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Monk, or Sweeper? The interesting (possible contradiction) here is that when the character of Lu-Tze first appears in Small Gods, (ref Corgi Paperback p.8), he is introduced thus:-

The 493rd Abbot... addressed Lu-Tze, one of his most senior monks.

He is still a History Monk on pp 376-377, at the end of Small Gods.

Here, Lu-Tze is a fully-fledged and acknowledged History Monk who while in the field adopts the guise of a humble sweeper. It is only in the later books, Thief of Time, Night Watch, that the reverse is emphasised: here, the story is the Lu-Tze never graduated as a monk nor was selected as one at all. What he has learnt has come from years of sweeping up, inobtrusively, in classrooms where the monks are trained. To add further confusion, on p317 he is identified as being six thousand years old, which contradicts ages given in other places and sets up further contradictions.

Corgi Paperback pp.81-82

"That sounds dreadful!" said the woman... "I wonder what passes through the poor little creature's head when he's dropped?"

"His shell, madam!" said the Great God Om...

Om is being uncharacteristically delicate here. In the variation of this joke usually told on Roundworld, the last thing to pass through the mind/head of any creature dropped from a great height is usually its arsehole.

Corgi Paperback p.85-86 The million-to-one chance makes an appearance: "Landed on a pile of dirt in your garden. That's eagles for you. Whole place made of rock and paved with rock and built on a big rock, and they miss."

Omnianism is a reference to Catholicism. The original meaning of "Catholic", before becoming synonymous with only one sect of Christianity, was "universal". "Omni" means "all", ie universality.

A small error occurs when Brutha is counting the flashes from the ship. He counts seven, and then four flashes, while talking to the captain; but when reporting to Vorbis, he claims there were 6, 8, then 2 flashes. (HarperPrism edition, mass paperback: pp. 115, 120) --Neddy 19:39, 14 April 2006 (CEST)

Corgi Paperback p.100 I have to walk that lonesome valley/I have to walk it all alone These are lines from a fundamentalist Christian hymn which occur in the book when Brutha has to confront the idea of walking through the Desert (both on the physical Discworld and when ushered by Death into the Afterlife). It's certainly popular: a lyrics site lists sixty different recordings, perhaps the most prominent of which was by Elvis Presley:-[1]

The hymn recurs throughout Small Gods, and is seen here when General Fri'it is contemplating the assassination of Vorbis.

In Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy, the same verse of the same hymn is used when two of the principal characters are forced to question, challenge, and finally reject the Christian orthodoxy they have been brought up to believe in. Like Brutha, both Robert Putney Drake (villain) and Hagbard Celine (anti-hero) experience the absolute loneliness of being leaders, responsible not just for themselves but for the fortunes of others. Drake, like Vorbis, ends up in a Hell of his own making, while Celine finds a sort of inner peace based on his philosophy of "Think for yourself, schmuck!" - not a million miles away from the philosophy Brutha steers Omnianism into.

Corgi Paperback p.317

Lu-Tze finds Brutha huddled in his familar garden, curled up in fear, alone among the melons. He then talks about his fear to Lu-Tze and wishes he was small and anonymous again and his biggest fear was missing a weed when hoing. This echoes Christ's emotional turmoil the night before his arrest and eventual crucufixion, in the Garden of Gethsemane, where, alone, human and afraid, he pleads with God to take the burden away and spare him the worst. Christ feels forsaken by the absence of God the father; Brutha feels equally lost and alone with Om-As-Tortoise having vanished. (Om was deliberately abandoned in the desert by Vorbis, and is at least a hundred tortoise-hours away from the Citadel). It also refers to French agnostic Voltaire's comment, at the end of Candide, that il faut cautiver notre jardins - colloquially, we all have our row to hoe our own garden to tend, our own fate to meet.