{"id":1188,"date":"2009-01-03T22:26:07","date_gmt":"2009-01-04T03:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=1188"},"modified":"2018-08-10T00:50:49","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T04:50:49","slug":"17078-david-liss-a-conspiracy-of-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1188","title":{"rendered":"17078. (David Liss) A Conspiracy of Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an excel\u00adlent, enter\u00adtain\u00ading nov\u00adel set in Eng\u00adland in 1720, at the time of the \u201cSouth Sea Bub\u00adble.\u201d This was a finan\u00adcial cri\u00adsis caused by a com\u00adplex stock mar\u00adket swin\u00addle, which was cooked up by an alliance of pri\u00advate and gov\u00adern\u00adment inter\u00adests. Read\u00ading the book today, now that we have wit\u00adnessed the biggest armed rob\u00adbery in human his\u00adto\u00adry, in the form of the Wall Street bailouts, is a more piquant expe\u00adri\u00adence than it would have been if I had picked it up when it was pub\u00adlished, eight years ago. [Last Novem\u00adber, I reviewed an inter\u00adest\u00ading biog\u00adra\u00adphy of John Law, the man at the heart of the finan\u00adcial melt\u00addown of France that occurred in the same year.]<\/span><\/p>\n

The author is iden\u00adti\u00adfied as an expert on the 18th cen\u00adtu\u00adry Eng\u00adlish nov\u00adel, and he does make an effort to give the book a whiff of that peri\u00adod\u2019s style. How\u00adev\u00ader, the dia\u00adlog is def\u00adi\u00adnite\u00adly not writ\u00adten in 18th cen\u00adtu\u00adry speech. Nobody dur\u00ading that peri\u00adod would have said, for instance, that a build\u00ading was a \u201cmam\u00admoth con\u00adstruc\u00adtion\u201d (the first word was not yet bor\u00adrowed into Eng\u00adlish from a Siber\u00adian lan\u00adguage, via Russ\u00adian), or used the word \u201cmali\u00adcious\u00adness\u201d rather than \u201cmal\u00adice\u201d or \u201chumid\u00adi\u00adty\u201d rather than \u201cdamp\u00adness\u201d. The term \u201curchin\u201d, in the sense giv\u00aden, exist\u00aded, but was rarely used until after the 1780s. \u201cTak\u00ading a hol\u00adi\u00adday\u201d does\u00adn\u2019t sound right, either, though I can\u2019t say for cer\u00adtain it was absent in 1720. Sen\u00adtences are not struc\u00adtured after the man\u00adner of the peri\u00adod. But to have accu\u00adrate\u00adly repro\u00adduced 18th cen\u00adtu\u00adry prose would have required prodi\u00adgious schol\u00adar\u00adship, and would have served only to con\u00adfuse and frus\u00adtrate a mod\u00adern read\u00ader. Instead, Liss sprin\u00adkles a few 18th cen\u00adtu\u00adry expres\u00adsions into more-or-less mod\u00adern prose, pro\u00advid\u00ading lit\u00adtle flash\u00ades of peri\u00adod colour. This strat\u00ade\u00adgy seems the best, to me. The nov\u00adel is con\u00adstruct\u00aded in the form of a detec\u00adtive thriller, with a plot that unfolds in a man\u00adner quite unknown to 18th cen\u00adtu\u00adry writ\u00aders like Smol\u00adlett or Field\u00ading. If the book resem\u00adbles any work from the peri\u00adod, Defoe is prob\u00ada\u00adbly the closest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Apart from its con\u00adcen\u00adtra\u00adtion on the world of 18th cen\u00adtu\u00adry finance, the world of the \u201cstock job\u00adbers\u201d of Lon\u00addon\u2019s Change Alley, it is much con\u00adcerned with the sit\u00adu\u00ada\u00adtion of Jews in that era. The main char\u00adac\u00adter is part of the com\u00admu\u00adni\u00adty of Por\u00adtuguese Jews who migrat\u00aded from Ams\u00adter\u00addam to Lon\u00addon. He\u2019s rough\u00adly based on a real per\u00adson, Daniel Men\u00addoza, a cel\u00ade\u00adbrat\u00aded box\u00ader of the time. Anoth\u00ader real his\u00adtor\u00adi\u00adcal char\u00adac\u00adter that fig\u00adures in the plot is Johnathan Wild (well known from a Field\u00ading nov\u00adel), a ver\u00adi\u00adta\u00adble crim\u00adi\u00adnal mas\u00adter\u00admind. But, on the whole, Liss avoids rec\u00adog\u00adniz\u00adable names and focus\u00ades on fic\u00adtion\u00adal char\u00adac\u00adters. This is not mere\u00adly an exer\u00adcise in trot\u00adting out names and show\u00ading off research skills. It\u2019s good, emo\u00adtion\u00adal\u00adly sat\u00adis\u00adfy\u00ading fiction.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an excel\u00adlent, enter\u00adtain\u00ading nov\u00adel set in Eng\u00adland in 1720, at the time of the \u201cSouth Sea Bub\u00adble.\u201d This was a finan\u00adcial cri\u00adsis caused by a com\u00adplex stock mar\u00adket swin\u00addle, which was cooked up by an alliance of private \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-br-reading-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1188"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8112,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions\/8112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}