Money

'Money' may be said to rank among M. Zola's notable achievements... This is not surprising, as the book deals with a subject of great interest to every civilized community. And with regard to this English version, it may, I think, be safely said that its publication is well timed, for the rottenness of our financial world has become such a crying scandal, and the inefficiency of our company laws has been so fully demonstrated, that the absolute urgency of reform can no longer be denied

This novel follows the exploits of Aristide Saccard, a financial wheeler-dealer in Second Empire Paris. His former wealth wiped away by investment schemes gone bad, Saccard looks for his next big windfall. Luckily, he meets a neighbor, Hamelin, an engineer with grand designs to develop railroads, mines, dams, and shipping companies in the Middle East. The engineer and the financial wizard join forces to make both their dreams come true. Saccard founds the Universal Bank to fund Hamelin's projects, and it becomes all the rage in the Paris Bourse (stock market). While Hamelin's intentions are noble, Saccard's primary interest in the venture is personal financial gain and self-aggrandizement. In order to push up his company's value, he manipulates figures illegally and lies to his investors. Saccard is a personification of the greed and opportunism rampant in France at the time, and his unwise investors personify that period's growing mania for financial speculation. It's amazing how relevant the book is to this day. The Universal Bank could just as well be named Enron or Worldcom, and foreign investment in the Middle East is certainly a current concern. Another issue that Zola tackles in this book is anti-Semitism. Though Zola himself was not an anti-Semite, he makes Saccard a hater of Jews in order to depict the mind-set of many Parisians at that time. One of the functions of Saccard's Universal Bank is to create a repository of Catholic money to rival the Jewish-owned banks, an actual goal of some Parisian businessman of the time. Regardless of the historical social commentary, one can enjoy this novel purely for its intricately-drawn characters and its insights into human nature. I would caution that some of the financial strategy can be a little difficult for people (like me) who are not fully versed in the world of stocks and bonds. This book is the 18th book in Zola's twenty-novel Rougon-Macquart series. Zola first introduced us to the character Aristide Saccard back in the second volume of the series, La Curée. L'Argent (aka Money) is a much better book than La Curée (aka The Kill), and it is not necessary to read that prior volume in order to understand or enjoy this book. By Zola standards I would not call this novel a masterpiece, but it's an excellent novel and deserves to be read.

"L'Argent/the Money" finishes up the story of Arstide Saccard; it takes over where the novel "La Curee/The Kill" leaves off. It shows the life in all its forms. The last two sentences of the novel give a philosophical description of the role of money and why so many vices are tied with it. The novel shows how easy it was in those days to take a roller-coaster ride from poverty to richness and back to poverty. It narrates about early days of capitalism, when no antitrust regulations existed. One should also bear in mind that all the utopian talk of Sigizmund Busch about classless society and money becoming obsolete was seen (from the way it is conveyed in the novel) as daydreaming. The novel walks through such important events of the XIXth century as: the Mexican expedition, building of the Suez Canal, the Austro-Italian War, the Prussian conquest of small duchies and the Paris World Exhibition of 1867. Shortly after all these events France was struck by the infamous Dreyfus Affair and the novel does a good job describing the atmosphere that led to it, because there is hardly a chapter where the main character does not make inflammatory statements about the Jews. All in all, it is a classic novel, not only about the money, but about the humanity, as well.

Set in the heroic golden age of nineteenth century capitalism, this belated sequel to the second book in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, "La Curée", tells you in Zola's inimitable style about how the stock market works and the psychology of market players. Nothing has really changed since it was written over a hundred years ago. Read it and you may avoid losing your life savings in some scam or other, or you may find some ideas for a scam of your own. You would not be the first, if some recent scandals are anything to go by. If you're Jewish you may not like some of the remarks made by the book's main character, Aristide, but remember Zola's honourable role in the Dreyfus affair only a few years later. Now go and check the stability of your bank while you've still got the chance.