

[=Tamar]

I've been wondering for years about the meaning of Nobby's coat of arms as given in Feet of Clay.
I think I finally got it. Now I'm wondering why it took so long.
The genus name for apples is Malus.
Malus also means "bad"
A chevron in military insignia can indicate a rank.
Apples have seeds called pips. Five pips on a chevron mean a general.
Nobby's device is five apples on a chevron.
So Nobby's device is "General Malice," or possibly, Chief Bad Apple.

=Tamar

 

[Tonyblack]

Also - "nobbing" is the name used for stealing apples in Britain. Also sometimes called "scrumping".

 

[RathDarkblade]

I've been wondering for years about the meaning of Nobby's coat of arms as given in Feet of Clay.
I think I finally got it. Now I'm wondering why it took so long.
The genus name for apples is Malus.
Malus also means "bad"
A chevron in military insignia can indicate a rank.
Apples have seeds called pips. Five pips on a chevron mean a general.
Nobby's device is five apples on a chevron.
So Nobby's device is "General Malice," or possibly, Chief Bad Apple.

=Tamar

Ooh! I never picked up on that. Thank you, =Tamar!

Nobby's slogan is also appropriate - "capite omnia" being Latatian for "take it all".

Being Jewish, and having a family from eastern Europe, I loved this book's use of Yiddish for the golems and their use of a Hebraic script. Most of their names describe humble or insulting things, e.g. bobkes - literally "beans", but with tone of voice, expression etc., the meaning is closer to "fart". So, basically, it means "next to nothing" - as in, "I was expecting a raise, but I didn't get bubkes!"

"Klutz" literally translates as "clumsy person", but closer to... well... someone who can never do anything right. Mostly used by wives to husbands, by mothers to sons, etc. "Don't be such a klutz!"

"Meshugah", the name for the golem king, appropriately means "crazy" or "insane". In meaning, it's closer to "someone who has completely lost his mind". It also means the same thing in modern Hebrew (as opposed to either Biblical Hebrew or Aramaic, both of which are completely different).

I've never been able to find a meaning for Dorfl's name, though. Perhaps one way to interpret his name is this-wise:

The Yiddish Schtetl ("Shtetl" in English) is the name for small east European with relatively large Jewish populations. If you've ever seen "Fiddler on the Roof", you've seen one example of a Schtetl. Now, a schtetl in Yiddish is the diminutive form of the Yiddish "schtat", meaning "town"; it's similar to the South German diminutive "Städtel/Städtle", "little town".

"Dorf" in German means "village" - so Dorfl would probably mean "little village". Possibly this would have extra connotations - like when Perdita says to Christine in Maskerade, "I'm from a little village you've probably never heard of..." This fits in well with Dorfl, and the golems in general, in "Feet of Clay"; they're the epitome of anonymous, the creatures that no-one ever notices.

That's my take on it, anyway... What do you think?

 

[raisindot]

"Dorf" in German means "village" - so Dorfl would probably mean "little village". Possibly this would have extra connotations - like when Perdita says to Christine in Maskerade, "I'm from a little village you've probably never heard of..." This fits in well with Dorfl, and the golems in general, in "Feet of Clay"; they're the epitome of anonymous, the creatures that no-one ever notices.

That's my take on it, anyway... What do you think?

I think that's a good possibility. I always felt that the golems' struggle to "create" a king was an allegory for the fruitless search among the Jews for a true messiah, which, in Jewish tradition was not a Jesus-like figure, but would literally be a king of the Jews who would restore Judea and Jerusalem to Jewish control.

Back in ancient times there were dozens of messianic aspirants, each of whom had backing from different factions. There were many aspirants alive during the time of Jesus as well. The last Jewish rebellion of the 2nd century CE was started mainly because of widespread belief that one messianic aspirant named Bar Kochba--was indeed the "real McCoy."

Like the golems trying to create their king, the Jews' attempts to support messiahs largely ended in tragedy.

I think it's also possible that Dorfl is supposed to be a Jesus-like figure. He starts off a member of the sect, and is destroyed trying to overthrow the sect's well meaning but misguided attempts to restore a moral order. He dies but is resurrected after being "entombed" and emerges as a being who possesses a free will and morality unencumbered by written traditional and laws.

 

[Truckle the Uncivil]

I'm very late to the discussion, but have just finished re-reading Feet of Clay. I must have read it many times back in my teens, but it had been quite a while since I'd read it this time. Maybe the first time since those times in my teens?

I enjoyed reading this thread after I finished. One thing I noticed this time round (and maybe this just shows how slow I am to notice things... ) was how the Golems were following exactly the same path that humans did - not just in generalised fashion, but quite specifically. In fact, Dorfl is the Golem Old Stoneface, and Mesugah is Lorenzo the Kind.

Vimes, thinking about Old Stoneface, after his first meeting with Dragon King of Arms: "He said to people: you’re free. And they said, hooray, and then he showed them what freedom costs and they called him a tyrant and, as soon as he’d been betrayed, they milled around a bit like barn-bred chickens who’ve seen the big world outside for the first time, and then they went back into the warm and shut the door—"

Dorfl to Vimes, after he 'freed' the Golems and the animals at the slaughterhouse: "I smashed the treadmill but the Golems repaired it. Why? And I let the animals go, but they just milled around stupidly. Some of them even went back to the slaughter pens".

Not to mention the fact that Dorfl removed Mesugah's head, just like Old Stoneface did. Although I doubt Lorenzo smiled like Mesugah did when his moment came...

 

[Tonyblack]

Interesting point there -I've read the book a load of times and didn't see the connection until you mentioned it. This is why these discussions are so useful - everyone has an insight to share.

 

[Truckle the Uncivil]

That's (one of the many) the wonderful thing(s) about his writing, isn't it? There's seemingly always more to find in it. I was fascinated to read raisindot's post above mine - neither the Jewish messiah or the Jesus-like figure would have occurred to me on my own, I'm sorry to say.

On a different note, I was loving all the Terminator stuff this time around, but I've still never seen Robocop, so I feel I'm missing out there!

 

[RathDarkblade]

Vimes, thinking about Old Stoneface, after his first meeting with Dragon King of Arms: "He said to people: you’re free. And they said, hooray, and then he showed them what freedom costs and they called him a tyrant and, as soon as he’d been betrayed, they milled around a bit like barn-bred chickens who’ve seen the big world outside for the first time, and then they went back into the warm and shut the door—"

Dorfl to Vimes, after he 'freed' the Golems and the animals at the slaughterhouse: "I smashed the treadmill but the Golems repaired it. Why? And I let the animals go, but they just milled around stupidly. Some of them even went back to the slaughter pens".

Yes. Dorfl smashes the treadmills and frees the animals, but doesn't tell them what happens next. They are terrified of freedom (as we can see in the scenes with Fred Colon), which is similar to what happened to the people after Lorenzo was decapitated.

It's appropriate that Dorfl should have this discussion with Vimes. "Welcome to the world", etc. It is indeed (or can be) frightening to be free.

 

[Truckle the Uncivil]

That's a very good point re Dorfl having the discussion with Vimes after he had been freed. I hadn't thought of that.