Deconstructing Terry Pratchett: Maskerade

In my next life, I want to be Terry Pratchett. Until then, the best I can do is read and re-read the books he’s written, and marvel at them.

Today, I finished re-reading, for I don’t know how many times, his novel “Maskerade,” which on the surface appears to be a parody of “The Phantom of the Opera.” Mostly it parodies the musical. But it also parodies the book. And it parodies opera. And operatic tropes and so many other damn things re-reading it is like peeling an onion: You never quite get to the end of it and end up with fingers that smell good for days afterward.

On this reading, I learned this*:

When Greebo**, anticipating chasing the Opera Ghost, throws his bowl of fish eggs out of the box, Pratchett writes its falling resulted in someone in the stalls having a “Fortean experience.” Finally looked that up, and it let me here.

And I should have suspected it was something like this, as Pratchett spends a little time in this same book with the Almanack, where rains of curry and fish and other whatnots are predicted in a book most people use in the privy because the pages are nice and thin.

And I also connected the dot between the highly operatic discovery by Mrs. Angeline Lawsey that her long-lost lover, and father to son Henry – was indeed the famous Enrico Basilica, swearing off the stage and opera to re-become Henry Slugg of Ankh-Morpork at the end of the book, right after Mr. Salzella criticizes the loopy logic of operas that often brings long-lost lovers back together.

And DAMMIT if the character of Walter Plinge isn’t modeled after a character played by Michael Crawford. Just how much stuff did Pratchett have crammed into that glorious head of his?



So it’s parody wrapped in parody, smothered in secret sauce. And dripping with irony and the seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of trivia from the author’s head.

He writes what he knows, apparently.

I could do that.

And he’s following the advice of another excellent writer:



So the rules are, or appear to be:

1. Put a lot of stuff in your head.
2. Figure out some way to get all the stuff in your head to connect and eventually come out when needed. Some kind of journaling or note-taking is probably involved.
3. Write your brains out.

Part of me is happy that Mr. Pratchett blessed us with his work.

Another part of me is upset that this amount of writing talent couldn’t be shared with other writers. Notably me.

But I could get there, the voices say, if I’d actually write, not write about another person’s writing.

That seems grossly unfair. And also accurately operatic.

*Ironically, it came as I was reading about the hapless Henry Lawsey, who has to pause his own reading about the opera to look up words in his dictionary.

**Not going to explain all the characters. Look them up. Or better yet, read the book.