Most helpful customer reviews
|
|
4.0 out of 5 stars
Moneychangers - a morality play, Aug 15 2006
Book Review by Don Drews: The Moneychangers, by Arthur Hailey
Date read: Aug. 6, 2006
Doubleday published The Moneychangers, the seventh novel written by Arthur Hailey, in 1975. The novel presents the story of a management transition in First Mercantile America Bank, a fictitious mid-western state bank in the throes of a power struggle based on money and morality. The plot centres on conflict between two directors, Roscoe Heyward and Alex Vandervoort, each ambitious to succeed the terminally ill president, Ben Rosselli, the third-generation American descendant of the bank's immigrant Italian founder. Within this larger conflict are presented the smaller subplots that develop the personal details to flesh out the basic story line.
Hailey's novel is a canvass on which the author expresses his views about economics in presenting the debate, prevalent in that decade, about the causes and destructive nature of inflation. Lewis D'Orsey, author of a conservative semi-monthly financial newsletter, expounds on the ills of unfettered debt and a devalued currency no longer based on the gold standard. Although written a generation ago at a time of alarmist forecasts of a coming economic collapse that haven't (yet?) materialized, this subject remains topical today, and one sees how little has changed in fundamental monetary policy.
Beyond the author's conservative views on fiscal policy, The Moneychangers is, like all good novels, a morality play. The antagonist, Heyward, the dutifully churched, pharisaical, Episcopalian conservative, and the protagonist Vandervoort, the 'swinging' and flamboyant liberal, represent polar opposites around whom various secondary characters are drawn. The rising tension, fuelled by the main characters' career ambitions, represents an interesting role reversal where Heyward, a fiscal conservative, recklessly loses his moral compass and becomes the author of the bank's near collapse, while the civically conscious and innovative Vandervoort, an enlightened and progressive manager who, by following the rule of law and conscience, helps shepherd the bank through a near collapse reminiscent of the recent Tyco, WorldCom, and Enron debacles.
The author methodically sets up the moral poles with their associated characters through the first part of the novel at a pace that this reader found initially slow to engage his interest, but which bears fruition in the thematic depth the story ultimately develops. The writing is controlled but not tight, the dialogue spare but not dull, and the descriptions colourful without being effusive.
Written a generation ago, Hailey's prescient novel remains topical in the wake of the largest financial scandals of our time and in the midst of a potentially inflationary debacle brought on by reckless public and consumer debt and a rapidly expanding American money supply seemingly unlinked to any fiscal restraint. In summary, Arthur Hailey's novel is a satisfying read, both informative and provocative in fuelling one's inner debate about the human condition.
|
|
|
|
