Plot flaw in Jingo? (Pratchett - open spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

I was just re-reading Jingo (for the nth time), which I still think is among TP’s best books, and realised there’s a pretty major flaw in the plot.

The only reason Vetinari and Leonard travel to Leshp in the Boat (“It’s submersed in a **marine **environment so I call it the Going-Under-Water-Safely-Device.”) is that Leonard lets slip that he “did a few sketches there some years ago”, hence allowing Vetinari to set his whole scheme into motion.

Now it seems inconceivable that an island that appeared in Leonard’s lifetime should be totally unknown to anyone else, and in fact at the end it’s clearly stated that Leshp only rises at “enormously long intervals”. So what gives? Has Leonard discovered immortality? Am I just nitpicking needlessly at what is still a really good read, or has this struck anyone else?

2

No… he visited it when it was underwater. In his boat, which travels under the water, and has windows, which you can look through and make sketches.

(Incidentally, did you notice that when he drew a sketch of an improved Boat, he populated it with muscular, naked men?)

3

:smack:

Now why didn’t I think of that? And here I was, thinking I was smart. Nothing like the Dope for puncturing over-inflated egos. :smiley:

I’ll be over here in the corner with my tail between my legs, if anyone needs me.

4

Didn’t Leonard also make the deduction at that time that it raises and falls periodically, which he would’ve informed Vetinari of behind the closed doors that we did not participate in observing?