Terry Pratchett: Mort

A book by Jonathan Quayle Higgins, starring Binky... almost, so you'll never see it on film, unless some director would be content to show a guy at a typewriter narrating the plot.

I wonder, has John Hillerman ever recorded it as an audio book? Doesn't look like it, but he really should. Apart from Higginsian contrived descriptions Mort has to offer themes revolving around importance.

The general idea is that people are gauging what's important and dismiss the rest. Hence magicians can puzzle them by paying attention to things they overlook. On the other hand, the less attention someone pays to what's important, the more important he must be. And Death pays attention to nothing, the ultimate reality, occurring no matter what.

So, Death's power is the opposite of magic. People do of course, when they get older, rely more on their past experience and pay less attention to the present, which does make them appear more sovereign. But both this and magic can be seen in a more individual light that interests me.

One of the many things a man can pay closer attention to is human thought and what words actually mean. So the dialectician in the Platonic sense (he calls him a stranger from Elea) is a magician, who shapes the verbal comprehension of the people.

And as for Death's lack of attention, there's another explanation for it besides gained experience, namely that our death has no effect on the world, but only on us, so that, when it comes to it, we become all important as the only consequence of this event.

I know from experience that the physical world can be destroyed out of this mindset, provided that we are willing to accept that as the consequence for us of our death, which is of course the question raised in Tarkovsky's Stalker, that is whether man could possibly have this option without destroying the world.

Writer argues that no man could choose that for himself based on the lack of sufficient hatred, but that is making an incorrect assumption as to the motivation. What we are is in the world beyond our body, for us to accept something as the consequence of our death, we have to accept it for that which remains as well. So, from this perspective, destroying the world is like cutting a part off our body. However, if the world had no purpose for us in the full meaning of that term, both within and without our body, not only could we, but most assuredly would we physically destroy the world, at least in its current form, letting something of relevance for us arise, proving to be more than a fixed part in a fixed creation.

And that is the opposite of science in another sense, creating some matter to be studied. It is remarkable how exactly opposite to this the idea is that we go into our individual dream worlds. Nay, we go into the collective real world. At least the fear of judgment day captures the interpersonal aspect of it, that doom comes from transgression.