82. Making Money

As you all may have gathered, I’m very fond of Moist Von Lipwig. But my guilty secret is it is that Going Postal was the only novel out of the three he features in, that I had read until recently! Making Money is the next instalment of his story. A bright and energetic story about dragging the banks out of the dark ages and bringing paper money into circulation. We start off shortly after we left Going Postal and Moist is bored. So terribly bored he has started breaking into his own office at night, carrying lock picks, and just generally trying to entertain himself in the way that any ex conman, showy, charismatic, smooth talker would. Moist is stuck in a prospering Post Office, Adora is away on Gollum business, and he is desperately bored without an adversary.

This is part of what I adore about Moist, he needs stress and friction to sparkle, and that is just what Pratchett gives him.

Making Money – Terry Pratchett 

Lord Vetinari has a near psychic ability to see through people and is aware of how bored Moist is. But when Vetinari offers Moist an opportunity, Moist refuses. Lord Vetinari than plays a little game to get Moist into his carriage and to display this challenge he is offering before him.

This challenge is that the banks are failing. Vetinari has a loose plan to throw Moist at them and see what happens. So through a clever ploy, Moist gets into Vetinari’s carriage and is toured around his soon to be bank. I imagine the bank in Mary Poppins. Polished counters and strangely elaborate spiral staircases and heavy velvet drapes which serve no purpose than to intimidate any who cross the threshold to make a deposit. This is the cold resistance of the bank, it does not accept small sums or deposits from those without great wealth. But generally the banks aren’t trusted by the general public anyway, they prefer the socks they are wearing, or to hide currency in their mattresses.

The bank’s manager is, of course, a rather stiff man, (perhaps a vampire), called Mr. Bent. An excellent mathematician who has been at the bank for the majority of his adult life. The Chairwoman of the bank, Topsy Lavish is an elderly and suspicious woman with an excitable little dog named Mr. Fusspot. Topsy is a very clever woman who has spent most of her life fending off her terrible in-laws, but when she meets Moist she sees through him for the crook he is and likes him immensely.  She almost presumably sleeps behind her desk which is armed with small crossbows from the distrust of her family.

In a bizarre turn of events, Topsy dies leaving her 50% shares to her little dog Mr. Fusspot, and Mr. Fusspot with his share of 1% to Moist. This leaves Mr. Fusspot with 51% of the shares of the Royal Bank of Ankh and chairman of the bank. But also makes Mr. Fusspot a wanted dog facing assassination everywhere from his cruel and greedy family.  Moist thrown into the thick of it quite by chance then finds him in the situation of having no choice but to save the banks and keep Mr. Fusspot safe from the Lavish Family. Particularly Cosmo Lavish, who has a terrible crush/desire to be Lord Vetinari.

But that’s not all, the bank has a wildly crazy inventor and Igor living downstairs in the basement. Said inventor has created the Glooper with the help of the Igor. It is not certain whether or not the Glooper is controlled by the currency that is moving around Ankh or the other way round. The Igor is a massive source of entertainment, when he successfully removes the depression and bad things from a famous criminal caught for forging stamps (Moist has him designing the new paper money after breaking him out of prison…. naturally). Moist and the Igor discover that all the bad things had made up the artist and criminal and the personality of a turnip is just not adequate for the job at hand. The notes he has designed for them are child like and lack the nuance cross hatching Moist is looking for. Moist of course demands the Igor fixes this and swaps the turnip and the criminal back.

Meanwhile Adora is digging around for Gollums and has bitten a bit more off than she can chew. Sadly she’s not as present in this novel but she does end up flirting with a dead wizard to get his help with translation.

Making Money is fun, there is a lot going on that I haven’t mentioned because this is quite a complicated novel with a lot of balls being juggled. As a cure for Moist’s boredom this novel is excellent, there is a little about Moist’s past revealed, a face from his past reappears and tries to make trouble. He is almost charged with robbing his own bank. He eats some strange food and devotes himself to not letting Mr. Fusspot get poisoned. And like most dog owners Moist learns that if your dog has a toy it will likely not give it back, even if it is a sex toy that has been hidden away in the cupboard by the previous Chairman (Topsy’s husband, Lord Joshua to be precise).

There is also a little bit of corruption in this novel, and the dangers of rejecting yourself and generally this is a good Discworld novel. But it is sadly not quite on par with Going Postal. Very close, but not quite.