The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

Trust by Hernan Diaz

I thought Hernan Diaz did a masterful job writing in different voices, but, despite his virtuosity, I still found the first 90% of this novel to be pretty boring. The final 10% is fantastic and almost saved the book for me (but not quite). Was anyone else bored?

Very. I really think the boom might have worked better if he had found a way to run the sections in parallel rather than one after the other - as it’s an awful lot of almost deliberately bad writing to wade through for the payoff.

I agree, GY. I found it hard to wade through the first two sections, but really enjoyed the last two.

I may have liked this one more than others have because I came to it with relatively low expectations. I was ultimately engaged in the story/puzzle and liked what he was trying to do very much. At the end I was a bit unsatisfied but still found it a worthy effort.

I gave this 2 stars. I can see how others enjoyed it more than I did. The puzzle aspect was interesting but entirely predictable so it wasn't really a surprise. I think Diaz is asking a lot of readers to sift through hundreds(!) of pages of deliberately bad prose before the final two sections.

I completely disagree that the first two sections were boring, or that they were badly written. They use a style and idiom that isn't contemporary/modern and which is part of the story being told i.e. the development of capitalist America in the twentieth century.

Money underpins novels of the time such as those of Edith Wharton and Henry James but wealth is just there - Diaz looks more carefully at how it is generated and what the costs are.

I thought the idea, especially, of financial instruments as a form of fiction was interesting and, to me, original.

Gwendolyn wrote: "I thought Hernan Diaz did a masterful job writing in different voices, but, despite his virtuosity, I still found the first 90% of this novel to be pretty boring. The final 10% is fantastic and alm..."

I had the exact same experience. Slogged through parts 1, 2 and 3. Loved the lyricism of part 4, but it was a case of too little, too late.

I think my issue RC as we discussed under one of our reviews was that the money is fiction idea is a good one (if not at all original - even in 1930 Keynes as in Kenysian economics said “Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”) - and I think he seems to apply it incorrectly to assets that do have an actual intrinsic value and are held for a long time rather than always to intangible and traded ones.

But a literary author trying to engage with finance is always welcome as the divide between the two areas is very large (Natasha Brown of course looked at finance in Assembly but her protagonists job is never explained and finance us just a lens for social mobility). Pretty well every one I know in finance reads at best non fiction and very few literary books address finance at all well.

There was even a classic of this in Ron Charles Washington Post and Goodreads review of this very book where he says the quartet of very different stories is “what Wall Street Traders would call a 4-for-1 stock split” - which is complete nonsense given a 4-1 split gives you four completely identical stocks so is almost the exact opposite of this book.

I'm no financier so I'm sure you're correct, GY. As you say, it's rare for fiction to deal with the mechanics of where wealth, and thus social power, comes from and how it is generated. In this book it's explicitly from stock market trading with a light touch reference to slavery-related business.

But there were other things that I liked: the structure reminded me of Victorian books like The Woman in White where the accumulation of individual narratives upend the story we think we're in.

The ventriloquised voices felt effective to me, and genuinely different in tone and ethos.

I thought there were striking gender issues wound in, too, with some amusing and self-conscious instances of what we'd term mansplaining and a range of literary allusions including to Sylvia Plath and the image of the bell jar.

So yes, the whole thing just worked for me - even if I am in a minority here :)

I do not think we are a million miles apart.

My review concludes positively …..

On the overall level I liked (while not thinking it entirely worked) the ideas of linking the sustained and collective illusion (or perhaps collective decision to place collective faith in a narrative) that lies behind not just fictional stories themselves, but non-fictional accounts, behind national (and national identity) stories, behind political movements and also behind financial markets.

On the micro level I enjoyed for example: the exploration of the marginalisation of (and even worse co-opting or blatant stealing of) female voices and ideas; the idea that a blend of human psychology with mathematical analysis is key to investment success (and it reminded me of the intersection of art-empathy-gut call & data-science-hard facts at the heart of commercial insurance underwriting); the fragmentary ideas in the fourth section about the transition from literary realism to literary modernism (and its equivalent in music).

I was not sure there was much upending.

I think that realistically we know the world we are in very early on as any upending of our expectations is fairly signposted - and I think that is deliberate given that on two occasions there is discussion of detective fiction and one protagonist has to pretend not to know the reveal.

Surely though that itself is a meta fictional reference to the whole idea of people believing things a bit themselves they ‘know’ not to be true - in the same way we read the first few sections pretending to take them on face value but ‘knowing” already they are at best biased and at worse faked.

Disappointed to see this one here. The first 3 sections were beyond tedious and I can’t really see what redeemed it in the last section given the “twist” was screamingly obvious from page 1. If ever there was a book to prove my theory that novels over 200 pages are in want of a good editor it is this one. It wasn’t dreadful but one of the best 13 books of the year ?!!?

I haven’t gotten around to putting my latest reviews up but I enjoyed Trust so much. I was captivated by each part of it and loved that they were so different. The first part made me want to read James and Wharton again and brought visuals of the HBO series The Gilded Age which I didn’t really care for but the sets and clothes were awesome. The second part was just so male, like all the guys I used to work with at the big bad bank. Well done. The other two parts were equally well great and fascinating. I’ll just copy this paragraph for my review! :)

Please link your review when it's up, Bryn. We need a balanced discussion on this.

This is my least favorite of the six longlisted books I've read so far. I thought the book gave me a pretty measly reward after forcing me through many pages of delayed gratification. I think it is missing the heart of the story. If you're going to upend my sense of what is 'fiction' and what is 'reality,' in a given book-world, then I want there to be a human, feeling reason for putting me through the misdirection. Not just an intellectual argument like 'money corrupts' or 'women are the power behind the thrown' etc.

Particularly when they aren’t particularly stunning new revelations either.

Bryn wrote: "I haven’t gotten around to putting my latest reviews up but I enjoyed Trust so much. I was captivated by each part of it and loved that they were so different. The first part made me want to read J..."

I'm right there with you, Bryn. After first reading so many disappointed posts on GR, I was surprised that I was so captivated from start to finish. Echoes of Rebecca too - an absent protagonist who is the heart of the novel. But for me Helen/Mildred is more interesting than the first Mrs. de Winter because she so much more enigmatic.

This didn’t work for me as an audiobook. It was dull and hard to follow and I must confess in lost interest early on and stopped listening intently. But I like the sound of the premise and some of the comments here make me want to try again - this time in written form, and only if it makes it to the shortlist.

The LA Times review is quite good:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment...

Trust strikes me as a book that is in love with its own cleverness. It toots its own horn. Here is Ida (part 3) reviewing the writing in Vanner's novel (part 1):

"I had never experienced anything like that language. And it spoke to me. It was my first time reading something that existed in a vague space between the intellectual and the emotional. Since that moment I have identified that ambiguous territory as the exclusive domain of literature..." (page 246)

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I think my issue RC as we discussed under one of our reviews was that the money is fiction idea is a good one (if not at all original - even in 1930 Keynes as in Kenysian economics said “Markets ca..."

The title fits nicely with this idea of "money as fiction", especially since fiat money (and our monetary system) derives its value from trust.

Agreed.

Gwendolyn wrote: "I thought Hernan Diaz did a masterful job writing in different voices, but, despite his virtuosity, I still found the first 90% of this novel to be pretty boring. The final 10% is fantastic and alm..."

so bored

I think Trust is an apt name that fits a number of topics.

Trust - as in trust the author that the story is going somewhere even though the first part might not be very interesting

Trust - the financial definition

Turst - as in reliability or truth

The title is one of the aspects I liked about it.

I love the first one - not sure my Trust there wasn’t stretched close to breaking point. I am all for deferred gratification but this was a bit too deferred.

I did trust the author - and indeed the various newspaper critics that seemed to think this was a worthwhile book. He failed to repay that trust. Betrayal may be a better title or Massiveletdown.

Paul wrote: "I did trust the author - and indeed the various newspaper critics that seemed to think this was a worthwhile book. He failed to repay that trust. Betrayal may be a better title or Massiveletdown."

Unfortunately, I agree.

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I love the first one - not sure my Trust there wasn’t stretched close to breaking point. I am all for deferred gratification but this was a bit too deferred."
I agree that it was "a bit too deferred."

Paul wrote: "I did trust the author - and indeed the various newspaper critics that seemed to think this was a worthwhile book. He failed to repay that trust. Betrayal may be a better title or Massiveletdown."
Love to see how many books he would have sold with the Massiveletdown title, haha.

I may be way off on this, but I think Diaz was trying to create a Borgesian hall of mirrors with this book. Consider all of the mirrored characters in this book (albeit distorted):

Benjamin Rask <--> Andrew Bevel
Helen Rask <--> Mildred Bevel
Ida's father <--> Arturo Giovannitti

And I believe Diaz created Ida Partenza as a mirror of himself.

Neither Diaz nor Partenza has a background in business, so they immersed themselves in research to create a fictional Andrew Bevel (and Mildred, for that matter) based on a composite of what they read. This would also explain why Diaz added the extortionist substory.

An article by The Financial Times says that Bevel's character was based on men like chancer Jesse Livermore, who shorted the market before the 1929 crash. These men are the focus of a book called The Mystery Men of Wall Street, by Earl Sparling, a book Ida says was particularly important to her research.

There are a few other "Mystery Men" that I think influenced Bevel's character, even if superficially. These include John J Raskob, the son of cigar makers and husband of a woman named Helena; and Arthur Cutten, who died suddenly of a heart attack in 1936.

And then there is the scene with Andrew Bevel and the welder...

Each man appeared to be hypnotized by the other. But when the welder adjusted his cap and his coat, always staring at the man in the chair, I realized that, to him, the window was an impenetrable mirror.>

That's really interesting, Debra, and that seems to make sense.

I love that idea Debra

This really didn't work for me. There's a better book in here that focuses on Ida from part 3 researching for this book, likely with material from sections 1 and 2 weaved in much like Gumble suggested, that concludes with the discovery of Mildred's diary and the truth etc. etc.

As it is, the parts feel too disjointed, too disconnected. I found Ida's story really engaging, it's just a shame it takes half of the book to get to it and fizzles out the way it does.

This book is told in four parts, not unlike an extended Rashomon or a deft Alexandria Quartet. The first part is a "novel" written about a socialite couple in 1920s New York: the man's life and wealth and his wife's life and illness. It's a brilliantly written and savory slow burn beginning. The second part is an incomplete "autobiography" written by the man discussed in the first part. Very different in pace, it's a breathless story of his financial history, motivation and his dubious relationship with his wife. Out of left field comes the best and longest section of the novel, written by an ambitious Italian woman who is hired to ghost write and embellish the "autobiography" we've already glimpsed. It's a compelling immigrant story, tweaked by an element of mystery when she's threatened to expose her documents else her communist father be incarcerated, but the big reveal is the secrecy and influence of the aforementioned wife. Finally, in the last part, we hear from the wife herself as she divulges secrets in the form of mostly fragmented disclosures. It reveals insights into her artistic life, her declining health and fills in many of the blanks about her relationship with her husband and his wealth, but most of it is unsurprising, and I don't think it's the bombshell conclusion Diaz meant it to be. It is worthwhile and very satisfying nevertheless.

Unlike other readers above, I did not find Ida's memoir (part 3) particularly compelling. I found her portrayal of Andrew Bevel caricaturish at best (he comes across as such a klutz), and the side characters (her father, her boyfriend) felt one-dimensional too. I wish there had been more nuance in her memoir.

But_i_thought_ wrote: "Unlike other readers above, I did not find Ida's memoir (part 3) particularly compelling. I found her portrayal of Andrew Bevel caricaturish at best (he comes across as such a klutz), and the side ..."

Agreed - it is better than the rest of the book, but that's setting a low bar.

And as for Part IV did anyone not expect that conclusion all the way through the book?

I assumed it would be an unexpected twist - so I was surprised he went for such a transparent one which therefore was a twist in itself.

I didn't see the story as a mystery so wasn't expecting a twist or revelation - I think it's more about how narrative can be used to close down a story or open it up - narrative as a technology of power.

And the fact that the twist is obvious is very clearly acknowledged in the text in Ida’s stories about her live if detective novels and interaction with her father which she later added to the autobiography and which Bevel then appropriates as a real memory (it’s actually one if the key scenes to the entire book! …….

“Most of the time I’d solve the crime with the clues she had given me, but I was careful to never let her know it.” Bevel picked up his glass, seemed to smile to himself once again and took a deeper drink. “I’d always blame some secretary or the butler and pretend to be shocked when Mildred revealed who the murderer in fact was.” Now, this was something I had not written into Bevel’s memoir. Pretending not to know who the culprit was and pointing a condescending finger at the obviously wrong suspect was not something I had included in my narrative about Mildred and him. And yet this is exactly what my father would do each time I retold him one of the novels I had just finished reading. The killer, he invariably said after dutifully following my red herrings, had to be the spoiled stepson or the slighted heiress apparent. It was embarrassing to realize only now that he had merely been humoring me all along. “

It’s all part of the meta fictional conceit

Yes this does seem to be the author’s main aim. Write a terrible book but it is apparently good because there are some nods that it is deliberately or knowingly terrible.

Quite clever really and he seems to have duped the Booker jury.

Roman Clodia wrote: "I didn't see the story as a mystery so wasn't expecting a twist or revelation - I think it's more about how narrative can be used to close down a story or open it up - narrative as a technology of ..."

I think this is a very interesting comment. Most of us who didn't rate this highly read it as a long wind up to a surprise finish that just fizzled. There may be something to be said for the view that that's not what Diaz intended.

I can’t see how he intended a surprise finish when he wrote at length about detective novels where the ending is obvious.

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I can’t see how he intended a surprise finish when he wrote at length about detective novels where the ending is obvious."

I agree. As I mentioned earlier, I think he was trying to emulate/pay homage to Borges. The plot twist is secondary.


“I Wouldn’t Be the Person I am Without Borges.”
https://lithub.com/hernan-diaz-i-woul...

JC: In wondering what inspired your unusual structure of four distinct but interrelated sections—a novel, an unfinished manuscript, a memoir, a diary—I was drawn to your book Borges, between History and Eternity, and your comments on Borges’ use of “nesting worlds”—those “mises en abyme where each new layer questions the authenticity of the preceding one?”—in his fiction. Through what process did you come up with your nesting worlds?

HD: I wouldn’t be the person I am without Borges. One of the many things he taught me is precisely what you point out: how literature can create its own referential context by surrounding itself with more literature. I find framing games endlessly fascinating because they make us think about meaning, representation, and truth.

In another interview, Diaz says his father was the inspiration for Ina's father in the book. (yet another mirror)

So it deliberately doesn’t have a plot twist. The writing is poor. It doesn’t have any real insight into financial markets? So what exactly was the point of it? An elaborate joke on literary critics with a nod to Kejserens nye klæder?

The Borges comparison is a particularly odd one as the master would have done the entire book in 20 pages.

Very interesting parallels to Borges, Debra. Although I admit I'm with Paul on this one.

We also haven’t talked much on this thread (did we in prize speculation?) about the view of many readers who’ve read both books, that this is very derivative of Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise.

Which again can presumably be excused on the metafictional grounds that the whole book is about men taking credit for women’s work.

I was not thinking it was supposed to be a surprise at the end, either.

I think this is a case where the author's intent did not translate well into the final product.

The Trust Exercise connection actually fits into the conversation about whether the end of Trust was meant to be a surprise. Trust Exercise is very much a book that depends on surprise (two major twists - perhaps the only book I’ve given 5 stars that turns on surprise).

Have you read Trust Exercise, Paul? It won the NBA in 2019 so it’s not exactly obscure in the US.

David wrote: "The Trust Exercise connection actually fits into the conversation about whether the end of Trust was meant to be a surprise. Trust Exercise is very much a book that depends on surprise (two major t..."

I think of the Choi as pretty well-known too, although I didn't actually manage to finish it. Not entirely sure why that was.