Book 25: The Truth

"The rumour ran through the city like wildfire..." - as in so many of the Discworld series, the first line of The Truth strikes the keynote for the whole book. The idea of rumour, of misinformation and how it spreads is the central motif for this story.

William de Worde, as we get to know him in this book, is a man who cares passionately for 'truth'. But there is a paradox here. He cares so much about truth that by the end of the book, he's prepared to make trade-offs between those parts of it that he finds convenient or palatable to tell (that Lord Vetinari is innocent), and those that he doesn't want people to know (the role of his own father, for instance, or that of the Watch). So by the end of the book, he is being no more honest than any other political player. But because he writes it down and puts it in his newspaper, it's The Truth. And this bizarre piece of misinformation extends beyond the book itself: even we, the readers, are still thinking of William as truthful and trustworthy, for no better reason than that we've seen the whole story through his eyes.

There is an echo here of Vorbis in Small Gods, who introduced the idea that "the real truth must sometimes be protected by a labyrinth of lies." Similarly, Lord de Worde sees himself as protecting the true nature of Ankh-Morpork - as humanity's greatest city - with a "bodyguard of lies". Otto takes pictures of things that aren't really there, in the mundane sense of the phrase, and insists that the camera does not lie. By the end of the book, William too has found that the Truth is not as simple as it sometimes looks. Truly, he is his father's son.

Yet what is this 'truth' idea, anyway? William is an honest man; he writes what he thinks is true, even if half of it is sheer speculation. Yet he's constantly in doubt, until the end - and when he does finally know the full truth, he deliberately withholds it.

For the first time, this gives us a real insight into how Ankh-Morpork really works. Vetinari holds his position by careful control of the flow of information; hence his close interest in the Times at first. All the characters - Vimes, William, Slant, even Gaspode - manipulate one another by deciding what to tell them and what to hold back. All of the information that passes between them is, more or less, true, but none of it is the whole truth. If anyone had access to that, they'd be in a stronger position than Vetinari himself - which is why Vetinari works so hard to prevent it.

As Vimes remarks, sometimes 'the facts' are "not the right facts! They're stupid facts!" But facts are true - can truth be stupid? Of course it can, and that is the message of this book. By writing only what you know to be true, you put yourself entirely under the control of those who control your access to information. And this is how Vetinari manages the city.

Mike Kew

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