This is an excellent, entertaining novel set in England in 1720, at the time of the “South Sea Bubble.” This was a financial crisis caused by a complex stock market swindle, which was cooked up by an alliance of private and government interests. Reading the book today, now that we have witnessed the biggest armed robbery in human history, in the form of the Wall Street bailouts, is a more piquant experience than it would have been if I had picked it up when it was published, eight years ago. [Last November, I reviewed an interesting biography of John Law, the man at the heart of the financial meltdown of France that occurred in the same year.]
The author is identified as an expert on the 18th century English novel, and he does make an effort to give the book a whiff of that period’s style. However, the dialog is definitely not written in 18th century speech. Nobody during that period would have said, for instance, that a building was a “mammoth construction” (the first word was not yet borrowed into English from a Siberian language, via Russian), or used the word “maliciousness” rather than “malice” or “humidity” rather than “dampness”. The term “urchin”, in the sense given, existed, but was rarely used until after the 1780s. “Taking a holiday” doesn’t sound right, either, though I can’t say for certain it was absent in 1720. Sentences are not structured after the manner of the period. But to have accurately reproduced 18th century prose would have required prodigious scholarship, and would have served only to confuse and frustrate a modern reader. Instead, Liss sprinkles a few 18th century expressions into more-or-less modern prose, providing little flashes of period colour. This strategy seems the best, to me. The novel is constructed in the form of a detective thriller, with a plot that unfolds in a manner quite unknown to 18th century writers like Smollett or Fielding. If the book resembles any work from the period, Defoe is probably the closest.
Apart from its concentration on the world of 18th century finance, the world of the “stock jobbers” of London’s Change Alley, it is much concerned with the situation of Jews in that era. The main character is part of the community of Portuguese Jews who migrated from Amsterdam to London. He’s roughly based on a real person, Daniel Mendoza, a celebrated boxer of the time. Another real historical character that figures in the plot is Johnathan Wild (well known from a Fielding novel), a veritable criminal mastermind. But, on the whole, Liss avoids recognizable names and focuses on fictional characters. This is not merely an exercise in trotting out names and showing off research skills. It’s good, emotionally satisfying fiction.
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