I
could write at length about The Financier, but I won’t bore anyone here with a
plot summary – which can only be as droll and predictable as the novel
itself. I’m sure we’ll discuss it, and Whiskey Rebels, in class this
week. I’m having trouble seeing how to connect these books to the Rise of
the American Corporation – Financier was, for me, a tedious read. (But then, I
enjoyed Endless Novelty). I don’t care much for fiction – even less for early
20th century fiction since I
find myself constantly waiting for something – anything – to happen. I
think it’s a function of how novels were written 100+ years ago – there was a
tendency to use lots of third-person narrative to “set up” the story and
explain what was going to happen. Dreiser is a master at tedious detail –
although he apparently fancied himself a writer of riske material. He obviously
had mixed feelings about Frank Cowperwood – but for the most part I didn’t get
the feeling the author had any strong feelings about his main characters one
way or another. And, if an author doesn’t love or hate his own creations
how can the reader be expected to do the same. I don’t get the same
feeling reading any of Clement’s works, perhaps one reason Mark Twain is
considered a great American author and humorist and, well, Dreiser isn’t.
The
one saving grace of this book is not the action paced writing, but instead a
look at the way the products of the Gilded Age, like Frank Cowperwood, were
viewed by the author, and we must assume, by most of the population in
general. Here was a man who created nothing – merely profited on using
other people’s money to his own gain. The scheming, some of it downright
illegal and most immoral, was not to serve any greater good, but simply to
create the power and influence Cowperwood craved. In the end, he seems to
get what he deserves – but we are left asking if the crime fit the punishment.
By the end of the book he had determined to head west and build something –
factory, mine, railroad etc . . .
I
also found the depiction of the female characters in the book
interesting. Like most of their fellow fictional residents of
Philadelphia, they were rather shallow and two-dimensional – cardboard people
really, although Aileen came to life a little bit at the end. But what little
we did see of them through Cowperwood’s eyes was fascinating. They weren’t
really objects of lustful desire, but set dressing in a way – merely something
he was “supposed” to do on his way to greater power and influence.
Lillian, the shop owner’s widow – seemed like an ideal prospect when he courted
and married her. As his power and influence grew, in his mind Lillian
didn’t grow with him. Aileen was fun, risky, sensual – all the things
Cowperwood desired. But his affair with her, revealed to her father at
precisely the day when Cowperwood needed his help the most (what lame
story-telling . . .) caused Cowperwood to fail and end up in prison. His
incarceration was not, of course, for true love, but instead a result of his
own manipulative rise to power and influence.
