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Lanny Budd #2
Between Two Worlds
From the rise of Fascism in Europe to the stock market crash on Wall Street, the second installment of this Pulitzer Prize–winning series of historical novels captures the drama, intrigue, and excitement of the Roaring Twenties
The First World War brought an abrupt end to Lanny Budd’s idyllic youth. Now, in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles, he barely recognizes the beloved Europe of his boyhood.
At the start of his career as an international art dealer, Lanny travels to Italy and witnesses the brutal charisma of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Meanwhile, in Germany, the failed Beer Hall Putsch led by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party strikes an ominous note foreshadowing the devastation to come. After two star-crossed love affairs, Lanny marries a wealthy heiress and chooses the United States with its booming economy as their home. But neither he nor those he loves can predict the financial disaster that will bring a decade of prosperity to an abrupt close.
Between Two Worlds brings one of the most fascinating and tumultuous decades of the twentieth century to thrilling life. A spellbinding mix of history, adventure, and romance, the Lanny Budd Novels are a testament to the breathtaking scope of Upton Sinclair’s vision and his singular talents as a storyteller.
The First World War brought an abrupt end to Lanny Budd’s idyllic youth. Now, in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles, he barely recognizes the beloved Europe of his boyhood.
At the start of his career as an international art dealer, Lanny travels to Italy and witnesses the brutal charisma of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Meanwhile, in Germany, the failed Beer Hall Putsch led by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party strikes an ominous note foreshadowing the devastation to come. After two star-crossed love affairs, Lanny marries a wealthy heiress and chooses the United States with its booming economy as their home. But neither he nor those he loves can predict the financial disaster that will bring a decade of prosperity to an abrupt close.
Between Two Worlds brings one of the most fascinating and tumultuous decades of the twentieth century to thrilling life. A spellbinding mix of history, adventure, and romance, the Lanny Budd Novels are a testament to the breathtaking scope of Upton Sinclair’s vision and his singular talents as a storyteller.
859 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1941
364 people are currently reading
1342 people want to read
About the author
Upton Sinclair
712 books1,181 followersUpton Beall Sinclair, Jr. was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle (1906). To gather information for the novel, Sinclair spent seven weeks undercover working in the meat packing plants of Chicago. These direct experiences exposed the horrific conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. The Jungle has remained continuously in print since its initial publication. In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the “free press” in the United States. Four years after the initial publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence." In 1943, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Sinclair also ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Socialist, and was the Democratic Party nominee for Governor of California in 1934, though his highly progressive campaign was defeated.
Sinclair also ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Socialist, and was the Democratic Party nominee for Governor of California in 1934, though his highly progressive campaign was defeated.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
August 1, 2020
Wonderful book, and the second in this long forgotten and unavailable series. This book covers the years of 1919 until 1929 and culminates with the Wall Street crash. Very good book in terms of the historical events that our hero, Lanny Budd, gets to witness. My biggest problem with the book is that Lanny in my humble opinion is a rather unlikeable character. Oh, he does nothing wrong, but he seems to go through life living like Oscar Wilde - life is Beauty. Ugh! He is wishy-washy, flighty, and lives above most events. Lots of pages dedicated to him not being able to figure out what he believes. Ends up living with 2 married women (at different times) in the South of France. Has no idea what he wants out of life and when he finally finds someone to marry he refuses to court her because she is rich. By the end, he and his wife are heading back to France and book 3 will probably get us into the rise of Hitler and Franco, since we have already witnessed Mussolini. At 871 pages this one takes time and could easily have been cut down by about 200 pages. But, it is an interesting read, and I have 9 more to go in this series! Looking forward to them.
May 10, 2016
Un libro para paladear y disfrutar, que nos cuenta lo grande y lo pequeño de una época convulsa. La política, la diplomacia, los problemas pero también las fiestas, las modas, los amores.
Todo eso y mucho más en un ESPECTACULAR libro para leer despacio y con atención.
https://lahierbaroja.wordpress.com/20...
Todo eso y mucho más en un ESPECTACULAR libro para leer despacio y con atención.
https://lahierbaroja.wordpress.com/20...
October 16, 2023
I continue enjoying the series very much. This book takes us through the growth of fascism in both Germany and Italy! It concludes with the stockmarket crash of 1929. We continue to follow the three friends--the American raised in France, a German from Silesia and an English of baronet heritage. We observe their relationships as they mature into adults. There is humor in the telling--it is filled with irony.
Lanny's love of art and mix of French, European and American ways appeals to me a whole lot!
Reading this is both educational and thoroughly enjoyable. I have no complaints!
********************
*The Jungle 3 stars
the Lanny Budd Series:
1. World's End 4 stars
2.Between Two Worlds 4 stars
3.Dragon's Teeth 4 stars
4.Wide Is the Gate 3 stars
more follow
Lanny's love of art and mix of French, European and American ways appeals to me a whole lot!
Reading this is both educational and thoroughly enjoyable. I have no complaints!
********************
*The Jungle 3 stars
the Lanny Budd Series:
1. World's End 4 stars
2.Between Two Worlds 4 stars
3.Dragon's Teeth 4 stars
4.Wide Is the Gate 3 stars
more follow
January 1, 2017
Between Two Worlds is the second of Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd novels.
Like the first book, World's End, it provides a nice mix of history, adventure, and romance. It covers the period from the Treaty of Versailles up to the great stock market crash of 1929. There is a mix of historical and fictional characters with the fiction firmly rooted in actual history. The characters are witness to significant historical events including the rise of Fascism in Italy and of Hitler in Germany. This episode is rather heavy on the romance. In fact it could be subtitled "The Loves of Lanny Budd" as Lanny finds love, suffers heartbreak, and then finds new love. There is some suspense as Lanny's impetuousness and sense of honor land him in serious trouble with hostile authorities at one point. Sinclair puts in lots of detail about life in Europe and the USA during that period. The historical detail alone makes it a worthwhile read.
Like the first book, World's End, it provides a nice mix of history, adventure, and romance. It covers the period from the Treaty of Versailles up to the great stock market crash of 1929. There is a mix of historical and fictional characters with the fiction firmly rooted in actual history. The characters are witness to significant historical events including the rise of Fascism in Italy and of Hitler in Germany. This episode is rather heavy on the romance. In fact it could be subtitled "The Loves of Lanny Budd" as Lanny finds love, suffers heartbreak, and then finds new love. There is some suspense as Lanny's impetuousness and sense of honor land him in serious trouble with hostile authorities at one point. Sinclair puts in lots of detail about life in Europe and the USA during that period. The historical detail alone makes it a worthwhile read.
July 17, 2023
I'm sorry I waited two years to get to this second installment of the series. I must promise myself to get to the rest without putting so much time between them. They are long, but so what? Do I need to be in a rush to get to the end of a novel?
Lanny Budd is a witness to history. Unrealistically, he is in the right place at the right time and knows the right people to be in on some of the events that have had an impact on us. It isn't realistic, of course, for one young man to be such a witness, but I like that Sinclair has done so. There was much in this installment that I did not know. It wasn't just the German people who suffered economic deprivation after the First World War. France was demanding the payment of the reparations which Germany did not have the resources to pay. The League of Nations tried to work it out and there were many other meetings in several countries.
If this was all there is to these novels it probably wouldn't be enough. Lanny is a young man and surely needs a love life. His mother is a young widow. They live on the Riviera with all of the social life that comes their way. It was easy for me as a reader to become involved with which friends were in and which were out and who was getting married and having children.
Sinclair provides enough of the previous novel for us to have a sense of how we got here. I'm assuming he will continue to do so. Still, they should be read in order if one is going to read all of them. If not, I'll hazard a guess and say that the next one, Dragon's Teeth, is the one that can be read without the others. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
I gave the first of these 4-stars and I think this is probably the same.
Lanny Budd is a witness to history. Unrealistically, he is in the right place at the right time and knows the right people to be in on some of the events that have had an impact on us. It isn't realistic, of course, for one young man to be such a witness, but I like that Sinclair has done so. There was much in this installment that I did not know. It wasn't just the German people who suffered economic deprivation after the First World War. France was demanding the payment of the reparations which Germany did not have the resources to pay. The League of Nations tried to work it out and there were many other meetings in several countries.
If this was all there is to these novels it probably wouldn't be enough. Lanny is a young man and surely needs a love life. His mother is a young widow. They live on the Riviera with all of the social life that comes their way. It was easy for me as a reader to become involved with which friends were in and which were out and who was getting married and having children.
Sinclair provides enough of the previous novel for us to have a sense of how we got here. I'm assuming he will continue to do so. Still, they should be read in order if one is going to read all of them. If not, I'll hazard a guess and say that the next one, Dragon's Teeth, is the one that can be read without the others. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
I gave the first of these 4-stars and I think this is probably the same.
July 17, 2025
This is the second book in a long series. This book begins just before World War I and ends just after the Wall Street crash. Our main character Lanny Budd goes through a couple of true loves and ends up with the bell of the ball. It is probably another book that I never would have gotten through if I had to read it page by page word by word. But the magic of Audible gets me through these days at the age of 78. I have the goal of getting through this entire series.
February 2, 2017
History Repeats Itself
I had not read the first book in the series, but I was able to catch up fairly easily. This is a story of the 1920's seen through the eyes of Lanny Budd, who is a young man of means living in a world of European privilege. His family is not a conventional one and his life experiences reflect the world's political and social climate of the times. Lanny is a devotee of music and art, but also interested in the political circumstances of the era. Through Lanny, we see the rise of socialism, Communism, Fascism and National Socialism. I must say, I found it most disturbing. It closely resembles much of the political rhetoric we heard during this presidential campaign. The world's characters and messages are frighteningly similar. And we know the consequences of that, don't we?
This was well written and a compelling story. I enjoyed it when it wasn't filling me with horror and trepidation about history repeating itself. The only reason I gave it four instead of five stars was Mr. Sinclair sometimes swelled on story lines that grew rather tedious. The length of the book made it exhausting. However, I hope at sometime to summon the stamina to read the next in the series. It was quite illuminating.
I had not read the first book in the series, but I was able to catch up fairly easily. This is a story of the 1920's seen through the eyes of Lanny Budd, who is a young man of means living in a world of European privilege. His family is not a conventional one and his life experiences reflect the world's political and social climate of the times. Lanny is a devotee of music and art, but also interested in the political circumstances of the era. Through Lanny, we see the rise of socialism, Communism, Fascism and National Socialism. I must say, I found it most disturbing. It closely resembles much of the political rhetoric we heard during this presidential campaign. The world's characters and messages are frighteningly similar. And we know the consequences of that, don't we?
This was well written and a compelling story. I enjoyed it when it wasn't filling me with horror and trepidation about history repeating itself. The only reason I gave it four instead of five stars was Mr. Sinclair sometimes swelled on story lines that grew rather tedious. The length of the book made it exhausting. However, I hope at sometime to summon the stamina to read the next in the series. It was quite illuminating.
July 29, 2016
To read about the rise of Mussolini and hitler in the midst of this presidential election was mind-blowing. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.
April 1, 2023
“All that a rich man needed to be happy was to have no heart. If he had one, then all the gifts which fortune showered upon him might turn to dust and ashes in his hands.”
I am enjoying Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd novels that trace the history of the Twentieth Century in eleven thousand pages or so, and eleven books. I absolutely love the voice of Lanny Budd/ Upton Sinclair, because his journalistic drive is to examine every idea, person, event, or philosophy from every point of view, and to struggle to decide how to live and what must be done.
The second volume occurs after World War I, taking in the conflicting desire for escape and the need for drastic world change to avoid future conflict. The rise of Mussolini’s fascist rule in Italy, the increasingly disturbing popularity of Adolf Hitler in Germany (with approval of anti-communist, wealthy leaders of banking and industry)—are set against the rise (and eventual fall) of unthinkable wealth, especially in America where wartime profits fueled massive fortunes. Workers of all nations did not share in this wealth, and European poverty and disillusionment resulted in discontent that looked for solutions in socialism, communism, or fascism—ripe for demagoguery and violent action.
Our Lanny is living the good life on the Riviera, learning the art and craft of the professional art critic, as a dealer in paintings in the wealthy circles he has always been among since childhood. But his conscience is never at ease, and he finds himself unable to refuse help to socialist and even communist friends and those in need who come his way. His father’s munitions and oil concerns feel increasingly uncomfortable, and the investment craze that has made gamblers of nearly everyone connected to his class (even those who cannot afford loss) seems to him a sort of delusory bubble that must burst.
This book takes Lanny through two serious mistresses (of the permanent and approved European sort—that is, with approval of their disinterested spouses, and conducted with non-scandalous discretion.) He eventually marries a socially suitable American bride of his mother’s choosing and his own rather callowly defined taste—pretty, smart, lively, cool-headed, and with enough wealth to keep herself in the manner to which she is accustomed. The book ends with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and Irma and Lanny’s return to his home in the French Riviera.
I really enjoy all the wonderful historical detail and the pacing of Lanny’s gradual and growing awareness—and resultant unease—with his own wealth and privilege in a world with so much suffering, poverty, and inequality of opportunity. The author’s journalistic style give this reader a feeling of being in the story—I really feel like I am there, interrogating that time as it unfolds. Probably my preference for a slowly developing story is just really delighted by the kind of pacing that lets me live in the pages for a good, long time.
The third book will throw Lanny into the “Dragon’s Teeth,” into the real horrors of Hitler’s Nazi campaign against Jews and communists. I’m rather glad I read it first, so I can skip to the aftermath, as Lanny tries to decide how to do what must be done to oppose evil, when nearly all of his circle (except his wonderful English childhood friend Rick, the socialist journalist and playwright) believe that Hitler is just solving the communist problem in Germany and reviving prosperity in that troubled post-war country.
I am enjoying Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd novels that trace the history of the Twentieth Century in eleven thousand pages or so, and eleven books. I absolutely love the voice of Lanny Budd/ Upton Sinclair, because his journalistic drive is to examine every idea, person, event, or philosophy from every point of view, and to struggle to decide how to live and what must be done.
The second volume occurs after World War I, taking in the conflicting desire for escape and the need for drastic world change to avoid future conflict. The rise of Mussolini’s fascist rule in Italy, the increasingly disturbing popularity of Adolf Hitler in Germany (with approval of anti-communist, wealthy leaders of banking and industry)—are set against the rise (and eventual fall) of unthinkable wealth, especially in America where wartime profits fueled massive fortunes. Workers of all nations did not share in this wealth, and European poverty and disillusionment resulted in discontent that looked for solutions in socialism, communism, or fascism—ripe for demagoguery and violent action.
Our Lanny is living the good life on the Riviera, learning the art and craft of the professional art critic, as a dealer in paintings in the wealthy circles he has always been among since childhood. But his conscience is never at ease, and he finds himself unable to refuse help to socialist and even communist friends and those in need who come his way. His father’s munitions and oil concerns feel increasingly uncomfortable, and the investment craze that has made gamblers of nearly everyone connected to his class (even those who cannot afford loss) seems to him a sort of delusory bubble that must burst.
This book takes Lanny through two serious mistresses (of the permanent and approved European sort—that is, with approval of their disinterested spouses, and conducted with non-scandalous discretion.) He eventually marries a socially suitable American bride of his mother’s choosing and his own rather callowly defined taste—pretty, smart, lively, cool-headed, and with enough wealth to keep herself in the manner to which she is accustomed. The book ends with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and Irma and Lanny’s return to his home in the French Riviera.
I really enjoy all the wonderful historical detail and the pacing of Lanny’s gradual and growing awareness—and resultant unease—with his own wealth and privilege in a world with so much suffering, poverty, and inequality of opportunity. The author’s journalistic style give this reader a feeling of being in the story—I really feel like I am there, interrogating that time as it unfolds. Probably my preference for a slowly developing story is just really delighted by the kind of pacing that lets me live in the pages for a good, long time.
The third book will throw Lanny into the “Dragon’s Teeth,” into the real horrors of Hitler’s Nazi campaign against Jews and communists. I’m rather glad I read it first, so I can skip to the aftermath, as Lanny tries to decide how to do what must be done to oppose evil, when nearly all of his circle (except his wonderful English childhood friend Rick, the socialist journalist and playwright) believe that Hitler is just solving the communist problem in Germany and reviving prosperity in that troubled post-war country.
May 27, 2016
This 2nd volume in Upton Sinclair’s epic 11 volume saga following the fortunes of Lanny Budd covers the years from the Treaty of Versailles to the stock market crash of 1929, and is a wide-ranging and comprehensive depiction of a time and place. With its mix of fact and fiction (but with the fictional elements always firmly rooted in reality) and its combination of real-life and invented characters, it’s a wonderful way to absorb a history lesson whilst being entertained. Not great literature perhaps and sometimes a little long-winded admittedly, I’m nevertheless now firmly hooked on this series and hope to work my way through all 11 books.
October 8, 2014
An enthralling story set in the years between the two World Wars. Part romance novel, part manifesto, this book captures the period in a very honest way. War, love, arts, culture, wealth, and poverty--this book has it all. Highly recommended.
January 8, 2018
Another great novel. My knowledge of this time is scattered and Sinclair pieces many bits together, he even introduced TE Lawrence which was very exciting. Its fascinating to read about England, France and Germany in the 1920's from the point of view of a sympathetic American. It was a unique perspective, most of my reading has been British or Conservative American. To follow the money, the loans after WWI from the States to the Germans and then to the French and English helps explain how each nation was hamstrung. The blockade, the Rhineland, the loss of German eastern territories, the rise of communism. These episodes in history feel like Europe's workers had little choice to look to socialist leaders. Fascinating also how Italian and German leaders rose from socialism to form unique Nationalism, violent, aggressive and insane. My only critical note is at times Sinclair gets caught up telling his love stories, it is fair enough I guess in a young mans life. However I found these chapters dull when placed in between such intense international politics.
September 19, 2007
Excellent book.
May 29, 2019
The few years after the first world war that were of some peace, in this volume - second book in the series, World's End.
.......................................................
The title of the second in the series is from Matthew Arnold verses
"“Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born.”"
This volume continues from where the World's End left off, it's now peace and time for people to find their lives, love, mates, work, roles. Between Two Worlds deals mostly with this on the level of characters in forefront, while the historic events and personages are woven into the story in background, often meeting.
Wonder if U.S. was shocked at the love stories described by the author, or did they disapprove severely but put it all in the file labelled European ways, and made a note to keep clear?
But one very distinct use made of one of the said love stories, French upper class style, comes later in the book, when Lanny is travelling in Italy for privacy with his inamorata. This love story begins almost immediately, after Beauty and Kurt are settled for present. Lanny gets Bienvenu ready with a separate studio for Kurt who is serious about music, and Beauty brings him back from Spain.
"Lanny was relieved to find that Kurt did not carry the late international unhappiness into the realm of art; he was willing to listen to English and French and even to Italian music. But he had severe standards; he liked music that was structurally sound and hated that which was showy. Presently Lanny began to note that it was the great German composers who had the desired qualities and the foreign ones who lacked them. Lanny said nothing about this, because he was trying so hard to please his friend.
"They had been able to get only a small upright piano in Spain, but still he had been able to extract a tremendous racket from it. From watching him rather than from listening, Beauty had come to understand that he was trying to find something to take the place of the war; trying to vent his rage and despair, his love for his own people, his grief at their humiliation and defeat. Watching his face while he played, Beauty lived through her agonies with Marcel, and then those with Kurt, shifting back and forth between the German soul and the French."
"All three of the great B’s of German music, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, were calling to Kurt Meissner to carry on their tradition. Lanny talked about them with such intensity of feeling that the German was deeply touched. The new Kurt of political bitterness seemed to fade and dissolve, and the old Kurt of moral fervor and devotion came back to life. When in the twilight they descended the slope, it seemed to Lanny that the war was really over and the soul life of Europe beginning again."
Rick was crippled in war, had a wife and son, but worked at writing, and began successfully.
"The baronet’s son, brilliant and versatile, was also trying his hand at poetry. His own severest critic, he wouldn’t send any of it to Lanny. Nobody could possibly publish it, he declared, because it was so bitter. He was one of those many heroes who were not satisfied with what they had accomplished by their sacrifices and were questioning the whole universe to know who was to blame. Was it the stupid old men who had sat in the council chambers and sent the young men out to be drowned in mud and blood? Was it all mankind, which was able to invent and build machines but not to control them? Was it God, who had made men wrong—and why? Rick quoted four lines from a poem he called After War:
""Are nations like the men they make?
Or was it God who fashioned men?
O God, who willed the clay awake,
Will now to sleeping clay again!"
"It happened that in London, at the home of Lady Eversham-Watson, Lanny had met a magazine editor, and, without telling Rick, he sent the poem After War and was delighted when the editor offered to publish it and pay two guineas.
"Kurt agreed that the verses were good; and Jerry Pendleton, sarcastic fellow, remarked—not in the presence of Kurt—that any German would be glad to hear that an Englishman regretted having licked him. Jerry was one doughboy who had no sorrows over the Versailles treaty, and declared that “Old Whiskers,” as he irreverently called Kaiser Wilhelm, was a lot better off sawing cordwood at Doom."
Rick's son Alfy is few days older to Lanny's half sister Marceline, and Lanny has told the two mums to matchmake, before they meet when Rick brings his family to Juan-Les-Pins at Lanny's invitation.
"Rick’s typing machine out to a rustic table every morning when the weather was fair. There he would sit alone, and his rage against human stupidity would fan itself white hot, and molten words would pour from the typewriter, all but burning the pages. Strange as it might seem, the more he lashed the damned human race the better they liked it; such was the mood of the time—all thinking men agreed that the peoples of Europe had made fools of themselves, and it was proof of advanced views to abuse the “old men,” the “brass hats,” the “patrioteers,” the “merchants of death.”
"It was as if you had been on a terrible “bat” the night before, and had got into a row with your best friend and blacked both his eyes. Next morning you were apologetic, and willing to let him have the best of all the arguments. So it was that both Lanny and Rick dealt with their German friend; the Englishman talked as if it was really quite embarrassing to have won a war, and of course what he wrote about British bungling pleased Kurt entirely—only he found it difficult to understand how British editors were willing to pay money for it!"
"Rick took a couple of newspapers and half a dozen weeklies, and would lie propped up in bed reading and making notes. The war, however many bad things it had done, had brought it about that British politics were French politics and German politics and Russian politics and American politics. All the nations of the earth had been thrown into one stew-pot, there to simmer slowly. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble!
"The Turks were still slaughtering Armenian peasants. Civil war was still raging in Russia, the Whites now being driven in rout to all points of the compass. In Siberia a freight-train loaded with Reds was wandering aimlessly upon an eight-thousand-mile track, the locked-in prisoners perishing of starvation and disease. The Polish armies, invading Russia, were still dreaming of world empire. The White Finns were killing tens of thousands of Red Finns. The Rumanians were killing Red Hungarians. There were insurrections and mass strikes in Germany, a plague of labor revolts in France and Britain, millions unemployed in every great nation, famine everywhere in Europe, flu in the western half and typhus in the eastern.
"When, in the middle of 1919, President Wilson and his staff had left the Peace Conference, that body had stayed on to settle the destinies of Austria and Hungary and Bulgaria and Turkey. It was still holding sessions, with despairing peoples waiting upon its decisions; when these were announced they were generally out of date, because events had moved beyond them. The British and French statesmen were agreed that Italy should not have Fiume, but an Italian poet with a glory complex had raised a revolt and seized the city. All Statesmen agreed that the Bolshevik madness must be put down, but meanwhile it throve and spread, and mountains of supplies which the Allies had furnished to the White generals were being captured and used by the Reds. The statesmen decided that Turkey should lose most of her empire, but the Turks dissented and retired into their mountains, and who had an army to go after them? The French had seized the land of poor Emir Feisal—all but those parts which had oil; the British had these, and there was a bitter wrangle, and it looked as if the alliance which had won the war would break up before it finished dividing the spoils."
Robbie visited.
"You could see Kurt’s musical stature growing, Lanny said; and Robbie listened politely, but without much enthusiasm. Robbie had been to Yale, and had got vaccinated with culture, but it hadn’t “taken”; he knew a lot of college songs and popular stuff, but left highbrow music to those who pretended to understand it. Maybe Lanny did; in any case, his father was satisfied if it kept him happy and out of mischief.
"One important question: Was Kurt having much to do with Germans? Lanny answered: “No. What could he do, anyhow?” The father didn’t know, but he said there would be war of one sort or another between France and Germany so long as those two nations existed. And certainly Bienvenu must not become a secret headquarters of the Germans."
"Robbie, who had seen Rick in Paris just before he went out to his near-death, had admired his grit then and admired it now. He told Lanny that was one fellow who must have help whenever he needed it."
"On the center table lay newspapers telling with shocked headlines that the French and British armies had occupied Constantinople, which was threatened with revolution and might plunge the world into another war. When one said “another war” one didn’t count the dozen or so small wars which were going on all the time, and which one had come to take for granted; one meant another war involving one’s own land; one meant—horror of horrors—a war in which the late Allies might be fighting against each other!"
"The old Turkish Empire had collapsed, and a new Turkey was going to be born, with all the benefits of modern civilization, such as oil wells and tanks and pipelines, not to mention copper mines in Armenia and potash works on the Dead Sea. The only question was, which benevolent nation was going to have the pleasure of conferring these blessings upon the Turks? (This wasn’t Robbie’s phrase; it was Rick’s rephrasing.) The British had got hold of all the oil, but the French had got Syria and the Hejaz and were trying to control the routes of the pipelines; behind the scenes there was a furious quarrel going on, with screaming and calling of names in the nasal French language.
"Now suddenly came this coup d’état in Constantinople. The benighted Turks didn’t want to accept benefits from either Britain or France, but wanted to dig their own oil wells and keep the oil; so the quarreling friends were obliged to act together in spite of their wishes. Lloyd George was talking about a holy war, in which the Christian Greeks would put down the heathen Turks; but what effect would that have upon the several hundred millions of Moslems who lived under the union Jack or near it?
"Robbie pointed out that a certain Greek trader by the name of Basil Zaharoff had just been made Knight Commander of the Bath in England, a high honor rarely extended to aliens; Zaharoff controlled Vickers, the great munitions industry of Britain, and had saved the Empire at a net profit which people said was a quarter of a billion dollars—though Robbie Budd considered the figure exaggerated. Zaharoff was a friend of Lloyd George, and was reported to be one of his financial backers, which was only natural, considering how much money a politician had to have and how much governmental backing an international financier had to have. Zaharoff’s hatred of the Turks was one passion of his life that he didn’t have to hide."
Robbie now had Zaharoff as a partner in his oil venture in Arabia, and he took Lanny along for a meeting at Monte Carlo.
"He defended the right of the Greek peoples to recover the lands taken long ago by the Turks, and said that he was insisting that the Allies should put the Turks out of Europe for good and all. Once more Lanny sat behind the scenes of the world puppet-show and saw where the strings led and who pulled them.
"He learned that the strings reached even to that far-off land of liberty which he had been taught to consider his own. The munitions king wanted to know about the prospects of the election of a Republican president of the United States; he knew the names of the prominent aspirants, and listened attentively while Robbie described their personalities and connections. When Zaharoff heard that the Budd clan expected to have a voice in selecting a dependable man, he remarked: “You will be needing funds and may call on me for my share. Robbie hadn’t expected that, and said so, whereupon the master of Europe replied: “When I invest my money in an American company, I become an American, don’t I?” It was a remark that Lanny would never forget.”
Robbie discussed Lanny's need of a match as he departed.
"Budding females were trained for the marriage market, they were dressed for it, they learned to walk and talk and dance and flirt for it. In the presence of their highly developed arts the unhappy male creature was as helpless as a moth in a candle-flame. “You’re going to have a hard time finding one who will please Beauty,” said Robbie, with a smile; “but all the same, don’t fail to have her advice, because that’s her department.”
"“What I want,” said Lanny, “is to learn something worth while, and meet some woman who is interested in the same things.”
"“It can happen,” said Robbie. “But most of the time what the woman is thinking about is making you think she’s interested. And if you’re fooled it can play the devil with your life.”"
"The Duchesse de Meuse-Montigny was giving a very grand garden-party; and since Beauty’s costumes were all hopelessly out of date she went in to Nice and had M. Claire fit her with something worthy of the occasion. Lanny was supplied with a light worsted suit of that spring’s cut. .... It was just after a devastating war, when young males were scarce and young females ravenous. Inside the white marble palace a colored band was thumping, and Lanny would take the would-be brides in his arms one by one, sampling their charms symbolically, and Beauty would watch out of the corner of her eye and ask questions about the one in pink organdy or the one in white tulle with yellow shoulder-bows, and seldom be satisfied with what she learned.
"What did she expect? Well, obviously, any woman who aspired to marry Lanny Budd had to be beautiful. How could he endure to have her about the house otherwise? She had to be rich—not just comfortably, but something super and solid, no fly-by-night fortune based on speculation. There were heiresses all over the place, and why not cultivate them? Lanny had told Beauty of Tennyson’s Northern Farmer, and she endorsed his formula: “Doänt thou marry fur munny, but goä wheer munny is!” Also, it would be safer if the chosen one belonged to an established family, and could prove it by Debrett. Finally, she would have to be clever, almost a bluestocking, otherwise how could she keep from boring Lanny? Even his own mother couldn’t do that!"
Emily Chattersworth invited him to lunch with a partner of her late husband and his wife, accompanied by a pretty and young niece rich in her own right.
"She was a pleasant enough girl, and Lanny could imagine himself pitching in and making himself agreeable and perhaps winning her; then he would be fixed for life, he wouldn’t ever have to work. But it didn’t seem to him like much fun, and the girl was entitled to better luck, though she would probably not have it. How many men were there who could come that close to several million dollars in one lump and not think it was cheap at the price? Such things subjected human nature to too great a strain!"
There was another friend of the hostess at lunch, Marie.
"Madame de Bruyne said that she was sorry to have to bother her friend to send her home. So of course it was Lanny’s duty to offer to drive her.
"“Oh, but I live far to the west of Cannes,” said the French lady with the sad brown eyes.
"“I like to drive,” Lanny replied. It was kind of him, and Mrs. Emily knew that he was always kind—it explained why she was taking the trouble to find him a rich wife."
They connected on levels of mind and spirit.
"He had met society ladies who would pretend to have read any book you mentioned; but when this one didn’t know something she asked about it and listened to what you said."
"It seemed that he had never met anyone with whom he shared such quick understandings; their ideas fitted together like mortised joints in a well-built house. When he played happy music she forgot her grief, and their spirits danced together over flower-strewn meadows. When he played MacDowell’s An Old Trysting Place, her eyes were misty, and she did not have to talk. Lanny thought: “I have found a friend!”"
Beauty asked about the heiress and wasn't pleased about Marie being there.
"“She doesn’t talk much. She’s one of the saddest-looking women I ever saw. She’s grieving over a brother that she lost in the war.”
"“She has more than that to worry about,” remarked Beauty.
"“What else?”
"“Emily says her husband is one of those elderly men who have to have virgins.”
"“Oh!” exclaimed Lanny, shocked.
"“And she isn’t a virgin,” added Beauty, with unnecessary emphasis."
"“You had a talk with her?”
"“I drove her home, and played the piano for her. I met her aunt, Madame Scelles.”
"“She’s the widow of a professor at the Sorbonne.”
"“I knew they were cultivated people,” said Lanny. “They have very refined manners.”
"“For heaven’s sake be careful!” exclaimed the mother. “There’s nothing more dangerous than an unhappily married woman. Remember, she’s as old as your mother.”
"Lanny chuckled. “As old as my mother admits!”"
Beauty confronted Lanny and asked if he was in love with Marie, which put the thought in his head - so strangely enough, or perhaps it's common, the older generation points out what they consider danger and the younger, not having noticed it till then, promptly dives in. Lanny discovered that he was in fact in love and convinced Marie that her feelings need not cause shame.
....................................................
Rick was asked by an editor to go to San Remo and write about a conference, and Lanny drove him.
"It was all so familiar to Lanny Budd, it was as if he had had an elaborate nightmare and now was starting it all over again. When he made this remark to a journalist from America, the man advised him to get used to this nightmare, because he would be riding it several times every year for how long nobody could say. The nations would be wrangling and arguing over the Versailles treaty until they were at war again. Newspaper men are notoriously cynical.
"The Senate of the United States having refused to ratify the treaty or to join the League of Nations, Lanny’s country had no representative at San Remo, not even an unofficial observer. But of course the American press had a large delegation, and among these were men whom Lanny had come to know in Paris, where he had served as a sort of secret pipeline through which news was permitted to leak. These men were under obligations to him, and greeted him cordially and took him and his aviator friend into their confidence. Lanny had advised Rick to say nothing about his proposed article, but to make his way with Americans on his war record, and with his compatriots on the basis of being the son of Sir Alfred Pomeroy-Nielson, Bart. Rick wouldn’t be violating any confidences, because these correspondents were cabling “spot news” for various deadlines, and by the time a magazine article could appear they would be off on some other assignment."
.......................................................
The title of the second in the series is from Matthew Arnold verses
"“Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born.”"
This volume continues from where the World's End left off, it's now peace and time for people to find their lives, love, mates, work, roles. Between Two Worlds deals mostly with this on the level of characters in forefront, while the historic events and personages are woven into the story in background, often meeting.
Wonder if U.S. was shocked at the love stories described by the author, or did they disapprove severely but put it all in the file labelled European ways, and made a note to keep clear?
But one very distinct use made of one of the said love stories, French upper class style, comes later in the book, when Lanny is travelling in Italy for privacy with his inamorata. This love story begins almost immediately, after Beauty and Kurt are settled for present. Lanny gets Bienvenu ready with a separate studio for Kurt who is serious about music, and Beauty brings him back from Spain.
"Lanny was relieved to find that Kurt did not carry the late international unhappiness into the realm of art; he was willing to listen to English and French and even to Italian music. But he had severe standards; he liked music that was structurally sound and hated that which was showy. Presently Lanny began to note that it was the great German composers who had the desired qualities and the foreign ones who lacked them. Lanny said nothing about this, because he was trying so hard to please his friend.
"They had been able to get only a small upright piano in Spain, but still he had been able to extract a tremendous racket from it. From watching him rather than from listening, Beauty had come to understand that he was trying to find something to take the place of the war; trying to vent his rage and despair, his love for his own people, his grief at their humiliation and defeat. Watching his face while he played, Beauty lived through her agonies with Marcel, and then those with Kurt, shifting back and forth between the German soul and the French."
"All three of the great B’s of German music, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, were calling to Kurt Meissner to carry on their tradition. Lanny talked about them with such intensity of feeling that the German was deeply touched. The new Kurt of political bitterness seemed to fade and dissolve, and the old Kurt of moral fervor and devotion came back to life. When in the twilight they descended the slope, it seemed to Lanny that the war was really over and the soul life of Europe beginning again."
Rick was crippled in war, had a wife and son, but worked at writing, and began successfully.
"The baronet’s son, brilliant and versatile, was also trying his hand at poetry. His own severest critic, he wouldn’t send any of it to Lanny. Nobody could possibly publish it, he declared, because it was so bitter. He was one of those many heroes who were not satisfied with what they had accomplished by their sacrifices and were questioning the whole universe to know who was to blame. Was it the stupid old men who had sat in the council chambers and sent the young men out to be drowned in mud and blood? Was it all mankind, which was able to invent and build machines but not to control them? Was it God, who had made men wrong—and why? Rick quoted four lines from a poem he called After War:
""Are nations like the men they make?
Or was it God who fashioned men?
O God, who willed the clay awake,
Will now to sleeping clay again!"
"It happened that in London, at the home of Lady Eversham-Watson, Lanny had met a magazine editor, and, without telling Rick, he sent the poem After War and was delighted when the editor offered to publish it and pay two guineas.
"Kurt agreed that the verses were good; and Jerry Pendleton, sarcastic fellow, remarked—not in the presence of Kurt—that any German would be glad to hear that an Englishman regretted having licked him. Jerry was one doughboy who had no sorrows over the Versailles treaty, and declared that “Old Whiskers,” as he irreverently called Kaiser Wilhelm, was a lot better off sawing cordwood at Doom."
Rick's son Alfy is few days older to Lanny's half sister Marceline, and Lanny has told the two mums to matchmake, before they meet when Rick brings his family to Juan-Les-Pins at Lanny's invitation.
"Rick’s typing machine out to a rustic table every morning when the weather was fair. There he would sit alone, and his rage against human stupidity would fan itself white hot, and molten words would pour from the typewriter, all but burning the pages. Strange as it might seem, the more he lashed the damned human race the better they liked it; such was the mood of the time—all thinking men agreed that the peoples of Europe had made fools of themselves, and it was proof of advanced views to abuse the “old men,” the “brass hats,” the “patrioteers,” the “merchants of death.”
"It was as if you had been on a terrible “bat” the night before, and had got into a row with your best friend and blacked both his eyes. Next morning you were apologetic, and willing to let him have the best of all the arguments. So it was that both Lanny and Rick dealt with their German friend; the Englishman talked as if it was really quite embarrassing to have won a war, and of course what he wrote about British bungling pleased Kurt entirely—only he found it difficult to understand how British editors were willing to pay money for it!"
"Rick took a couple of newspapers and half a dozen weeklies, and would lie propped up in bed reading and making notes. The war, however many bad things it had done, had brought it about that British politics were French politics and German politics and Russian politics and American politics. All the nations of the earth had been thrown into one stew-pot, there to simmer slowly. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble!
"The Turks were still slaughtering Armenian peasants. Civil war was still raging in Russia, the Whites now being driven in rout to all points of the compass. In Siberia a freight-train loaded with Reds was wandering aimlessly upon an eight-thousand-mile track, the locked-in prisoners perishing of starvation and disease. The Polish armies, invading Russia, were still dreaming of world empire. The White Finns were killing tens of thousands of Red Finns. The Rumanians were killing Red Hungarians. There were insurrections and mass strikes in Germany, a plague of labor revolts in France and Britain, millions unemployed in every great nation, famine everywhere in Europe, flu in the western half and typhus in the eastern.
"When, in the middle of 1919, President Wilson and his staff had left the Peace Conference, that body had stayed on to settle the destinies of Austria and Hungary and Bulgaria and Turkey. It was still holding sessions, with despairing peoples waiting upon its decisions; when these were announced they were generally out of date, because events had moved beyond them. The British and French statesmen were agreed that Italy should not have Fiume, but an Italian poet with a glory complex had raised a revolt and seized the city. All Statesmen agreed that the Bolshevik madness must be put down, but meanwhile it throve and spread, and mountains of supplies which the Allies had furnished to the White generals were being captured and used by the Reds. The statesmen decided that Turkey should lose most of her empire, but the Turks dissented and retired into their mountains, and who had an army to go after them? The French had seized the land of poor Emir Feisal—all but those parts which had oil; the British had these, and there was a bitter wrangle, and it looked as if the alliance which had won the war would break up before it finished dividing the spoils."
Robbie visited.
"You could see Kurt’s musical stature growing, Lanny said; and Robbie listened politely, but without much enthusiasm. Robbie had been to Yale, and had got vaccinated with culture, but it hadn’t “taken”; he knew a lot of college songs and popular stuff, but left highbrow music to those who pretended to understand it. Maybe Lanny did; in any case, his father was satisfied if it kept him happy and out of mischief.
"One important question: Was Kurt having much to do with Germans? Lanny answered: “No. What could he do, anyhow?” The father didn’t know, but he said there would be war of one sort or another between France and Germany so long as those two nations existed. And certainly Bienvenu must not become a secret headquarters of the Germans."
"Robbie, who had seen Rick in Paris just before he went out to his near-death, had admired his grit then and admired it now. He told Lanny that was one fellow who must have help whenever he needed it."
"On the center table lay newspapers telling with shocked headlines that the French and British armies had occupied Constantinople, which was threatened with revolution and might plunge the world into another war. When one said “another war” one didn’t count the dozen or so small wars which were going on all the time, and which one had come to take for granted; one meant another war involving one’s own land; one meant—horror of horrors—a war in which the late Allies might be fighting against each other!"
"The old Turkish Empire had collapsed, and a new Turkey was going to be born, with all the benefits of modern civilization, such as oil wells and tanks and pipelines, not to mention copper mines in Armenia and potash works on the Dead Sea. The only question was, which benevolent nation was going to have the pleasure of conferring these blessings upon the Turks? (This wasn’t Robbie’s phrase; it was Rick’s rephrasing.) The British had got hold of all the oil, but the French had got Syria and the Hejaz and were trying to control the routes of the pipelines; behind the scenes there was a furious quarrel going on, with screaming and calling of names in the nasal French language.
"Now suddenly came this coup d’état in Constantinople. The benighted Turks didn’t want to accept benefits from either Britain or France, but wanted to dig their own oil wells and keep the oil; so the quarreling friends were obliged to act together in spite of their wishes. Lloyd George was talking about a holy war, in which the Christian Greeks would put down the heathen Turks; but what effect would that have upon the several hundred millions of Moslems who lived under the union Jack or near it?
"Robbie pointed out that a certain Greek trader by the name of Basil Zaharoff had just been made Knight Commander of the Bath in England, a high honor rarely extended to aliens; Zaharoff controlled Vickers, the great munitions industry of Britain, and had saved the Empire at a net profit which people said was a quarter of a billion dollars—though Robbie Budd considered the figure exaggerated. Zaharoff was a friend of Lloyd George, and was reported to be one of his financial backers, which was only natural, considering how much money a politician had to have and how much governmental backing an international financier had to have. Zaharoff’s hatred of the Turks was one passion of his life that he didn’t have to hide."
Robbie now had Zaharoff as a partner in his oil venture in Arabia, and he took Lanny along for a meeting at Monte Carlo.
"He defended the right of the Greek peoples to recover the lands taken long ago by the Turks, and said that he was insisting that the Allies should put the Turks out of Europe for good and all. Once more Lanny sat behind the scenes of the world puppet-show and saw where the strings led and who pulled them.
"He learned that the strings reached even to that far-off land of liberty which he had been taught to consider his own. The munitions king wanted to know about the prospects of the election of a Republican president of the United States; he knew the names of the prominent aspirants, and listened attentively while Robbie described their personalities and connections. When Zaharoff heard that the Budd clan expected to have a voice in selecting a dependable man, he remarked: “You will be needing funds and may call on me for my share. Robbie hadn’t expected that, and said so, whereupon the master of Europe replied: “When I invest my money in an American company, I become an American, don’t I?” It was a remark that Lanny would never forget.”
Robbie discussed Lanny's need of a match as he departed.
"Budding females were trained for the marriage market, they were dressed for it, they learned to walk and talk and dance and flirt for it. In the presence of their highly developed arts the unhappy male creature was as helpless as a moth in a candle-flame. “You’re going to have a hard time finding one who will please Beauty,” said Robbie, with a smile; “but all the same, don’t fail to have her advice, because that’s her department.”
"“What I want,” said Lanny, “is to learn something worth while, and meet some woman who is interested in the same things.”
"“It can happen,” said Robbie. “But most of the time what the woman is thinking about is making you think she’s interested. And if you’re fooled it can play the devil with your life.”"
"The Duchesse de Meuse-Montigny was giving a very grand garden-party; and since Beauty’s costumes were all hopelessly out of date she went in to Nice and had M. Claire fit her with something worthy of the occasion. Lanny was supplied with a light worsted suit of that spring’s cut. .... It was just after a devastating war, when young males were scarce and young females ravenous. Inside the white marble palace a colored band was thumping, and Lanny would take the would-be brides in his arms one by one, sampling their charms symbolically, and Beauty would watch out of the corner of her eye and ask questions about the one in pink organdy or the one in white tulle with yellow shoulder-bows, and seldom be satisfied with what she learned.
"What did she expect? Well, obviously, any woman who aspired to marry Lanny Budd had to be beautiful. How could he endure to have her about the house otherwise? She had to be rich—not just comfortably, but something super and solid, no fly-by-night fortune based on speculation. There were heiresses all over the place, and why not cultivate them? Lanny had told Beauty of Tennyson’s Northern Farmer, and she endorsed his formula: “Doänt thou marry fur munny, but goä wheer munny is!” Also, it would be safer if the chosen one belonged to an established family, and could prove it by Debrett. Finally, she would have to be clever, almost a bluestocking, otherwise how could she keep from boring Lanny? Even his own mother couldn’t do that!"
Emily Chattersworth invited him to lunch with a partner of her late husband and his wife, accompanied by a pretty and young niece rich in her own right.
"She was a pleasant enough girl, and Lanny could imagine himself pitching in and making himself agreeable and perhaps winning her; then he would be fixed for life, he wouldn’t ever have to work. But it didn’t seem to him like much fun, and the girl was entitled to better luck, though she would probably not have it. How many men were there who could come that close to several million dollars in one lump and not think it was cheap at the price? Such things subjected human nature to too great a strain!"
There was another friend of the hostess at lunch, Marie.
"Madame de Bruyne said that she was sorry to have to bother her friend to send her home. So of course it was Lanny’s duty to offer to drive her.
"“Oh, but I live far to the west of Cannes,” said the French lady with the sad brown eyes.
"“I like to drive,” Lanny replied. It was kind of him, and Mrs. Emily knew that he was always kind—it explained why she was taking the trouble to find him a rich wife."
They connected on levels of mind and spirit.
"He had met society ladies who would pretend to have read any book you mentioned; but when this one didn’t know something she asked about it and listened to what you said."
"It seemed that he had never met anyone with whom he shared such quick understandings; their ideas fitted together like mortised joints in a well-built house. When he played happy music she forgot her grief, and their spirits danced together over flower-strewn meadows. When he played MacDowell’s An Old Trysting Place, her eyes were misty, and she did not have to talk. Lanny thought: “I have found a friend!”"
Beauty asked about the heiress and wasn't pleased about Marie being there.
"“She doesn’t talk much. She’s one of the saddest-looking women I ever saw. She’s grieving over a brother that she lost in the war.”
"“She has more than that to worry about,” remarked Beauty.
"“What else?”
"“Emily says her husband is one of those elderly men who have to have virgins.”
"“Oh!” exclaimed Lanny, shocked.
"“And she isn’t a virgin,” added Beauty, with unnecessary emphasis."
"“You had a talk with her?”
"“I drove her home, and played the piano for her. I met her aunt, Madame Scelles.”
"“She’s the widow of a professor at the Sorbonne.”
"“I knew they were cultivated people,” said Lanny. “They have very refined manners.”
"“For heaven’s sake be careful!” exclaimed the mother. “There’s nothing more dangerous than an unhappily married woman. Remember, she’s as old as your mother.”
"Lanny chuckled. “As old as my mother admits!”"
Beauty confronted Lanny and asked if he was in love with Marie, which put the thought in his head - so strangely enough, or perhaps it's common, the older generation points out what they consider danger and the younger, not having noticed it till then, promptly dives in. Lanny discovered that he was in fact in love and convinced Marie that her feelings need not cause shame.
....................................................
Rick was asked by an editor to go to San Remo and write about a conference, and Lanny drove him.
"It was all so familiar to Lanny Budd, it was as if he had had an elaborate nightmare and now was starting it all over again. When he made this remark to a journalist from America, the man advised him to get used to this nightmare, because he would be riding it several times every year for how long nobody could say. The nations would be wrangling and arguing over the Versailles treaty until they were at war again. Newspaper men are notoriously cynical.
"The Senate of the United States having refused to ratify the treaty or to join the League of Nations, Lanny’s country had no representative at San Remo, not even an unofficial observer. But of course the American press had a large delegation, and among these were men whom Lanny had come to know in Paris, where he had served as a sort of secret pipeline through which news was permitted to leak. These men were under obligations to him, and greeted him cordially and took him and his aviator friend into their confidence. Lanny had advised Rick to say nothing about his proposed article, but to make his way with Americans on his war record, and with his compatriots on the basis of being the son of Sir Alfred Pomeroy-Nielson, Bart. Rick wouldn’t be violating any confidences, because these correspondents were cabling “spot news” for various deadlines, and by the time a magazine article could appear they would be off on some other assignment."
January 8, 2019
Summary: Traces Lanny Budd's life through two love affairs and his marriage to a rich heiress, during the 1920's war weariness, good times, the rise of fascism, and the crash of the stock market.
The second of eleven Lanny Budd novels, this work picks up where the first ends, at the end of the Versailles Peace Conference. Budd, disillusioned by the self-interested carving up of the world and subjection of Germany, returns to his Riviera home to figure out what to make of his life. First order is to protect former German spy and school friend Kurt Meissner, to whom his mother Beauty is married, creating a studio for his composing, and a safe place to hide out. He also wants to lend support to his crippled friend Rick, as he tries to establish his life as a writer.
The novel spans the period from the end of the peace conference through to the crash of the stock market in 1929. As in the previous novel, Lanny seems to find a way to be present at all the big events, from the various international conferences to try to "remake" the world to meeting Mussolini, witnessing a speech of Hitler's at the time of the Beer Hall Putsch, and meeting the famous dancer Isadora Duncan in her waning years. He barely escapes Italy with his life, defending a socialist when socialism was being brutally suppressed by Mussolini. And he is on Wall Street when the market crashes.
One development in his life is the beginning of his career as an art dealer, enabling him to have an income independent from his gun manufacturing father. That independence helps him rescue his father later on. The other is his love affairs, and eventual marriage to an American heiress. First is his affair with Marie de Bruyne, that ends tragically after a number of happy years together. The second revisited his old affair with Rosemary, now a bored wife, broken off for reasons of expedience. Then along comes Irma Barnes, a wealthy heiress. Despite the seeming indifference of both, and Lanny's dubious background both as an illegitimate child, and a "pink" with socialist leanings, they fall in love, marry aboard ship, and arrive and are accepted by both American families.
Behind the narrative, which barely could be called a plotline, Sinclair portrays the corruption of both capitalism and fascism, and the attraction in this period of socialism. One wonders whether this reflected something of Sinclair's own social conscience during this period (he later became increasingly disillusioned with communism). He also captures the desire of many to forget war, to indulge in high life and the social whirl, and forget the unresolved issues of Versailles.
The third novel in this series, Dragon's Teeth, won a Pulitzer. In many ways, this novel felt like a "bridge" between the first and third. If there is any climax, it is the stock market crash of October 1929, with Lanny on hand just in time and flush with funds to rescue his father. Otherwise, this was an engaging but lengthy exercise in character development and historical narrative (with some social commentary thrown in). Perhaps the lack of focused development paralleled a time of frenzied malaise. He quotes Matthew Arnold in the epigraph to this volume from which the title is drawn:
"Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born."
My hope is that the wandering will end with Dragon's Teeth. I'll let you know.
The second of eleven Lanny Budd novels, this work picks up where the first ends, at the end of the Versailles Peace Conference. Budd, disillusioned by the self-interested carving up of the world and subjection of Germany, returns to his Riviera home to figure out what to make of his life. First order is to protect former German spy and school friend Kurt Meissner, to whom his mother Beauty is married, creating a studio for his composing, and a safe place to hide out. He also wants to lend support to his crippled friend Rick, as he tries to establish his life as a writer.
The novel spans the period from the end of the peace conference through to the crash of the stock market in 1929. As in the previous novel, Lanny seems to find a way to be present at all the big events, from the various international conferences to try to "remake" the world to meeting Mussolini, witnessing a speech of Hitler's at the time of the Beer Hall Putsch, and meeting the famous dancer Isadora Duncan in her waning years. He barely escapes Italy with his life, defending a socialist when socialism was being brutally suppressed by Mussolini. And he is on Wall Street when the market crashes.
One development in his life is the beginning of his career as an art dealer, enabling him to have an income independent from his gun manufacturing father. That independence helps him rescue his father later on. The other is his love affairs, and eventual marriage to an American heiress. First is his affair with Marie de Bruyne, that ends tragically after a number of happy years together. The second revisited his old affair with Rosemary, now a bored wife, broken off for reasons of expedience. Then along comes Irma Barnes, a wealthy heiress. Despite the seeming indifference of both, and Lanny's dubious background both as an illegitimate child, and a "pink" with socialist leanings, they fall in love, marry aboard ship, and arrive and are accepted by both American families.
Behind the narrative, which barely could be called a plotline, Sinclair portrays the corruption of both capitalism and fascism, and the attraction in this period of socialism. One wonders whether this reflected something of Sinclair's own social conscience during this period (he later became increasingly disillusioned with communism). He also captures the desire of many to forget war, to indulge in high life and the social whirl, and forget the unresolved issues of Versailles.
The third novel in this series, Dragon's Teeth, won a Pulitzer. In many ways, this novel felt like a "bridge" between the first and third. If there is any climax, it is the stock market crash of October 1929, with Lanny on hand just in time and flush with funds to rescue his father. Otherwise, this was an engaging but lengthy exercise in character development and historical narrative (with some social commentary thrown in). Perhaps the lack of focused development paralleled a time of frenzied malaise. He quotes Matthew Arnold in the epigraph to this volume from which the title is drawn:
"Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born."
My hope is that the wandering will end with Dragon's Teeth. I'll let you know.
November 24, 2022
With his Lanny Budd books, Upton Sinclair really seems to have wanted to record a comprehensive history of the early twentieth century, leaving hardly anything out. I enjoyed this installment, and Sinclair, that notorious socialist, seems to have taken pleasure in writing about how the idle rich gambled and blundered their way into poverty during the market turmoil of 1929. Lanny is a Forrest Gump kind of character in the sense that he just happens to be in the right places at the right times to witness world events and cross paths with significant individuals (Mussolini, Hitler, Churchill, etc.). Sometimes these “chance encounters” feel a little forced/unlikely, reminding the reader that no matter how likable a character Lanny is, his story has been calculated to achieve the author’s instructive purposes.
August 10, 2021
Enjoyed it more than the first Lanny Budd book. The parallels between the 1920s and today are fascinating and frightening.
As one example: "That was the pattern of this new society, as Lanny came to know it; boundless cruelty combined with bland and pious lying. The Fascisti would develop falsehood into a new science and a new art; they would teach it to one dictator after another, until half the human race would no longer have any means of telling truth from falsehood.
Looking forward to book #3!!
As one example: "That was the pattern of this new society, as Lanny came to know it; boundless cruelty combined with bland and pious lying. The Fascisti would develop falsehood into a new science and a new art; they would teach it to one dictator after another, until half the human race would no longer have any means of telling truth from falsehood.
Looking forward to book #3!!
December 8, 2024
Found this volume to be inferior to its predecessor World's End in that I found it somewhat frustrating, hoping Upton would cut to the chase somewhat. You can see where he's trying to go but it takes so long getting there that I had to give up having read three quarters of this hefty volume. There's only so much talk of Dealers in the War Machine I can take. Especially as we still have all that going on today. Depressing world, depressing book.
November 28, 2020
Fascinating. The years between 2 world wars. Lanny Budd's romances, life of the wealthy in the Riviera, Paris, Germany, New York, abject poverty of the masses, the rise of Adolf Hitler Schicklgruber, Mussolini, socialism, communism, Wall St. Crash.
January 17, 2021
A fantastic prelude to the Pulitzer Prize winning Third Instalment The Dragon's Teeth.
This instalment ends with the historic collapse of the Stock Market of 1929. Needless to say, a terrific read.
This instalment ends with the historic collapse of the Stock Market of 1929. Needless to say, a terrific read.
December 17, 2022
In excess of three hundred thousands words are devoted by Upton Sinclair to the story, if that be the word, of Lanny Budd’s life from the early nineteen twenties to the end of the decade, or thereabouts. By the time a contemporary reader has passed the five-year mark from the book’s beginning, details of time seem less than relevant. The Wall Street Crash that ends the sequence becomes just another part of the procession.
The book’s writer, Upton Sinclair was famously described by Time magazine as “a man with every gift except humor and silence”. He wrote more than a hundred books and won a Pulitzer Prize. Times, fashions and tastes do change, however. The description, nevertheless, on the evidence of this, my first foray into the writer’s work, seems to be nothing less than accurate. In almost seven hundred pages, the author is never silent and rarely funny.
Lanny Budd, ostensibly the progeny of a gun manufacturing father from Connecticut, is living with his mother in the south of France. Like you do. She, by the way, likes to be known as Beauty. Apparently, it’s a description, not a nickname. The First World War is a handful of years in the past and the flu is more recent. A reader spends quite a lot of time situating the setting, both in place and in time, especially in a political context. One feels that this is interesting if not exactly essential scene setting. We get to know much of Wilson’s vision for the League of Nations, the position of France, Germany and the United Kingdom after the war and the rise of Fascism as a consequence of the exigencies imposed by the peace.
Quite soon, we realise that this is in fact the gist of the book. The author clearly wants to tell us what he thinks. Lanny Budd, almost anonymous in terms of character throughout, is merely a vehicle for Sinclair, who seems not to want to use the word “I”. One feels that in real life, he might just have used it quite a lot.
Lanny Budd is rich. He is something of a playboy, flitting and flirting his way through his twenties. He is mainly in France, but trips to Italy and the United States figure quite large. One begins to wonder quite early on how it happened that a young man such as Lanny Budd might have met Mussolini, have been present at one of Hitler’s early speeches, might have personally met Winston Churchill and rubbed shoulders and several other parts with titled European aristocracy.
Long before the end, one wonders whether Upton Sinclair was merely living his own fantasy via the so-called character he has us follow around the world. Even longer before the end, a contemporary reader begins to think that this is just really easy way to avoid having any ideas of one’s own. Concentrate on relating current affairs, describe the news and list opinion. An occasional link to the lives of the featured characters can justify the inclusion of anything. One is reminded of the technique of William Boyd, in that characters live through major historical events, and these impinge on their lives. In the writing of Upton Sinclair, however, the interaction between the characters and events is so loose as to be irrelevant. At least in William Boyd, there are consequences.
Lanny Budd seems to become Woody Allen’s Zelig, in that he seems to be able to turn up in the presence of any historical figure at will. He seems to be present at major turning points of world history, but leaves no mark, despite being granted audiences with people who might at the time have had better things to do. Perhaps we ought to ask Isadora Duncan her opinion. Easy, just write her into the plot and ask her.
Ostensibly, Upton Sinclair was a socialist. He does seem, on this evidence at least, however, not to have been at all interested in the lives of ordinary people.
The book’s writer, Upton Sinclair was famously described by Time magazine as “a man with every gift except humor and silence”. He wrote more than a hundred books and won a Pulitzer Prize. Times, fashions and tastes do change, however. The description, nevertheless, on the evidence of this, my first foray into the writer’s work, seems to be nothing less than accurate. In almost seven hundred pages, the author is never silent and rarely funny.
Lanny Budd, ostensibly the progeny of a gun manufacturing father from Connecticut, is living with his mother in the south of France. Like you do. She, by the way, likes to be known as Beauty. Apparently, it’s a description, not a nickname. The First World War is a handful of years in the past and the flu is more recent. A reader spends quite a lot of time situating the setting, both in place and in time, especially in a political context. One feels that this is interesting if not exactly essential scene setting. We get to know much of Wilson’s vision for the League of Nations, the position of France, Germany and the United Kingdom after the war and the rise of Fascism as a consequence of the exigencies imposed by the peace.
Quite soon, we realise that this is in fact the gist of the book. The author clearly wants to tell us what he thinks. Lanny Budd, almost anonymous in terms of character throughout, is merely a vehicle for Sinclair, who seems not to want to use the word “I”. One feels that in real life, he might just have used it quite a lot.
Lanny Budd is rich. He is something of a playboy, flitting and flirting his way through his twenties. He is mainly in France, but trips to Italy and the United States figure quite large. One begins to wonder quite early on how it happened that a young man such as Lanny Budd might have met Mussolini, have been present at one of Hitler’s early speeches, might have personally met Winston Churchill and rubbed shoulders and several other parts with titled European aristocracy.
Long before the end, one wonders whether Upton Sinclair was merely living his own fantasy via the so-called character he has us follow around the world. Even longer before the end, a contemporary reader begins to think that this is just really easy way to avoid having any ideas of one’s own. Concentrate on relating current affairs, describe the news and list opinion. An occasional link to the lives of the featured characters can justify the inclusion of anything. One is reminded of the technique of William Boyd, in that characters live through major historical events, and these impinge on their lives. In the writing of Upton Sinclair, however, the interaction between the characters and events is so loose as to be irrelevant. At least in William Boyd, there are consequences.
Lanny Budd seems to become Woody Allen’s Zelig, in that he seems to be able to turn up in the presence of any historical figure at will. He seems to be present at major turning points of world history, but leaves no mark, despite being granted audiences with people who might at the time have had better things to do. Perhaps we ought to ask Isadora Duncan her opinion. Easy, just write her into the plot and ask her.
Ostensibly, Upton Sinclair was a socialist. He does seem, on this evidence at least, however, not to have been at all interested in the lives of ordinary people.
March 23, 2017
Continuing the story of Lanny Bud from World's End, we follow his adventures and the fate of Europe after the Treaty of Versailles was finally signed, accompanying him and his English friend, the journalist Rick, to innumerable international conferences attempting to allocate people and land throughout Europe and the defunct Ottoman Empire, leaving to idealistic or cynical diplomats with no practical experience the invention of a new world order that the Great War had been unable to accomplish. Through Lanny and his friends, we get a personal view of the results of the war in France, Germany, Italy and England, and the incompatible requirements of all those people for reparations, rescue, reform, or revolution, land seizure and struggles for and against the spread of Communism, and the rise of Mussolini and Hitler filling vacuums left by the punitive and ineffective peace treaty.
Lanny develops into a knowledgeable art dealer, supports various socialist efforts, and tries to retreat into his peaceful ivory tower, but is as conflicted as he ever was between his enjoyment of the moneyed life he was born to, and his guilt over having and earning that money. He wants a life of travel, art, theater, and music, which depends on the wealth to enjoy those things, but also wants to lift the poor and the factory workers out of the struggles and deprivation of slum life, and thereby personifies the internal conflict of the Progressives who want to provide for millions of people by taxing and seizing the property and businesses others who have and earn money, but cannot see that they are trying to destroy the very system which generates the healthy economy by which their laudable goals might be furthered.
Lanny's involvement with a German Jewish businessman and his family foreshadows the coming haulocost, which we can see clearly from the vantage of hindsight. He is also there on Wall Street to take us through the 1929 crash, with his personal view into that as well. Novels are such a convenient vehicle!
Lanny develops into a knowledgeable art dealer, supports various socialist efforts, and tries to retreat into his peaceful ivory tower, but is as conflicted as he ever was between his enjoyment of the moneyed life he was born to, and his guilt over having and earning that money. He wants a life of travel, art, theater, and music, which depends on the wealth to enjoy those things, but also wants to lift the poor and the factory workers out of the struggles and deprivation of slum life, and thereby personifies the internal conflict of the Progressives who want to provide for millions of people by taxing and seizing the property and businesses others who have and earn money, but cannot see that they are trying to destroy the very system which generates the healthy economy by which their laudable goals might be furthered.
Lanny's involvement with a German Jewish businessman and his family foreshadows the coming haulocost, which we can see clearly from the vantage of hindsight. He is also there on Wall Street to take us through the 1929 crash, with his personal view into that as well. Novels are such a convenient vehicle!
October 20, 2017
I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to finish Between Two Worlds two days before it was due back at the library. I only skimmed a little bit, I swear. Despite the fact that it took FOREVER, it was actually really interesting. It covered a lot of what was going on in the world after WWI, including the rise of fascism in Italy and the rise of the Nazis in Germany. The protagonist, Lanny Budd, is kind of like Forrest Gump in that he seems to be present at every important historical event of his time. This time, he met a young upstart fascist Benito Mussolini, and saw a crazy young man named Hitler speak in Germany before anyone knew who he was. He was also on Wall Street on October 29, 1929, watching his life, and the lives of his family and friends, change forever. It was quite gripping.
Reading up to that particular moment was fascinating in that the excesses of the “roaring 20s” were portrayed in almost identical language (reminder – this book was written in the 1940s) as the current fiscal crisis. I could just as easily have been reading about the mortgage crisis in 2009 as the financial collapse of 1929. It was eerie. The book ended right after the collapse, so I’m guessing the next one will pick up there and cover the Depression and the build-up to WWII. That’s going to have to wait – I need a break from the wordy Mr. Sinclair.
Reading up to that particular moment was fascinating in that the excesses of the “roaring 20s” were portrayed in almost identical language (reminder – this book was written in the 1940s) as the current fiscal crisis. I could just as easily have been reading about the mortgage crisis in 2009 as the financial collapse of 1929. It was eerie. The book ended right after the collapse, so I’m guessing the next one will pick up there and cover the Depression and the build-up to WWII. That’s going to have to wait – I need a break from the wordy Mr. Sinclair.
February 26, 2018
A good sequel
This is a good follow-up to the first Budd novel. There is not as much action and intrigue as book one and serves more to set up the next books in the series. Well worth the time.
This is a good follow-up to the first Budd novel. There is not as much action and intrigue as book one and serves more to set up the next books in the series. Well worth the time.
December 8, 2012
The second book in the Lanny Budd series, set during the period between the Treaty of Versailles and the the stock market crash of 1929. Wonderful and detailed insight into how Europe became increasingly fracture after the first war, the rise of fascism, and the rapacious consumption of the rich as they gathered more and more wealthy, creating a restless and resentful underclass.
We also see how Lanny becomes involved in the art world and his connection to psychic mediums is established, which plays a huge role when he encounters Hitler as a spy for Franklin Roosevelt. Ah, but that comes in later books!
We also see how Lanny becomes involved in the art world and his connection to psychic mediums is established, which plays a huge role when he encounters Hitler as a spy for Franklin Roosevelt. Ah, but that comes in later books!
Read
September 2, 2016"Between Two Worlds" by Upton Sinclair is one in a series of historical novels. The main character, Lanny Budd, is always on the scene of important political, cultural, and economics events and runs into all the important people. He is American, who lives in France, and lives a bohemian lifestyle. This novel begins after the end of WWI and includes with the 1929 financial crash. The novel is packed with the historical events leading to the rise of Hilter, Mussolini, Communism, and the super rich. I think I read several Sinclair Lewis's Lanny Budd novels many, many years ago. The series makes good reading and good learning
March 19, 2008
So far, this book is not as fluid as the first of the series [[book: World's End by Upton Sinclair]]. The story seems more forced and the politics are far more confusing. Also, Lanny is growing up and so his little flirts with love are more like BronteLove than SalingerLove...and therefore suckier in my amateurish opinion.
I am still enjoying it, however. I will likely finish this one and the Pulitzer Prize winning novel that follows [[book: Dragon's Teeth]].
And yes 'suckier' like so IS a word, Mozilla Firefox!
I am still enjoying it, however. I will likely finish this one and the Pulitzer Prize winning novel that follows [[book: Dragon's Teeth]].
And yes 'suckier' like so IS a word, Mozilla Firefox!
March 11, 2009
I have read the whole Lanny Budd series 2 or 3 times in the past and am going through the series again. This book shows how Hitler got his start and the political events which alowed him to rise to power.
Read
January 6, 2017I am so enjoying this series -- even though I am reading them out of order. Sinclair provides a good story with lots of historical and sociological facts from pre-WWI through the Cold War.
I am recommending all 11 of the books.
You can find them on-line as ebooks.
I am recommending all 11 of the books.
You can find them on-line as ebooks.
January 17, 2020
After reading World's End (Book 1), I wasn’t sure that I would continue the series, but I had already purchased Between Two Worlds (Book 2) so I proceeded to read it. All I can say (or write) is W-O-W! Between Two Worlds (Book 2) was much better than Book 1. I think I enjoyed it more because I was more familiar with the many characters, the different storylines, Sinclair’s writing style, and his political / social leaning.
Between Two Worlds (Book 2) can be a challenging read if you don’t have some basic background knowledge of post-WW1 Europe / America to the Great Depression. I found Between Two Worlds (Book 2) to be very entertaining and educational and it helped fill some voids of my understanding of this time period.
The Lanny Budd series (11 books) are not stand alone books so you do have to read them in chronological order. If you get hooked, they are long books so be prepared to commit significant time to read the entire series.
There are so many layers to Between Two Worlds (Book 2) which makes it difficult to write a review on just one book in a series, but here’s what I thought were the significant events, incidents, storylines of this historical fiction novel:
The rise of Communism, Fascism, and Nazism and their appeal to the masses.
The post-WW1 land grab by world powers and the exploitation of middle east oil fields by private industries and foreign governments.
Between Two Worlds (Book 2) gives the reader an insight into the world of high-end art dealers, munition dealers (an ironic storyline of a Jewish businessman illegally selling weapons to the emerging Nazis), and the social life of the rich and famous.
Between Two Worlds (Book 2) ends with the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929. I found this very interesting given its widespread financial impact from janitors to secretaries to the rich and famous. As a historical fiction, Upton Sinclair gave the devastating financial impact of the Wall Street stock market crash a human face.
As with the first book, Between Two Worlds(Book 2) uses French, German, Italian, and Yiddish words that oftentimes the Kindle word reference guides could not translate. In the context of the story, I could figure out the meaning of those foreign words. Sinclair also uses archaic English words that I’ve never seen or heard before, and I was unsure how to pronounce the words. Luckily, most of those words were in the Kindle word reference guides, but after awhile I simply guessed at their meaning rather than interrupt my reading to look it up.
For a novel series that was written between 1940 and 1953, Upton Sinclair wrote about subjects that I thought were tabooed for a mass market book during that time period, e.g., underground sex clubs, BDSM, homosexuality, prostitution, extra marital affairs, the glorification of Socialism and Communism (the “Red Scare”).
The one thing that I noticed about the Lanny Budd series so far is that history seems to be repeating itself. I found similarities in the politicians and business men presented in Upton Sinclair’s novel to those today. The racial, ethnic, religious, and political intolerance and conflicts of the Between Two Worlds (Book 2) time period are no different than today.
The Amazon website noted thatUpton Sinclair won the Pulitzer Prize for the Lanny Budd series. After reading just the first two books, I can understand why.
Between Two Worlds (Book 2) can be a challenging read if you don’t have some basic background knowledge of post-WW1 Europe / America to the Great Depression. I found Between Two Worlds (Book 2) to be very entertaining and educational and it helped fill some voids of my understanding of this time period.
The Lanny Budd series (11 books) are not stand alone books so you do have to read them in chronological order. If you get hooked, they are long books so be prepared to commit significant time to read the entire series.
There are so many layers to Between Two Worlds (Book 2) which makes it difficult to write a review on just one book in a series, but here’s what I thought were the significant events, incidents, storylines of this historical fiction novel:
The rise of Communism, Fascism, and Nazism and their appeal to the masses.
The post-WW1 land grab by world powers and the exploitation of middle east oil fields by private industries and foreign governments.
Between Two Worlds (Book 2) gives the reader an insight into the world of high-end art dealers, munition dealers (an ironic storyline of a Jewish businessman illegally selling weapons to the emerging Nazis), and the social life of the rich and famous.
Between Two Worlds (Book 2) ends with the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929. I found this very interesting given its widespread financial impact from janitors to secretaries to the rich and famous. As a historical fiction, Upton Sinclair gave the devastating financial impact of the Wall Street stock market crash a human face.
As with the first book, Between Two Worlds(Book 2) uses French, German, Italian, and Yiddish words that oftentimes the Kindle word reference guides could not translate. In the context of the story, I could figure out the meaning of those foreign words. Sinclair also uses archaic English words that I’ve never seen or heard before, and I was unsure how to pronounce the words. Luckily, most of those words were in the Kindle word reference guides, but after awhile I simply guessed at their meaning rather than interrupt my reading to look it up.
For a novel series that was written between 1940 and 1953, Upton Sinclair wrote about subjects that I thought were tabooed for a mass market book during that time period, e.g., underground sex clubs, BDSM, homosexuality, prostitution, extra marital affairs, the glorification of Socialism and Communism (the “Red Scare”).
The one thing that I noticed about the Lanny Budd series so far is that history seems to be repeating itself. I found similarities in the politicians and business men presented in Upton Sinclair’s novel to those today. The racial, ethnic, religious, and political intolerance and conflicts of the Between Two Worlds (Book 2) time period are no different than today.
The Amazon website noted thatUpton Sinclair won the Pulitzer Prize for the Lanny Budd series. After reading just the first two books, I can understand why.
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