The way we live now
From a review of the Anthony Trollope canon in The Economist (2020/04/08 edition): *“The Way We Live Now” (1875) is as much a portrait of the last few decades as it is of the high Victorian age, and every bit as addictive as HBO’s hit series “Succession”. The novel’s anti-hero, Augustus Melmotte, is one of the great portraits of the businessman as ogre—a “horrid, big, rich scoundrel”, “a bloated swindler” and “vile city ruffian” who bears an uncanny resemblance to the late Robert Maxwell (and to living figures who had best not be named for legal reasons). Despite his foreign birth and mysterious past, Melmotte forces his way into British society by playing on the greed of bigwigs who despise him yet compete for his favours. He buys his way into the House of Commons; he floats a railway company that is ostensibly designed to build a line between Mexico and America but is really a paper scheme for selling shares. The Ponzi scam eventually collapses, exposing Britain’s great commercial empire for a greed-fuelled racket and its high society as a hypocritical sham. “The Way We Live Now” is an excellent place to begin an affair with Trollope. It is relatively short by his standards and exquisitely executed. If you don’t like it, Trollope’s world is not for you. If you do, another 46 novels await you.
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What Hacker News says
- I happened to read Trollope's The Way We Live Now, which is a fantastic take on the railway mania, at the height of the dot com bubble. Really increased the enjoyment to read about it and see it unfold in real time.
- For the value of ‘best’ that includes (a) had a deep and long lasting impact on how I think about the world and (b) I consider beautiful pieces of writing in their own right, here are some in no particular order: The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein (These you might want to approach via a gentle introduction if you did not study Philosophy to degree level) The Rediscovery of the Mind, John R Searle Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh Diaries, Samuel Pepys Falling Off the Map, Pico Iyer A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor The Lonely Sea and the Sky, Francis Chichester The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope Bevis, Richard Jeffries The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon GrossSmith The Inimitable Jeeves, PG Wodehouse
Hitch-22, essaysChristopher Hitchens Collected Essays, William Hazlitt Venice, Martin Gayford
The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch
Too obvious a list, perhaps, but some gems for all that! Happy reading.
- Aargh, Formatting! Try 2 :
For the value of ‘best’ that includes
(a) had a deep and long lasting impact on how I think about the world and
(b) I consider beautiful pieces of writing in their own right,
here are some in no particular order:
The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman
Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke
Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein
(These you might want to approach via a gentle introduction if you did not study Philosophy to degree level)
The Rediscovery of the Mind, John R Searle
Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler
The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse
A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh
Diaries, Samuel Pepys
Falling Off the Map, Pico Iyer
A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor
The Lonely Sea and the Sky, Francis Chichester
The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope
Bevis, Richard Jeffries
The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon GrossSmith
The Inimitable Jeeves, PG Wodehouse
Hitch-22, essays, Christopher Hitchens
Collected Essays, William Hazlitt
Venice, Martin Gayford
The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski
The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch
Too obvious a list, perhaps, but some gems for all that! Happy reading.
- This has been a wonderful social experiment, enabling people who didn’t live in the 19th century to see what happens when banking and investing is treated like the wild west
For those who can read long books, see Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_We_Live_Now
The 2001 television version was also excellent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_We_Live_Now_(2001_TV_s... , and only four episodes, instead of 100 chapters.
- Trollope's The Way We Live Now is a classic, and still very relevant today.
I doubt there's a single unique absolute worst novelist. But self-publishing has allowed people with no talent for English, never mind for fiction, to hawk their efforts through the Kindle Store and Wattpad.
The results vary from "That was... not great" to "OMGWTAF."
- I read “The Way We Live Now” at the height of the first dot com bubble. Amazing. There is truly nothing new under the sun.
