416 pages
English language
Published May 19, 2022 by Penguin Publishing Group.
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
A very ambitious idea that is skillfully executed although I was somewhat underwhelmed by the twist/reveal that comes in the final pages. I most liked the first novel-within-the-novel best of all the sections, so when I read in the reviews that people thought it read like warmed-over Edith Wharton, I realized I had never read her and added The Age of Innocence to my queue.
Fantastic book. If you don’t like the first chapter, try to go on. It’s one of those that builds up. The last chapter is a master piece of gem sentences.
The structure of this novel is clever. There is an opening short, disturbing biography that we learn might be more romans á clef and libelous, then an incomplete attempt at a "corrective" autobiography, then the memoir of the woman who ghostwrote the autobiography, then the found contents of the journal of the principal character. There is a final revelation. I expected Citizen Kane and got a simpler twist. It's hard for me to see exactly why, but the whole novel didn't move me much. It might be that the financier's self-deceptive philosophy is so transparent, and that his wife, who becomes somewhat clearer to us as the novel progresses, never seems like a real person.
I didn’t love this the way I did Diaz’s first book—this one felt a bit more obvious in how it was going to go about telling the story I could feel it wanted to tell about money. But it was also a good story, so I forgave some of its faults
So far this book has my vote to win the Booker this year (as if anyone cared). I imagine the structure of this book would frustrate a lot of readers but I think that’s it’s biggest strength. There’s not a lot in the story that will surprise anyone, at least anyone who isn’t inclined to believe the myth making surrounding the “great men” of history. There’s so many subtle digs at the machinery that creates those myths, ingeniously executed. We learn the most in Ida’s book, where she grapples with her own willingness to play a part in it. Don’t suspend your disbelief with this book. Be a cynic. Think critically. But be patient. Let the book do it’s work. I very much doubt this book is for everyone, but it’s a worthwhile adventure if you’re open to it. Ñ
3.5 – I enjoyed the layers of mystery upon mystery of this book. Whose story is the truth?
I was kind of into this at first, and I was into the premise. But it was increasingly hard to buy part one as a novel or something anyone would want to read, as other reviewers noted. I’ve read Wharton and this ain’t it. It read like a Wikipedia entry - again, as other reviewers have noted. And I was unsure of what could be revealed in the following parts that would be surprising.
Then I started the second part and was very bummed to discover I was going to have to read about this family’s financial and business history… Finance and economics are things I’ve read multiple nonfiction works about in an attempt to understand - I do not want it in my fiction.
