Maskerade

I Love Terry Pratchett and his discworld books hold a revered place in my library. Having said that, this book falls short of the mark. It’s laden with fat jokes and that feels cheap. I get that it’s about “Opera” and the “Arts”, there’s a lot of body shaming in that culture to the point of serious eating disorders. Perhaps he was aiming to satirize that aspect of the “Theater” culture if so, he missed.
Otherwise, apart from the theater, the parts with Granny Weatherwax & Nanny Ogg are fantastic. The pair of witches are, as always, vexatious, delightfully meddlesome, and deeply insightful.

It’s difficult to choose a favorite Discworld book because there are only fractions of points between their ratings. I think Witches Abroad is still my number one favorite but Maskerade runs a very close second. They’re in my top 40 for sure :-). The Joy of Snacks but had me laughing more than any of the other ones and that takes some doing because I love Terry Pratchett’s humor more than any other author. Just read everything he wrote – his physical loss is a sad thing for literature but his voluminous contributions will live on till The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch are fulfilled.

My husband is a Pratchett lover and reads most of his books once a year. This copy was purchased as a gift for my mother in law because she loves Phantom of the Opera. She said it arrived in good condition and is very excited for her very first Pratchett book. I love his writing style and sense of humor.

The Ankh-Morpork Opera House is terrorized by a masked figure who has a decided preference for a soprano named Christine, and who leaves notes for the opera manager that basically say, “Hahahaha!…PS: Ahahahaha!!!!!”

Meanwhile back in Lancre, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg belatedly realize that a coven requires three witches in order to function properly. Their previous third witch, Magrat is now a queen and can’t make their meetings. Magrat’s potential replacement, Agnes Nitt has run off to Ankh-Morpork to become an opera singer.

What can Granny and Nanny do but pack up Greebo, the cat and take the stage (the weather is a bit drafty for broom travel) to Ankh-Morpork?

Opera, Queen of Music is easy to satirize, and Pratchett goes for all the obvious targets: chubby singers; horned helmets; anorexic dancers; drunken musicians; and old fuddy-duddies who are stuck in the ‘golden age’ of opera. As always, the down-trodden are the real heroes of this Discworld novel: the opera house cleaning staff; and fat Agnes Nitt, who is forced into the role of voice-over for the beautiful but tuneless soprano (remember Debbie Reynolds’ role in “Singing in the Rain”?)

Death and the Night Watch are supernumeraries in “Maskerade,” and any book that stars Greebo, the malodorous cat, who briefly disguises himself as the Phantom, will always be one of my favorite Pratchetts, even if this author does satirize my favorite form of music.

P.S. If you haven’t read “Witches Abroad,” you may be wondering how a cat can pass as a masked man. There’s nothing to it if you’re Nanny Ogg’s cat.

In which Terry Pratchett takes on the world of opera with typically anarchic and yet thoughtful results. Pratchett’s long been fascinated with the power of stories and their presentation (see, for instance,

Moving Pictures

and

Wyrd Sisters

), and Maskerade is no different, as the power of opera proves to be surprisingly durable. To be fair, there’s a lot more of the musical in here than the opera, especially given that the main plot is Pratchett’s fractured version of The Phantom of the Opera; but really, unless you’re a diehard purist, does it matter? This is a Witches book, and while they’ve never been my favorite story arc, there’s no denying the fun Pratchett has with these ladies and their effects on the world, and when these effects include mutating cats, observations about how to determine the IQ of a mob (answer: determine the IQ of the lowest member and divide by the number of mobsters), musings by Death as to the inadvisability of the dead intruding on murder investigations, and an appropriately operatic and over-the-top ending, how can you not have fun with this one? It may not be the equal of the series’s highest points (

Mort

,

Small Gods

,

Thud!

), but it’s still a blast.