I am Advocating for George Eliot in this poll. I love all four authors, and I'm aware that Austen is the likely winner, but for me Austen is a wonderful, wise and funny writer, whose novels will live forever because of their charm, humour, and underlying truth about society, but as she herself says, working in a very narrow canvas. Eliot gives us such a wide range of material, religious theory, political history, racial conflict, moral dilemma, and complex plots. Silas Marner is heartwarming, Adam Bede is tragic, and Middlemarch is a towering, complex achievement. Surely she is the greatest of the four.
Hernan Diaz’ Trust is an excellent example of this (although still a critique of finance and a certain kind of early 19th century American titan of industry in particular), and he’s been clear in interviews that one of his reasons for writing it was the total absence of novels that tackle the topic of money, how it works and how it is made. Diaz is excellent and this is a strong recommend.
The initial “novel” section of Trust was so unconvincing as an example of the said form in its Gilded Age incarnation that it undermined the rest of the project IMHO.
Eliot: mind like a steel trap plumbing the depths, peeling the onion, whatever phrase you want to use to explore human nature, the human condition, creating the world, reflecting it like very few have been able to do. A giant and a master for sure. Prescient, too, understanding whither go the greats? to unvisited tombs. Conrad second -- explanation not required.
I think Daniel Defoe is a novelist who frequently depicts economic transactions and at least attempts to register larger economic forces. Of course, his novels—which purport to be nonfictional—reflect decades spent writing and thinking about economics rather than literary prose. Balzac also seems alive to the spirit of capitalism. But I agree that it's hard to think of writers of literary fiction who are interested in representing economic life in plausible detail except in order to mount a moral critique.
I just finished rereading Anna Karenina for the second time in 5 years, which may shade all the finalists. But if I recall the rules correctly, we're only looking at GOATs writing in English so am relieved of complaining.
I'll go with Jane Austin. She excelled at making vivid the social relations, and moral complications of astutely rendered fictional characters, all with superb narrative control. And she gets extra credit for being the first and never really surpassed, though certainly equaled.
Off the list, George Elliot, based in particular on Middlemarch, gives me pause. (Sarah Harkness, thank you). I usually resist any attempt to rank artistic achievement, so will be happy with, and be grateful for, any result.
The first way that Jean Valjean tries to make good in Les Miserables is as a businessman. He becomes successful and uses that success to support the community (beyond all the jobs he brings to the city). His success comes through innovation in manufacturing methods.
A small piece of the novel, but not what I expected from it when I first read it.
What about Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead? I constantly hear that is the most influential ‘business’ fiction that I come across with business people. Mostly from mentors and older colleagues, rather than peers.
And Atlas Shrugged even more. If you are looking for an apologia of capitalism written by a true believer, you won’t find anything that tops that. David Runciman did a great job reviewing the book in his podcast a few months ago, although I remember enjoying reading it in 25 years ago (at the time I leant heavily right, whereas now I’m a bona fide centrist dad).
Trollope's The Way We Live Now does a great job with a con man selling shares in an American railroad that will never be built. And the fever of FOMO that he incites.
American Pastoral by Philip Roth. Incredible book - main character owns a glove making business that struggles with the market forces of cheaper international labor and also the impacts of the race riots in Philly. Beyond that logistical stuff we get to see, there’s also the huge rift with his radical daughter who goes a bit mad and hates him for being a capitalist etc.
Can you think of a Dickens novel that is in this group? I can’t. I am not talking about the last page, but the last 1/3 of a book. I love the original ending of Great Expectations but apparently Dickens was open to Bulwer-Lytton’s critique.
It's Mantel for me, so I'm disappointed to see her low in the poll so far. She pips the others because apart from her terrific writing, she writes across so many genres - and is equally accomplished in all. A Place of Greater Safety is a remarkable achievement - the French Revolution made personal and totally immersive, and giving us a Danton that lives on the page. It knocks Schama's Citizens into a cocked hat! And whoever wrote anything like Beyond Black? Enthralling and commonplace, fantastical and ultimately horribly real. I'm not going to big up the Wolf Hall trilogy because it needs no help from me - it speaks for itself...and for Thomas Cromwell, and Anne Boleyn, and Brandon and Howard, and so many forgotten courtiers who played their part, or the part that she gave them, in Tudor history. Even her essays and public talks are works of art. I wonder if we will see her like again?
I love all 4 but please be aware of recency bias. Eliot wrote the best novel from anywhere and Daniel Deronda is also great. Austen wrote 4 great novels and two fun but flawed ones (S&S(the Emma Thompson movie is better) and NA). It has to be one of those two. I voted for Eliot but the influence of Austen is ever present. Both have stood the test of time.
Nostromo, by Conrad. On imperialism and capitalism and the destruction of people and societies. t's not dry: it's an incredible, living, breathing book.
"What could she have expected? ... There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. ... she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work—all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words— 'Material interest.' "
I think the first half of Nostromo is all you could ask in a novel, but I feel it falls apart at the end. But I have never heard anyone else make that complaint. So I may be wrong. Henry should do a post on great novels that fall apart. Like North and South, Huck Finn, Adventures of Augie March.
But in each case I mentioned it would be the first novel by that author I would recommend. A great half book is better than a very good full book. North and South is perhaps the best book on labor relations from both points of view, but it feels like deadlines or something caused Gaskell to rush the ending. I have not heard of a defense of the final third of Huck Finn but it for years was thought of as a definitive American novel. Read the first paragraph of Adventures of Augie March out loud. It has that swagger 2/3 of the way through but it was sustainable.
For business literature, I really enjoyed The Counting House by Gary Sernovitz. Laugh out loud funny, and he nails what it feels like to be a capital allocator. At times I thought he must have been sitting in on my meetings to describe them so accurately. Not high literature, but The Goal by Goldratt needs to be on the list given its tremendous influence.
I am Advocating for George Eliot in this poll. I love all four authors, and I'm aware that Austen is the likely winner, but for me Austen is a wonderful, wise and funny writer, whose novels will live forever because of their charm, humour, and underlying truth about society, but as she herself says, working in a very narrow canvas. Eliot gives us such a wide range of material, religious theory, political history, racial conflict, moral dilemma, and complex plots. Silas Marner is heartwarming, Adam Bede is tragic, and Middlemarch is a towering, complex achievement. Surely she is the greatest of the four.
Hernan Diaz’ Trust is an excellent example of this (although still a critique of finance and a certain kind of early 19th century American titan of industry in particular), and he’s been clear in interviews that one of his reasons for writing it was the total absence of novels that tackle the topic of money, how it works and how it is made. Diaz is excellent and this is a strong recommend.
Just finished it and liked it very much.
excellent reserved it at library thanks!
The initial “novel” section of Trust was so unconvincing as an example of the said form in its Gilded Age incarnation that it undermined the rest of the project IMHO.
Eliot: mind like a steel trap plumbing the depths, peeling the onion, whatever phrase you want to use to explore human nature, the human condition, creating the world, reflecting it like very few have been able to do. A giant and a master for sure. Prescient, too, understanding whither go the greats? to unvisited tombs. Conrad second -- explanation not required.
I think Daniel Defoe is a novelist who frequently depicts economic transactions and at least attempts to register larger economic forces. Of course, his novels—which purport to be nonfictional—reflect decades spent writing and thinking about economics rather than literary prose. Balzac also seems alive to the spirit of capitalism. But I agree that it's hard to think of writers of literary fiction who are interested in representing economic life in plausible detail except in order to mount a moral critique.
I just finished rereading Anna Karenina for the second time in 5 years, which may shade all the finalists. But if I recall the rules correctly, we're only looking at GOATs writing in English so am relieved of complaining.
I'll go with Jane Austin. She excelled at making vivid the social relations, and moral complications of astutely rendered fictional characters, all with superb narrative control. And she gets extra credit for being the first and never really surpassed, though certainly equaled.
Off the list, George Elliot, based in particular on Middlemarch, gives me pause. (Sarah Harkness, thank you). I usually resist any attempt to rank artistic achievement, so will be happy with, and be grateful for, any result.
The first way that Jean Valjean tries to make good in Les Miserables is as a businessman. He becomes successful and uses that success to support the community (beyond all the jobs he brings to the city). His success comes through innovation in manufacturing methods.
A small piece of the novel, but not what I expected from it when I first read it.
What about Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead? I constantly hear that is the most influential ‘business’ fiction that I come across with business people. Mostly from mentors and older colleagues, rather than peers.
And Atlas Shrugged even more. If you are looking for an apologia of capitalism written by a true believer, you won’t find anything that tops that. David Runciman did a great job reviewing the book in his podcast a few months ago, although I remember enjoying reading it in 25 years ago (at the time I leant heavily right, whereas now I’m a bona fide centrist dad).
Trollope's The Way We Live Now does a great job with a con man selling shares in an American railroad that will never be built. And the fever of FOMO that he incites.
It's a really great book, but an indictment rather than a good book for understanding capitalism/business maybe?
American Pastoral by Philip Roth. Incredible book - main character owns a glove making business that struggles with the market forces of cheaper international labor and also the impacts of the race riots in Philly. Beyond that logistical stuff we get to see, there’s also the huge rift with his radical daughter who goes a bit mad and hates him for being a capitalist etc.
By far my favorite Roth.
Shall try it. Have never got very far with his work.
Same here. Tried but abandoned. Feel a bit guilty about that, but there are so many other attractions out there of equal repute.
I read an article once that this is the Trollope for people who don’t like the rest of his work. I’m in that category.
Haha I can see that! I like all of his books that I have read, but I wish some of them were shorter
Can you think of a Dickens novel that is in this group? I can’t. I am not talking about the last page, but the last 1/3 of a book. I love the original ending of Great Expectations but apparently Dickens was open to Bulwer-Lytton’s critique.
I think his endings are sometimes a bit compressed and convoluted but I agree they don't fall apart. Yes, original GE much better!
It's Mantel for me, so I'm disappointed to see her low in the poll so far. She pips the others because apart from her terrific writing, she writes across so many genres - and is equally accomplished in all. A Place of Greater Safety is a remarkable achievement - the French Revolution made personal and totally immersive, and giving us a Danton that lives on the page. It knocks Schama's Citizens into a cocked hat! And whoever wrote anything like Beyond Black? Enthralling and commonplace, fantastical and ultimately horribly real. I'm not going to big up the Wolf Hall trilogy because it needs no help from me - it speaks for itself...and for Thomas Cromwell, and Anne Boleyn, and Brandon and Howard, and so many forgotten courtiers who played their part, or the part that she gave them, in Tudor history. Even her essays and public talks are works of art. I wonder if we will see her like again?
I love all 4 but please be aware of recency bias. Eliot wrote the best novel from anywhere and Daniel Deronda is also great. Austen wrote 4 great novels and two fun but flawed ones (S&S(the Emma Thompson movie is better) and NA). It has to be one of those two. I voted for Eliot but the influence of Austen is ever present. Both have stood the test of time.
The overlooked third part of Lost Illusions
Don’t know any of it… will look
Nostromo, by Conrad. On imperialism and capitalism and the destruction of people and societies. t's not dry: it's an incredible, living, breathing book.
"What could she have expected? ... There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. ... she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work—all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words— 'Material interest.' "
I think the first half of Nostromo is all you could ask in a novel, but I feel it falls apart at the end. But I have never heard anyone else make that complaint. So I may be wrong. Henry should do a post on great novels that fall apart. Like North and South, Huck Finn, Adventures of Augie March.
More of a critique, no?
But in each case I mentioned it would be the first novel by that author I would recommend. A great half book is better than a very good full book. North and South is perhaps the best book on labor relations from both points of view, but it feels like deadlines or something caused Gaskell to rush the ending. I have not heard of a defense of the final third of Huck Finn but it for years was thought of as a definitive American novel. Read the first paragraph of Adventures of Augie March out loud. It has that swagger 2/3 of the way through but it was sustainable.
Gain by Richard Powers.
For business literature, I really enjoyed The Counting House by Gary Sernovitz. Laugh out loud funny, and he nails what it feels like to be a capital allocator. At times I thought he must have been sitting in on my meetings to describe them so accurately. Not high literature, but The Goal by Goldratt needs to be on the list given its tremendous influence.