Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
Source – Wikipedia
Soon as I started reading Making Money, I realized that following Moist von Lipwig’s adventures is worth every dollar. And I mean literally! The guy has nothing to lose except maybe his life and so he sets out himself to entertain the crowd while filling up the government’s coffers. Going Postal is the 1st book in Lipwig series and the 33rd in the Discworld series.
Moist von Lipwig is a professional conman if there was ever one to grace Discworld…the one of his kind I’d say. Unfortunately for him, his crimes are discovered and he is sentenced to be hanged. A short while later, Moist finds himself before Lord Vetinari, the tyrant and ruler of Ankh-Morpokh who offers him a delicate choice between taking up the job of Post Master of the city’s Post Office vs. a certain painful death. Moist of course chooses the former and so finds himself in a dilapidated relic that is the Post Office with only a Mr. Groat, the Jr. Post Master and Stanley to guide him. Their jolly little team has 2 other members – Moist’s parole officer Mr. Pump and Mr. Tiddles, the office cat with occasional help from Ms. Adora Belle Dearheart, manager of the Golem Trust. And here I must add the introduction given to Tiddles -
“A large black-and-white cat had walked into the room. It paid no attention to Moist or Groat, but progressed slowly across the floor toward a battered and unraveling basket. Moist was in the way. The cat continued until its head butted gently against Moist’s leg, and stopped.
“That’s Mr. Tiddles, sir,” said Groat.
“Tiddles?” said Moist. “You mean that really is a cat’s name? I thought it was just a joke.”
“Not so much the name, sir, more of a description,” said Groat. “You’d better move, sir, otherwise he’ll just stand there all day. Twenty years old, he is, and a bit set in his ways.”
Added to the mess are the thousands of letters and the ghost of their writers’ voices that begin to haunt Moist and of course the one and only competitor – Mr. Reacher Gilt and his company “The Grand Trunk”. Will Moist manage to restore the Post Office to its former glory while evading Gilt and his devious deadly schemes or will he fail and be hanged yet again? And with this description I’ll leave it to you readers to decide whether to pick or drop this book.
Moist von Lipwig is probably one of my most favorite characters after Hercule Poirot and Granny Weatherwax. Once he gets his rhythm going, there’s no stopping him as he sets out to woo the crowds employing some of the oldest tricks in the history of marketing. And to summarize his description – “He had an honest face. And he loved those people who looked him firmly in the eye to see his inner self, because he had a whole set of inner selves, one for every occasion. As for firm handshakes, practice had given him one to which you could moor boats. It was people skills, that was what it was. Special people skills. Before you could sell glass as diamonds you had to make people really want to see diamonds. That was THE trick, the trick of all tricks.”
As for the theme itself, there are several, first and foremost of which is the Post Office. It so reminds me of USPS…perhaps Mr. Pratchett was alluding to the British Govt Post and the possible changes that the postal system may have undergone in the last few decades. Then there is reference to the telegrams and the mobile networks…as described through the improvements to Clacks. And last but the most entertaining is the allusion to Organization and Change management, which features predominantly in the conversations between Mr. Gilt and his associates while discussing the affairs of the Clacks system. The following statement is probably also the most used by CEOs of companies worldwide -
“Gilt waved him into silence, and continued: “ – several hundred thousand dollars in a challenging, relevant, and exciting systemic overhaul of our entire organization, focusing on our core competencies while maintaining full and listening cooperation with the communities we are proud to serve. We fully realize that our energetic attempts to mobilize the flawed infrastructure we inherited have been less than totally satisfactory, and hope and trust that our valued and loyal customers will bear with us in the coming months as we interact synergistically with change management in our striving for excellence. That is our mission.””
And so with enough fodder for thought and plenty of quotes, I’ll conclude my blog post for the book – Going Postal. And to make my experience of this wonderful book complete, I even got hold of the film adaptation aired by BSkyB in Britain which was okay while not on par with the book. A hilarious and thoroughly enjoyable book through and through!
“You may be aware that the late Sir Joshua left one percent share in the bank to Mr. Fusspot?”
A cold, black wind began to blow through Moist’s mind.
“Yes,” he said. “I am.”
“The late Mrs. Lavish left him another fifty percent. That, by the customs of the bank, means that he is the new chairman, Mr. Lipwig. And you own him.”
—– Conversation between Mr. Slant and Lipwig concerning Mr.Fusspot
Making Money is the 36th novel in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, and the 2nd book featuring Moist von Lipwig as the protogonist. To give a brief intro - Moist von Lipwig was a crook who went by the name Albert Spangler. In the novel Going Postal, Lipwig in his job as the Post Master General, transforms the Ankh-Morpokh Post Office into one of the most successful enterprises in the city.
In Making Money, the Patrician tasks Lipwig with reforming the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpokh and increasing its customer base. Well-acquainted with the Patrician’s methods of persuasion, Lipwig reluctantly visits the bank and acquaints himself with the Chief Cashier Mr. Bent and the Chairman Topsy Lavish. The following morning Lipwig is visited by Mr. Slant, an advocate who informs him of the death of Mrs. Lavish, and subsequently entrusts him with the duty of protecting the new Chairman, Mr. Fusspot who now owns 51% of the bank’s shares.
A reluctant Mr.Lipwig assumes the ownership of the bank much to the consternation of the rest of the Lavish family and Mr. Bent. His life is further complicated by an unexpected visitor from his shady past. Does Lipwig survive long enough to to succeed and keep the money flowing or does he fail thereby sentencing himself to death once more?
The story was a bit too long with a tendency to describe the mundane stuff but the humor was so good that it kept me going. Lipwig tries to blend it as smoothly as a wallpaper but ends up standing out due to his ability to entertain people and his love to flirt with danger. The book also brings out the humor and patience from Lord Vetinari. The unsung hero/victim of the book though is Mavolio Bent or Mr. Bent the chief cashier with a dark past which is unravelled at a gradual pace.
Setting aside the characters and the plot, this theme of this book is the banking system which thrives in almost every country owing to its rules, regulations, idiosyncrasies and what-nots. And the novel seems to take a jibe at the Bank of England perhaps what with the influence of the old money and old families on the day-to-day running of the bank.
I admire Terry Pratchett for his never-ending sense of humor…the predominant characteristic of all the Discworld books. Now combine that with the various activities/systems in the real-world and you get a brilliant piece on the denizens of the Discworld. I previously resisted reading “Going Postal” simply because it seemed boring but I’ve added it back to my TBR. Making Money is definitely worth reading!
One of the most noteworthy characters in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is Death of Discworld. He has the personality, the style and finese that makes the Discworld denizens proud to move onto the after-life. And the title “Reaper Man” focuses on this particular character! Infact, Terry Pratchett describes Death’s existence as follows -
“Belief creates other things. It created Death. Not death, which is merely a technical term for a state caused by prolonged absence of life, but Death, the personality. He evolved, as it were, along with life….He was Death long before humans ever considered him; they only added the shape and all the scythe and robe business to a personality that was already millions of years old.”
The Auditors of Reality vexed with humans and other beings alike dismiss Death from his post of soul collection. And Death chooses to spend his remaining time on Discworld under the cover of BILL DOOR. He is employed by one Miss. Flitworth who wary at first soon warms upto Bill Door. Elsewhere a deceased wizard named Windle Poons is annoyed with Death who doesn’t show up at the appointed hour to collect his soul. While all other entities have created a new Death instantly, humans were yet to create a new one and soon Ankh-Morpokh was teeming with paranormal activity resulting from the accumulation of life force.
Alas, a new Death unfolds from the minds of humans and his first target is the old Death aka Bill Door. Does Bill Door die? And what does Azrael, the Death of Universes have anything to do with this story? This is what Reaper Man is about.
Terry Pratchett’s books are lively, humurous and above all depict the follies of our world in the fictional Discworld. And Pratchett, the genius that he is, has some memorably funny quotes up his sleeve for this book as well -
Everyone knew they were going to die, even the common people. No one knew where you were before you were born, but when you were born, it wasn’t long before you found you’d arrived with your return ticket already punched.
A highly recommended book out of the Discworld collection!
I have no idea what the title means but this onez part of my favourite Terry Pratchett 
novels list, and it has my all time favourite discworld character – Granny Weatherwax (apart from the Orangutan ofcourse!). The author highlights the vampire culture in this book giving it a more contemporary and modern outlook.
Count Magpyr (could’ve been Magpies for all you know) and his family are invited by King Verence and Queen Magrat for their daughter’s christening. They arrive in style with their loyal servant Igor who is visibly distressed at his masters’ disregard for traditional vampiric values and culture. They in fact prefer wearing bright dresses (opposed to the all time black), drink wine and stay up until noon. Moreover, this particular family also becomes much more formidable by building up tolerance levels to the traditional anti-vampire stuff like garlic, holy water and crosses.
So they grace Lancre with their presence but the residents soon find themselves bewitched by this family. All except Agnes Nitt (aka Perdita) and the Omnian priest, Mightily Oats come under their sway (they escape owing to their dual personalities). The Magpyrs meet their match in Granny Weatherwax and when they try to turn her into a vampire, she defeats them by transferring her essence to them (dunno how that happened but they start liking hot tea and biscuits). In all this mayhem, the baby princess is christened “Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling”!!
So Granny Weatherwax wins again and saves Lancre from yet another invasion!! This is just the crux but the plot is interlaced with so much humor and wit that you fail to realize the enormity of the situation which is invasion of the vampires.
Here are some of my fav quotes:
“Lancre operated on the feudal system, which was to say, everyone feuded all the time and handed on the fight to their descendants.”
“I name you … Esmeralda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre!”
“There are many rhymes about magpies, but none of them is very reliable because they are not the ones the magpies know themselves.”
“Fewer birds could sit more meekly than the Lancre wowhawk, or lappet-faced worrier, a carnivore permanently on the lookout for the vegetarian option.”
And finally the best one:
“Hodgesaargh was an original storyteller and quite good in a very specific way. If he’d had to recount the saga of the Tsortean War, for example, it would have been in terms of the birds observed, every cormorant noted, every pelican listed, every battlefield raven taxonomically placed, no tern unturned. Some men in armour would have been involved at some stage, but only because the ravens were perching on them.”
Its a book that every Terry Pratchett fan must have. Oh well, I have to find my copy yet.
Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Mystique by digitalnature.
