![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Missing The Mark
Jan 2009
Making Money - Terry Pratchett - Doubleday, 2007
* * * *
In addition to his other considerable talents, it appears that Terry Pratchett is something of a prophet. It surely cannot be a coincidence that this satire on banks and the people who run them should be published just a week after problems first became apparent at Northern Rock, the harbinger of the recession that we are currently enduring. So it is a shame that it does not bite as hard as it really should.
Our hero is once again the likeable but ever so slightly dishonest Moist Von Lipwig, conman on call to ruthless dictator Lord Vetinari. The setting is the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork, a hide-bound institution run by the Lavishes, a ruthless and scheming family clearly modelled on the Medicis of Florence. Vetinari introduces Moist to Topsy Lavish, a "Mk 1 feisty old lady", who has inherited 50% of the shares in the Royal Bank from her late husband Sir Joshua but is getting on a bit. She has a dog of indeterminate breed called Mr Fusspot whom she (and only she) adores and which is the holder of the single share that gives her control. You can see where this is going, and you would be right.
The remainder of the story closely follows the template of Moist's previous outing, Going Postal, but with the usual inventive cast of characters on the way. There is Mr Bent, the gold-obsessed chief cashier with a Dark Secret; the mad scientist Hubert who works in the basement on the Glooper (a reference to the remarkable MONIAC, a hydraulic model of the British economy created in 1949 by the New Zealand economist Bill Philips); Cosmo Lavish, the villain of the piece, who has an obsession with Lord Vetinari; the men of the Sheds, who work in the Royal Mint; and a sundry cast of golems, relatives and others.
So it is a shame that with all these promising materials Pratchett doesn't manage to make something more of the plot. Part of the difficulty is that he has chosen as his main theme the question of the asset on which a currency should be based, a clear reference to Bretton Woods and the abandonment of the Gold Standard in the 1970s. Interesting as this is from a historical point of view, I was hoping that hoping that Pratchett would fast-forward the bank's development so as to enable a satire of the toxic combination of abstruse higher mathematics and wide-boy pyramid selling on which modern finance appears to be largely based, for which Hubert and the Glooper would have been an ideal starting point. Instead, he gets side-tracked by a golem sub-plot, introduced by the return of Moist's love interest Adora Dearheart, and an admittedly amusing court case (the image of Mr Fusspot and his new favourite toy will live with me for some time).
Satirical style ranges from gentle, affectionate and superficial to sharp, angry and vicious. It will come as no surprise to his long-term readers that Pratchett tends towards the former rather than the latter, but his stance suits some subjects better than others. In Going Postal, the Post Office was a perfect foil - as a fundamentally benevolent institution, gentle mockery of its fustiness and spanish practices was exactly right. The banks, however, are another matter. Even before the current financial crisis, it was clear from the absurdly high remuneration and indulgence of risk-taking that their senior managers were more interested in their own personal gain than in serving the community, and a sharp satire laying this bare is long overdue. Sadly, we still don't have it, though this book does at least make a start.
Making Money - Terry Pratchett - Doubleday, 2007
* * * *
In addition to his other considerable talents, it appears that Terry Pratchett is something of a prophet. It surely cannot be a coincidence that this satire on banks and the people who run them should be published just a week after problems first became apparent at Northern Rock, the harbinger of the recession that we are currently enduring. So it is a shame that it does not bite as hard as it really should.
Our hero is once again the likeable but ever so slightly dishonest Moist Von Lipwig, conman on call to ruthless dictator Lord Vetinari. The setting is the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork, a hide-bound institution run by the Lavishes, a ruthless and scheming family clearly modelled on the Medicis of Florence. Vetinari introduces Moist to Topsy Lavish, a "Mk 1 feisty old lady", who has inherited 50% of the shares in the Royal Bank from her late husband Sir Joshua but is getting on a bit. She has a dog of indeterminate breed called Mr Fusspot whom she (and only she) adores and which is the holder of the single share that gives her control. You can see where this is going, and you would be right.
The remainder of the story closely follows the template of Moist's previous outing, Going Postal, but with the usual inventive cast of characters on the way. There is Mr Bent, the gold-obsessed chief cashier with a Dark Secret; the mad scientist Hubert who works in the basement on the Glooper (a reference to the remarkable MONIAC, a hydraulic model of the British economy created in 1949 by the New Zealand economist Bill Philips); Cosmo Lavish, the villain of the piece, who has an obsession with Lord Vetinari; the men of the Sheds, who work in the Royal Mint; and a sundry cast of golems, relatives and others.
So it is a shame that with all these promising materials Pratchett doesn't manage to make something more of the plot. Part of the difficulty is that he has chosen as his main theme the question of the asset on which a currency should be based, a clear reference to Bretton Woods and the abandonment of the Gold Standard in the 1970s. Interesting as this is from a historical point of view, I was hoping that hoping that Pratchett would fast-forward the bank's development so as to enable a satire of the toxic combination of abstruse higher mathematics and wide-boy pyramid selling on which modern finance appears to be largely based, for which Hubert and the Glooper would have been an ideal starting point. Instead, he gets side-tracked by a golem sub-plot, introduced by the return of Moist's love interest Adora Dearheart, and an admittedly amusing court case (the image of Mr Fusspot and his new favourite toy will live with me for some time).
Satirical style ranges from gentle, affectionate and superficial to sharp, angry and vicious. It will come as no surprise to his long-term readers that Pratchett tends towards the former rather than the latter, but his stance suits some subjects better than others. In Going Postal, the Post Office was a perfect foil - as a fundamentally benevolent institution, gentle mockery of its fustiness and spanish practices was exactly right. The banks, however, are another matter. Even before the current financial crisis, it was clear from the absurdly high remuneration and indulgence of risk-taking that their senior managers were more interested in their own personal gain than in serving the community, and a sharp satire laying this bare is long overdue. Sadly, we still don't have it, though this book does at least make a start.