Maskerade

Inhoud

The Eighteenth Discworld Novel.
The show must go on, as murder, music and mayhem run riot in the night...
The Opera House, Ankh Morpork... a huge, rambling building, where innocent young sopranos are lured to their destiny by a strangely-familiar evil mastermind in a hideously-deformed dress...
At least, he hopes so. But Granny Weatherwax, Discworld's most famous witch, is in the audience. And she doesn't hold with that sort of thing.
So there's going to be trouble (but nevertheless a good evening's entertainment with murders you can really hum...)

Bespreking

This is opera!

Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, the two most infamous Discworld witches, have some urgent financial business to take care off in Ankh-Morpork. Who would have guessed that Nanny Ogg's cookbook "The Joye of Snacks" would turn out to be such a success? Certainly if one takes into account that it only contains recipes of dishes that greatly improve one's nightly actions in bed, like Celery Astonishment or Strawberry Wobbler. One certainly would not have guessed that the Ankh-Morpork publisher, one of the nobelest professions on the Discworld, did not prefer to share its profits with the author. Granny Weatherwax is bound to undertake some slight corrective actions to the mindset of the publisher.

When both witches arrive in Ankh-Morpork, they see Agnes Nitt, alias Perdita X. Dream and born in Lancre, avoiding being noticed and failing miserably. Agnes wants to be an opera singer, but Nanny Ogg does not think that having all the talents of an opera singer makes Agnes suitable for a career in the Opera House. But Nanny should not meddle in other people's lives. or should she?

In this eighteenth episode of the Discworld saga Terry Pratchett proves that the witches are not yet fin-de-career. Now that Magrat is gone (see Lords and Ladies), Nanny Ogg is searching for a replacement witch. The search brings them to the world of Opera. Or is it the world of Musical?

The story starts as a typical Discworld novel by introducing some colorful new characters like Mr Bucket, Senior Basilica and Walter Plinge, and some old friends, like Death, the Librarian and sweet-smelling Nobby. But quickly you notice that it all fits nicely as a parody on The Phantom of the Opera, only this time it is more like The Ghost of the Opera. As such this book compares easily with Weird Sisters and Moving Pictures, where Pratchett plays with those other entertainment businesses: theater and film. The plotline of The Phantom really is a grateful base for extremely funny situations. Pratchett is at full speed in the hilarious closing sequence.