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Chasing Mammon: Travels in the Pursuit of Money
Travels through money-making areas of the world.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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About the author
Douglas Kennedy
132 books1,191 followersDouglas Kennedy was born in Manhattan in 1955. He studied at Bowdoin College, Maine and Trinity College, Dublin, returning to Dublin in 1977 with just a trenchcoat, backpack and $300. He co-founded a theatre company and sold his first play, Shakespeare on Five Dollars a Day, to Radio 4 in 1980. In 1988 he moved to London and published a travel book, Beyond the Pyramids. His debut novel The Dead Heart was published in 1994.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 28, 2014
”The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilization, the one sound spot in our social conscience. Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honour, generosity and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness.” Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
Largest denomination banknote printed by the United States Government.
Money is a lifeless entity, rather boring when it is stacked up, piled up, or sitting stagnant in an account in Switzerland. Though one can do amazing things with it. If you have enough of it you can buy a new life with it. You can buy a long legged gorgeous girlfriend or a handsome boy toy. You can buy a flat in London or a spacious apartment in New York. You can own a piece of the Pacific or the Mediterranean. You can buy a yacht and a sports car to match. You can buy a Rolex, a real one. Because after all you aren’t really rich unless the whole world knows it.
Douglas Kennedy went to Bowdoin College which has an acceptance rate of 14.5%. So, in other words, you can’t just be anybody and go to school there. He met the right sorts of people while there and circulated with the right sorts of people from the other exclusive schools. Many of them went on to be stock brokers so when he decided to do a travel book on the pursuit of money he simply picked up the phone and called so and so and reconnected for a few moments about the fine old times they had while pursuing their academic degrees.
It was a rocky start at the beginning of the book because really I didn’t care about these people who in the late 1980s and early 1990s were making unbelievable amounts of money in finance. It isn’t really a skill although there are those that are better at it than others. The least talented were still pulling down more money than they could make doing anything else. As one young man informed Kennedy that this couldn’t be mistaken for the real world because he was making three times what a college professor was making...and he is only twenty-five. It is hard to appreciate money when you don't feel you have earned it.
Clayton Kershaw is the highest paid player in baseball projected to make $32,571,428 in 2015. Yes, those are commas.
If you were fortunate enough to be born with an arm like a thunderbolt you will make millions of dollars hurling a round white ball at a mitt in major league baseball. If you are fortunate enough to be born into the right family you might have a trust fund. While I was in Phoenix I used to hang around with a young man who was guaranteed $40,000 a year for the rest of his life, thanks to his Grandfather. I’m sure his income has increased since then as relatives have passed away and he has acquired more of his inheritance.
At the time I thought he was a made man because I could only dream about making that much money a year. Not that he made it. It just arrived in an envelope once a month from his Grandfather’s lawyers. He had some odd quirks one of them being that he never wore underwear more than once. His mother sent him a box of new underwear every month and once worn he simply threw them away. Just rolling around with him and his cadre of other trust fund babies, they gravitate to each other like polar opposite magnets, I was generally broke. They picked up the tab most of the time, but I was always sweating a bit worried about which time they would look at me and say your part is….
What they squandered on a good time I could have...well...secured my future.
”Although we like to brag about our rugged individuality, the educated American middle classes are, at heart, raised to embrace the corporate ideal, and urged to keep their professional sights carefully focused on conventional, well-renumerated vistas.”
Ahh, yes, my hand is up. I did, just so no one accuses me of being a soulless bastard, spend ten years in the book business. I moved to the top of the profession as quickly as I could and realized that what I was making was about the most I was going to make. The war between Borders and Barnes & Noble was raging, squeezing out most of the independents. Amazon was throwing a large shadow on the landscape so I jumped ship for banking.
I lasted a year. I decided instead of pounding a nail through my skull so that I would fit in with the vacuous zombies in suits I would seek employment elsewhere.
My pursuit of money landed me in sales.
The great thing about sales is that most people are too proud or too shy to work in sales. There are always openings in sales. I learned the ropes, came up with my own particular song and dance, and was successful enough that the company I worked for moved me up... well... down. Technically I’m at corporate headquarters, but I am on the ground floor. Well some might say I'm in the basement, safely tucked away from all the normal people upstairs. I oversee a sales staff and as long as I hit projected numbers I’m pretty much left to my own devices. So I am a corporate drone, but one with spice and salsa. I have carefully cultivated a slightly bohemian reputation which gives me some latitude for my door being closed (They may well believe that I might be smoking a doobie.). I do clean up well and occasionally they trot me out to prospective advertisers or clients.
”I had a romantic penchant for willowy cellists or wholesale neurotics who mainlined Sylvia Plath.” So I threw aside my dream of being a novelist with fawning fans in every port of call and went after one of those ”conventional, well-renumerated vistas.”
Thank goodness, though, I’m not rich.
There is a natural travel writer lurking in Kennedy. I really liked his description of Casablanca which just the name evokes gritty romance.
”I wandered down the Avenue Mohammed V. Like the rest of the business district, it was an architectural melange of contemporary concrete and shabby holdovers from the days of French rule. There was a slightly fatigued feel to this central quartier, a sense that everything could use a lick of paint, and that a fresh paving stone or two wouldn’t go amiss on the chewed-up pavements. But I was somewhat seduced by the slovenliness, this feeling that I had arrived in a high finance town which often forgot to tuck its shirt-tail into its trousers, which had a permanent five o’clock shadow.”
Kennedy does take us around the world and generally finds that most people working in high finance, trying to stack up enough cash for an early retirement, are not very happy. They certainly do not feel fulfilled by their jobs. Each, though, has a dream of doing something else usually something less hectic, something that has real value. They are intelligent people trapped in a skewed view of what being successful means. Ultimately they are willing to sacrifice their youth for what they hope will be an extended retirement. The long hours strangle their more cultural interests. Can they reacquire their interest and love for reading, for listening to Jazz, for visiting art museums or for even maintaining real friendships or relationships? Let’s hope those synapses didn’t burn out in the flames of the all consuming desire to make money.
Largest denomination banknote printed by the United States Government.
Money is a lifeless entity, rather boring when it is stacked up, piled up, or sitting stagnant in an account in Switzerland. Though one can do amazing things with it. If you have enough of it you can buy a new life with it. You can buy a long legged gorgeous girlfriend or a handsome boy toy. You can buy a flat in London or a spacious apartment in New York. You can own a piece of the Pacific or the Mediterranean. You can buy a yacht and a sports car to match. You can buy a Rolex, a real one. Because after all you aren’t really rich unless the whole world knows it.
Douglas Kennedy went to Bowdoin College which has an acceptance rate of 14.5%. So, in other words, you can’t just be anybody and go to school there. He met the right sorts of people while there and circulated with the right sorts of people from the other exclusive schools. Many of them went on to be stock brokers so when he decided to do a travel book on the pursuit of money he simply picked up the phone and called so and so and reconnected for a few moments about the fine old times they had while pursuing their academic degrees.
It was a rocky start at the beginning of the book because really I didn’t care about these people who in the late 1980s and early 1990s were making unbelievable amounts of money in finance. It isn’t really a skill although there are those that are better at it than others. The least talented were still pulling down more money than they could make doing anything else. As one young man informed Kennedy that this couldn’t be mistaken for the real world because he was making three times what a college professor was making...and he is only twenty-five. It is hard to appreciate money when you don't feel you have earned it.
Clayton Kershaw is the highest paid player in baseball projected to make $32,571,428 in 2015. Yes, those are commas.
If you were fortunate enough to be born with an arm like a thunderbolt you will make millions of dollars hurling a round white ball at a mitt in major league baseball. If you are fortunate enough to be born into the right family you might have a trust fund. While I was in Phoenix I used to hang around with a young man who was guaranteed $40,000 a year for the rest of his life, thanks to his Grandfather. I’m sure his income has increased since then as relatives have passed away and he has acquired more of his inheritance.
At the time I thought he was a made man because I could only dream about making that much money a year. Not that he made it. It just arrived in an envelope once a month from his Grandfather’s lawyers. He had some odd quirks one of them being that he never wore underwear more than once. His mother sent him a box of new underwear every month and once worn he simply threw them away. Just rolling around with him and his cadre of other trust fund babies, they gravitate to each other like polar opposite magnets, I was generally broke. They picked up the tab most of the time, but I was always sweating a bit worried about which time they would look at me and say your part is….
What they squandered on a good time I could have...well...secured my future.
”Although we like to brag about our rugged individuality, the educated American middle classes are, at heart, raised to embrace the corporate ideal, and urged to keep their professional sights carefully focused on conventional, well-renumerated vistas.”
Ahh, yes, my hand is up. I did, just so no one accuses me of being a soulless bastard, spend ten years in the book business. I moved to the top of the profession as quickly as I could and realized that what I was making was about the most I was going to make. The war between Borders and Barnes & Noble was raging, squeezing out most of the independents. Amazon was throwing a large shadow on the landscape so I jumped ship for banking.
I lasted a year. I decided instead of pounding a nail through my skull so that I would fit in with the vacuous zombies in suits I would seek employment elsewhere.
My pursuit of money landed me in sales.
The great thing about sales is that most people are too proud or too shy to work in sales. There are always openings in sales. I learned the ropes, came up with my own particular song and dance, and was successful enough that the company I worked for moved me up... well... down. Technically I’m at corporate headquarters, but I am on the ground floor. Well some might say I'm in the basement, safely tucked away from all the normal people upstairs. I oversee a sales staff and as long as I hit projected numbers I’m pretty much left to my own devices. So I am a corporate drone, but one with spice and salsa. I have carefully cultivated a slightly bohemian reputation which gives me some latitude for my door being closed (They may well believe that I might be smoking a doobie.). I do clean up well and occasionally they trot me out to prospective advertisers or clients.
”I had a romantic penchant for willowy cellists or wholesale neurotics who mainlined Sylvia Plath.” So I threw aside my dream of being a novelist with fawning fans in every port of call and went after one of those ”conventional, well-renumerated vistas.”
Thank goodness, though, I’m not rich.
There is a natural travel writer lurking in Kennedy. I really liked his description of Casablanca which just the name evokes gritty romance.
”I wandered down the Avenue Mohammed V. Like the rest of the business district, it was an architectural melange of contemporary concrete and shabby holdovers from the days of French rule. There was a slightly fatigued feel to this central quartier, a sense that everything could use a lick of paint, and that a fresh paving stone or two wouldn’t go amiss on the chewed-up pavements. But I was somewhat seduced by the slovenliness, this feeling that I had arrived in a high finance town which often forgot to tuck its shirt-tail into its trousers, which had a permanent five o’clock shadow.”
Kennedy does take us around the world and generally finds that most people working in high finance, trying to stack up enough cash for an early retirement, are not very happy. They certainly do not feel fulfilled by their jobs. Each, though, has a dream of doing something else usually something less hectic, something that has real value. They are intelligent people trapped in a skewed view of what being successful means. Ultimately they are willing to sacrifice their youth for what they hope will be an extended retirement. The long hours strangle their more cultural interests. Can they reacquire their interest and love for reading, for listening to Jazz, for visiting art museums or for even maintaining real friendships or relationships? Let’s hope those synapses didn’t burn out in the flames of the all consuming desire to make money.
September 16, 2019
Plus ou moins un roman. On se croirait dans une sorte de documentaire fictif sur l'argent, la bourse et son univers. Très décevant par son style et ses personnages et pour ce qui est des informations fournies, bien puisqu'on demeure dans la fiction, je les regarde toujours avec un certain bémol donc on ne sait pas trop si on a appris ou simplement lu l'opinion d'une personne.. Je m'attendais à beaucoup plus et surtout pas à ça.
January 27, 2022
« Le plus traumatisant demeure la façon dont l’argent est devenu notre principal moyen de donner une validité à notre passage sur terre, et de répondre aux demandes que nous impose notre environnement social. »
December 11, 2018
Un reportage Sur les traders dans différents pays leur façon de vivre et leurs préoccupations intéressant mais pas romanesque
September 22, 2012
une agréable suite de portraits mais sans réelle réflexion.
June 9, 2013
Ok mais sans plus.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews