Maskerade by Terry Pratchett

My official statement is that I like Terry Pratchett. I have several Terry Pratchett books that I've liked well enough to keep on my bookshelf at home, and I'm always happy to recommend them. They're quick reads, and a clever sort of funny, the type of quirky British humor I've also enjoyed in Douglas Adams or Jasper Fforde. I often turn to Terry Pratchett if I'm in need of an airplane book or an easier read.

But I also have to admit (sorry to other Terry Pratchett fans - in spite of what I'm about to say I really am one of you) I have a hard time saying I love Terry Pratchett. His Discworld books are intentionally over-the-top. Discworld both parallels and parodies our own world, and Pratchett relies on a lot of exaggeration and absurdity to tell his story. Usually this works pretty well, but it can be a hard type of humor to pull off consistently, and it sometimes falls into silliness that isn't really funny. Pratchett does a lot of very clever things with the plots and the characters and the rules of Discworld and the dialogue. But I'm always nagged by the sometimes-subtle and sometimes-overt silliness that I see as a cheap and easy way to get a laugh. I find it a bit distracting. Going Postal is my favorite Terry Pratchett book because, in it, Pratchett manages just the right balance that I'm not distracted and annoyed by the silliness. That's why I keep coming back.

Terry Pratchett usually chooses to satirize something or other, and in the case of Maskerade it was opera. I began reading the book right around the time of the spring opera here at the university, and hanging around Brian and Ashley and various other singers and collaborative pianists who have done their time in the Hill Street Ward has given me quite a bit more exposure to opera than I had had before moving to Michigan. So there were a few points during the book that I felt like Terry Pratchett was being just a little unfair to the genre, and few more points where I begrudgingly admitted that opera (in general) probably deserved the satirical treatment Pratchett was giving it, and still more points where I just laughed almost-out-loud because the satire was genuinely funny. It also satirizes Phantom of the Opera, but I feel less qualified to pass judgment on that one.

Still, the story is not really about opera, or about Phantom of the Opera, and you don't really have to know much about opera in order to enjoy the story. It's a story about witches and murder and parenting and running a business and finding your way in the world and finding your way back to where you came from.

Brady was the one who lent Maskerade to me. I had mentioned that Going Postal is my favorite Terry Pratchett book, so he thought I should read his favorite. I didn't enjoy it in the way I enjoyed Going Postal (sorry Brady), but I did enjoy it the way I enjoy most other Terry Pratchett books. He tells a good story, and says things in a way that no one has ever said them before, which often turns out to be really funny. I am always interested in knowing how things are going to turn out - I usually feel like I can guess the end, and then am surprised to find out that I was wrong. Maskerade was a really fun read.