The Financier by Theodore Dreiser

*A few of the paragraphs below contains spoilers. They are clearly marked if you want to skip them.*

Does anyone else out there remember Borders? It was one of my favorite book stores to go to because I always had luck finding a wide variety of classic novels there. Quite a few of the books in my personal library came from their shelves, including Theodore Dreiser's The Financier. I sure do miss that place. Every time I see a Borders price sticker on the back of one of my books I wish it were still around. I am still nursing a grudge against Barnes and Noble classics, so now I do most of my classic book shopping on Amazon. This is fine, but lacks the fun of browsing the shelves and finding old books you've never heard of before. Clearly, I'm becoming an old, curmudgeonly woman.

Anyway, I put The Financier on my Classics Club list for two main reasons. First, I read Dreiser's Sister Carrie back in college and enjoyed it. Second, this is a Naturalism novel, and I tend to like books from that period (I do love a hopelessly bleak story). I decided to read it this month on a whim. I knew nothing about its plot before I started. In fact, I wasn't even sure how to pronounce its title. Nevertheless, I picked it up hoping for the best.

The plot of the novel concerns the rise and fall of Frank Cowperwood, a financier working in Philadelphia in the 1870s. Frank displays a talent for finance from a very young age, and as he grows to manhood, he uses his natural business acumen to climb the social ladder and become very wealthy. He builds most of his fortune through various schemes involving the stock exchange and investing in streetcars. Like most of the other financiers around him, he engages in shady business practices to control the market and further his interests, including taking out low-interest loans from the city's treasury with the help of a corrupt government official.

The good times end, however, when the Great Chicago Fire causes the bottom to drop out of the market. The panic comes at the worst possible time for Frank; he doesn't have enough ready cash to cover all of the loans he currently has on his books. When his various investors begin calling in those loans, he is unable to raise enough money to stave off bankruptcy. In his financial failure, his unethical activities with the city treasury are revealed and charges are filed against him for larceny and embezzlement.

From this point forward, Frank's life begins a downward spiral from which he struggles to escape. His strong business sense has always saved him from trouble before, but now that he has been caught on the wrong side of the law, all of his usual tricks are too risky or impossible to try now. He is largely stuck, and must find a way to weather the storm, if he can. The Financier is a detailed look at the prototypical American businessman, and how the great rewards that come with a life of ruthless ambition and incredible wealth can just as easily lead to ruin as they can to glory.

Reading this novel was a mixed experience for me. It was somewhat enjoyable, but there were a lot of elements in it that I found to be strange or dull. It's certainly not an on-the-edge-of-your-seat type of read, but the story itself was fairly interesting. I thought it was funny how Frank's unethical activities in the 1870s mirrored what modern Wall Street brokers get in trouble for today. The terms and investments, of course, have changed, but the basics remain the same. Insider trading, corrupt government officials, and playing tricks with other people's money are all scandals that still make headlines today. It was funny to consider how little people have changed over the years, especially when it comes to acquiring money and power.

Something I struggled with throughout my reading was the pacing. At just over 500 pages, this is a long novel. Frank's downfall starts early, around the 200 page mark. The rest of the novel describes his slow decline, sparing the reading few details along the way. For example, events like Frank's trial and sentencing are transcribed almost word-for-word, and every character and place Frank encounters, no matter how minor or inconsequential, are presented with long, unnecessary descriptions. The novel is almost all falling action, and it feels unbalanced to read. There are a lot of pages spent detailing financial transactions as well, which are difficult to follow for the uninitiated. Dreiser does a fair job explaining everything, and I ultimately understood enough to follow the story, but I don't feel like I every fully "got" everything Frank was doing with his money.

An aspect of the story that baffled me was Frank's characterization. He didn't show personal growth or depth throughout the story, and I'm not sure if this was on purpose or not. Throughout the plot, he maintained a laser focus on acquiring wealth and power, and enjoying what his money could buy. He was always scheming and planning ways to get ahead. Outside of those activities, he had no discernible personality or interests. His only defining trait was his skill at finance. While in most novels I would say that this was a flaw, here, I think Dreiser was using it for effect.

This probably was an intentional strategy to put a spotlight on the all-consuming influence of money. Frank is completely obsessed with his finances, to the point where he is able to rationalize a large number of unscrupulous and unethical actions. He ceases to care about much of anything, including the feelings of anyone except himself. As a result, he is much less worried or upset than most people would be in his situation. He consistently feels like everything will eventually work out in his favor, even when things are obviously going very badly for him.


**Start of spoiler paragraphs**


On the other hand, however, Frank's ultimate fate doesn't really match up with this concept. He goes to jail, but never feels sorry or guilty for what he's done. He is pardoned by the governor and released from prison after about a year of his five year sentence has passed. Once he is back on the financial scene, he quickly becomes a millionaire again, divorces his wife, and sets off for new horizons with his young mistress. So ultimately, all of his confidence and greed really pay off for him. Dreiser seems to like him too and characterizes his very positively, so I'm not sure if these events are meant to be interpreted ironically or not. Is Frank a new kind of American hero, persevering through setbacks and building an empire through his intelligence and ambition? Or is he an example of a man so thoroughly ruined by his quest for money that he doesn't even realize what he has become? 

Dreiser comments on this question directly in the final pages of the novel, but without really picking a side. He seems to condone Frank's behavior at first, using a metaphor about a fish to deliver a "survival of the fittest" message. However, he ends on an implication that Frank will eventually end up unhappy, saying, "Hail to you, Frank Cowperwood, master and no master, prince of a world of dreams whose reality was disillusion!"

So, basically, I don't really know what the theme of the novel was. The back of my novel calls The Financier a "scathing critique of American capitalism," but I found the actual text to be much more ambiguous than that. Frank was a very odd protagonist, and nothing about his journey was presented as being definitively right or wrong. I hope that I'm not imagining the layers of meaning that could be couched in his character, because it's not very fun to read a story about a selfish rich guy that never gets his comeuppance.

**End of spoiler paragraphs**



Some of my uncertainties might be cleared up in the sequels to this novel, because The Financier is the first book in a trilogy. After finishing my reading, I did a little research and learned that the second novel in this series, The Titan, was originally the second half of The Financier. Dreiser's publishers had him break it up into two books because of the length. This probably accounts for why I felt unbalanced reading it - it's actually half of a story. This is probably also why the ending consists of a weird little tacked-on section that makes a vague reference to some trouble being ahead. I have the feeling that Dreiser added that bit in after the fact to try and make some kind of bridge to the next book. I'm wondering if it includes some more concrete thematic ideas.

Even though this was not exactly a favorite read for me, I feel strangely compelled to read the other two books and see how Frank ends up...probably not right away though. I've had my fill of reading about stocks and securities for the time being. On its own, The Financier was an interesting look at the ambitious and corrupt world of early finance in America. The stock exchange has changed since that time, but this novel shows how in many ways it has stayed the same. That's one thing that any reader of classics knows - time changes, but the ways people behave do not, especially when it comes to money.


Challenge Tally
Classics Club (#35 on my list): 66/100 

Total Books Read in 2020: 14