[R] _Making Money_ Review

This post contains SPOILERS for _Making Money_.

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^L


I almost did not reread _Making Money_, but I'm glad I did,
because I now feel I judged it too harshly when I originally read
it.

It is not that I actively disliked it (_Jingo_) or thought the
execution was a tad below Terry's usual standards (_Thief of
Time_), but it just seemed such a forgettably *familiar* book.
Characters, events, and themes all too reminiscent of what we'd
seen many times before (often in _Going Postal_, which didn't
help); nothing new or interesting. It felt like the kind of
decent, nothing-really-wrong-with-it type of Discworld book that
Terry by now is probably capable of writing in his sleep. It
utterly failed to engage me.

So I filed the book away, skipped posting a review, and nearly
overlooked it earlier this week when I was in the mood for
something Pratchetty to read on a long journey. But then I
realised that apart from Mr Fusspot's slapstick turns with the
rubber wingo I could not really remember any other scenes or
events from the book at all -- I was not even capable of
recounting the plot beyond the initial gimmick. Now, that is just
plain silly: Terry's writing, even when I don't like it, does not
have *that* little impact or staying power, so I started
suspecting that at the very least *I* might have not really been
having a good day as a reader last year either, and that I needed
to give the book a second chance.

And yes, it turns out that there is indeed a lot more to enjoy
than I originally thought. Rereading Pratchett is of course
*always* a worthwhile experience, because of all the
foreshadowing and little bits he puts in that you won't recognise
yet as being relevant the fist time round. I had tremendous fun
with the ways in which Mr Bent's Big Secret is hinted at in
almost every sentence written about the man. I also gained a new
appreciation for the Glooper scenes (I definitely had not been
paying good enough attention the first time), and Moist's
ruminations on the nature of banks and money were considerably
more interesting this time around, what with the various
real-life resonances and ironies suddenly springing from the
page.

Now, _Making Money_ is still not going to make my Top 10
Discworld favourites list any day soon, and I stand by my general
criticism: the book does coast along a tad too comfortably, the
Gladys subplot is one example of something we've now really seen
(imhoe) too often, and Cosmo is an astonishingly uninteresting
villain. But it is a much funnier and more coherent book than I
remembered it, and I will now go so far to say that I'm actually
looking forward to _Raising Taxes_ (although a part of me does
hope that it will not just be about Moist coming up with the
concept of progressive taxation).

--
Leo Breebaart

On Oct 17, 5:10�pm, Leo Breebaart wrote:
> This post contains SPOILERS for _Making Money_.
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> ^L
>I had tremendous fun
> with the ways in which Mr Bent's Big Secret is hinted at in
> almost every sentence written about the man.

I thought the links between Mr Bent and John Major were fun, although
whether or not they were intended is something I really can't tell.
Good stuff, anyway.

> Now, _Making Money_ is still not going to make my Top 10
> Discworld favourites list any day soon

Mine neither. It's still a good read, though.
(Oddly enough, I see you mention Jingo as a book you actively disliked
- I, on the other hand, would put it amongst my top three, with Lords
and Ladies and Soul Music

CCA