![]() ![]() That’s the hope anyway - or the fear, depending on whose side you’re on - and that’s the world Hernan Diaz explores in “Trust,” his intricate, cunning and consistently surprising second novel. The crime has been “forgotten, mind you, because it’s been properly handled,” the bodies neatly disposed of and the bank notes washed clean. Balzac puts those words in the mouth of a master criminal, and then adds a final twist. ![]() Of course, we also have to consider who’s speaking. Innovation? Maybe, but take a closer look at the human costs and natural resources needed to bring ideas to market. After all, what counts as an obvious explanation? The ownership of land? Balzac’s society might have thought so now we ask how that land was first acquired. ![]() “The secret of all great fortunes, when there’s no obvious explanation for them, is always some forgotten crime.” These words come from “Le Père Goriot” (1835), Honoré de Balzac’s great novel about the mysteries of Paris, and in English they’re most often quoted without the qualifying phrase in the middle. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |