{"id":4916,"date":"2019-03-27T05:00:33","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4916"},"modified":"2019-03-24T15:40:56","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T22:40:56","slug":"mark-reads-making-money-chapter-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/03\/mark-reads-making-money-chapter-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Making Money&#8217;: Chapter 8"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the eighth chapter of <i>Making Money<\/i>, Moist gets closer to the truth; Cosmo gets closer to Vetinari; Owlswick succeeds. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>Discworld<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><b>Hubert<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Great, now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got ANOTHER variable to think about: Hubert, the Glooper, and the rather rapid transformation of Hubert into a mad scientist. <i>Maybe<\/i>, I should say. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible that Hubert won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do anything, but the potential is right there. Igor has made the Glooper so accurate that it might very well be able to <i>affect<\/i> the world rather than just predict it. And once Hubert knows this, the desire to suddenly smash everything to bits\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthereby sending Ankh-Morpork into an immediate and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153irrevocable\u00e2\u20ac\u009d financial ruin\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbecomes an unbearable temptation. And I love that Pratchett is toying with the notion of the whole \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mad scientist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d trope by having the story pull at Hubert seams. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like the story is forming around him, and how can he possibly resist that?<\/p>\n<p><b>Cosmo and Heretofore<\/b><\/p>\n<p>In a similar sense\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut in a different context\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe story is forming around Cosmo. It seems inevitable that Cosmo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attempt to BECOME Vetinari will be his downfall. And I wonder if <i>that<\/i> is why Heretofore has a brief burst of pity towards his boss:<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For the first time in his career, Heretofore found himself feeling sorry for Cosmo. There was a kind of yearning in the man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice. He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to usurp Vetinari. There were plenty of people in the city who wanted to usurp Vetinari. But Cosmo wanted to be Vetinari.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And we can see that longing in the brief Cosmo scene in this chapter. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intoxicating to him to imagine himself as Vetinari, and I get why Heretofore has this impulse. It seems there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing Cosmo wants more, and he yearns for this more than anything else: more than his accumulation of wealth, more than greed, more than friendship or family or love, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>sad<\/i>. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a completely delusional desire, you know? And this doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make me feel any less unnerved by it all. IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S TERRIFYING. So, is Pratchett going to subvert this or surprise me? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know! But Cosmo certainly isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to succeed&#8230; right?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Mystery of Bent<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Oh, it was so brilliant that as I eagerly awaited for Moist and Miss Drapes to make it to Mrs. Cake\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s boarding house, the first scene about Mr. Bent was from Vetinari\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s POV. GODS, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL, HE KNOWS EVERYTHING. Or he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at least aware of it. Because there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only the slightest hint that Vetinari knows the truth, but even then, he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t share it with Drumknottt. (Why didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t he complete his sentence??? What did Old Lavish think Mr. Bent was???) So, it ramped up the suspense even more, since it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a playful nod that the reader is closer than ever to this character\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s past.<\/p>\n<p>And then, we get to the boarding house\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich is truly becoming one of my favorite places in Ankh-Morpork\u00e2\u20ac\u201dAND THE TRUTH IS NOT GIVEN TO US. Which doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing here; there are new pieces of the mystery placed in the greater framework. For example, in a perfect follow-up to the end of Vetinari\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s POV, we discover that Mr. Bent arrived \u00e2\u20ac\u0153on a cart owned by some traveling accountants.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Which <i>does<\/i> give us some context for his past! There were people in his childhood who showed him the value of numbers and the power of their certainty. But even Miss Drapes knows that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153something dreadful in his past,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but&#8230; WHAT THE FUCK IS IT.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>His room, which we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen before, gets a new perspective once <i>other<\/i> people see it. We knew the wardrobe was there and that there was a huge secret in it, but I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t truly understand the SIZE of it and that NONE OF BENT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S CLOTHING IS INSIDE OF IT. I absolutely felt validated that Moist had a theory\u00e2\u20ac\u201done that was pretty damn brief, though\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat Mr. Bent was actually a vampire. I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the actual story here, but hey! At least Moist identified many of the same coincidences!!!<\/p>\n<p>So&#8230; am I any closer to understanding Mr. Bent? Not really, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m missing the real BIG piece. What is so embarrassing or so frightening in his past that Cosmo could successfully unravel him?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Gladys<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I felt real weird about Moist fumbling Gladys\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pronouns. Not because it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen or because it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t realistic! But it seems Moist continues to have problems with how Gladys behaves and how that makes her a woman. Why does he say that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the fault of misplaced female solidarity\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? Why is it misplaced? This confused me, and I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t parse Pratchett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intent. I get the <i>other<\/i> part of it, that Gladys is developing an idea of what it means to be a woman from a very, very specific source, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know why that would trip up Moist, you know? Like, he can be worried that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to have a narrow view of the world because of that catalog\/magazine, but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make her less of a woman.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Developments<\/b><\/p>\n<p>So, I can see one thing set up here: Cosmo went to <i>The Times<\/i> to give his side of the story in regards to Mr. Bent. But Moist did <i>not<\/i>, and he only realizes that he should have leapt in front of that story too late. Lord, what is the <i>Times<\/i> going to print now???<\/p>\n<p>Also: OWLSWICK SUCCEEDED!!! The bill is done, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s apparently exactly what Moist wanted, and I assume that this means they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to print. Well, I would have assumed that without hesitation, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m worried about this <i>Times<\/i> article. Again, there are so many variables here that could derail this all! Is Moist even going to get to that stage?<\/p>\n<p><b>Mr. Fusspot<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I just want to let you all know that I will get my revenge on each of you for the scene in which everyone believes that Gladys cooked Mr. Fusspot. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M SO STRESSED.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/kSPwP5Rw81A<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markoshiro.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/19\/the-anger-is-a-gift-paperback-edition-is-out-may-7-2019\">The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now up for pre-order!<\/a> It comes out on May 7, 2019.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><strong>If you&#8217;d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/ey636\">sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the eighth chapter of Making Money, Moist gets closer to the truth; Cosmo gets closer to Vetinari; Owlswick succeeds. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[558,463,248],"class_list":["post-4916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-making-money","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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