The Financier by Theodore Dreiser
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Nothing New Under the American Sun

There is scarcely any internal dialogue in The Financier. All is surface, not to say superficial. Frank, the protagonist, is driven entirely by the opinion of others and is yet entirely self-centred in defiance of all Jungian psychological types. He cannot be analysed, only observed and documented by Dreiser's hyper-realism.

Morality exists for Frank as an abstract category but not as a demand for doing the right thing. The right thing is the commercially and, especially, financially most expedient thing. No other criterion is allowed to intrude. Slavery is evil, war is destructive, democratic government is a sham, but evil, destruction and duplicity are actually necessary for progress of the world and in it.

Written with the driest and subtlest of irony, The Financier describes but it doesn't condemn. Frank calculates, he does not live, love, or care other than for awaiting the chance to calculate. His existence takes place among others who also calculate, especially politicians, whom Dreiser recognises as the source and guarantors of commercial and financial success. These are the insiders without whose tips and legislative legerdemain, Frank's abilities are useless. Corruption is not incidental to the system; it is the system.

The Financier is a real 'how to' become a Wall St mogul, as relevant now as it was a century ago. The only real difference today is that the aspiring captain of finance has fewer choices for realising his ambitions. Frank is able to worm his way into the big deal on financing the American Civil War under the noses of the then dominant Drexel & Co. of Philadelphia. Today's Goldman Sachs would crush any such impertinence. Frank would therefore have to ply his nefarious trade within its ranks to get ahead.

Loyalty, of course, is defined as expediency in Frank's world, as it is in today's financial culture. All relationships are expendable. Even the 'word is my bond' culture is in force only as long as it is expedient for the participants. When disaster threatens, if an agreement is not in black and white, and properly witnessed, it doesn't exist. Frank is the model for the likes of Donald Trump and Anthony Scaramucci. Except Frank is more civil and articulate.

View all my reviews