Trust Part 1 Revisited

in which we read a novel within a novel

Welcome to Reading Revisited, a place for friends to enjoy some good old-fashioned book chat while revisiting the truth, beauty, and goodness we’ve found in our favorite books.

Because he had enjoyed almost every advantage since birth, one of the few privileges denied to Benjamin Rask was that of a heroic rise: his was not a story of resilience and perseverance or the tale of an unbreakable will forging a golden destiny for itself out of little more than dross. (7)

Before we start I feel that I need to give you a few disclaimers lest you expect something from this Read Along Guide that I will not be offering.

Some Disclaimers

Things I am not…

• a financial expert

• a historian

• someone with strong political opinions about money

What I am…

• a lover of books

• a sucker for a creative narrative structure

• one who likes to think about the greater issues in response to stories and beautifully phrased writing

And with that out of the way, welcome to Trust. As I mentioned in the introduction, this is a novel that is composed of four separate books written by four fictional authors. We will take each book on its own and not try to connect them until the connections are made obvious. I am going to write so as to (hopefully) help you notice things I think are important or interesting without spoiling any of the future sections.

If you are with me in not being a financial expert, try not to get bogged down in the “money talk.” Hernan Diaz said that when he began this book he knew nothing about this world either. As he researched he “realized that money talk…is purposely esoteric. Like it’s designed to not be understood to create this aura around it…” So join the club of not understanding at all and let’s see what kind of journey Diaz takes us on.

I will say this again and again: let each section speak on its own. DO NOT GOOGLE ANYTHING. As the book progresses you will appreciate the mystery that is being unfolded. Hernan Diaz even said in an interview that he hopes that the reader will be a sort of detective and try to figure it out. Don’t cheat with the internet, it makes it less fun!

Without further ado, let’s jump into our first book, a novel (written inside of another novel)…remember what I said before about being a sucker for a creative narrative structure? There it is and here we go!

Bonds
by Harold Vanner

ONE

In this first chapter we meet our main character, Benjamin Rask. He is the son of absentee parents (of business and social obligations). Both of his parents die when he is in college and he inherits a large fortune and quickly becomes a recluse. He almost goes to Europe after the panic of 1893, but after he makes money on bonds he decides to stay and grow his wealth by gambling on the stock market. He is disinterested in anything that money can get him, but obsessed with money itself.

Those who accused him of being excessively frugal failed to understand that, in truth, he had no appetites to repress. (11)

This disinterest with the commodities money can provide is shown to us by the fact that his material possessions are becoming dilapidated as he is getting richer. Keep this in mind as we get to the next chapter and meet Helen’s family.

It is important to note the way he thinks about money. Again, he isn’t interested in what the money can offer him, but the “life” of money itself.

It was the complexity of it, yes, but also the fact that he viewed capital as an antiseptically living thing. It moves, eats, grows, breeds, falls ill, and may die. But it is clean. This became clearer to him in time. The larger the operation, the further removed he was from its concrete details. There was no need for him to touch a single banknote or engage with the things and people his transaction affected. All he had to do was think, speak, and perhaps, write. And the living creature would be set in motion, drawing beautiful patterns on its way into realms of increasing abstraction, sometimes following appetites of its own that Benjamin never could have anticipated… (16)

He hires Sheldon Lloyd to be his public face. This is a theme that I want to track. Who is hiding behind who and why?

The further and deeper his investments extended into society, the more he withdrew into himself. (22)

Is that everyone’s relationship to money? Or is it a “bentness” in Benjamin Rask? He remains completely content with this evasion of society, yet, the chapter ends with him considering marriage because of “genealogical responsibilities.”

TWO

And, very conveniently, in walks Helen Brevoort. Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves quite yet.

These first two chapters seem to be intentionally putting the two families up next to each other to compare and contrast them. So pay attention to where these families mirror one another. In contrast to Benjamin, the Breevorts are trying to hold on to their possessions while losing their wealth. Helen’s dad, Leopold, writes an academic treatise that gets no response and in consequence he decides to take charge of her education.

He found all the available schoolbooks insufficient, questioning both their content and pedagogical approach. (28)

And all the Classical/Charlotte Mason educators said “Amen!”

This seems like a great relationship until, like all of us idealists are in danger of doing, he takes a turn for the worse. And not coincidentally that is when the memories turn bad for Helen as well.

He embarks on a quest to use math in order to reach God. This is so frustrating because, like so many heresies, it has some truth in it, but then veers far from the path of orthodoxy. Of course God made an ordered universe and we can come to understand him through engaging with it, but to think that we can receive messages from angels through applying numerology to our dreams is a bit far. Also if it works, it could be the bad angels. This misguided thinking makes me think of Weston from Perelandra.

In response Helen starts to develop a new personality…

It was only in hindsight that she saw that all this prying had driven her to create a quiet, unassuming character, a role she performed with flawless consistency… (30)

In contrast to Benjamin, the Breevorts actually do go to Europe. As opposed to Mrs. Rask, Mrs. Brevoort uses her social connections for the whole family. But then she starts showing Helen off at parties and asks her to “please not tell Dad.” Obviously that backfires very quickly!

But there is no such thing as confidential publicity. (40)

The Breevorts should write a book on how not to parent…Leopold’s appalling descent in the teaching of his daughter and Catherine’s gross habit of making her a drawing room circus act makes me wonder if Benjamin was better off with absentee parents than Helen with her actively bad ones.

Let’s get back to Mr. Breevort. Now someone else (I assume a demonic spirit) is speaking through Mr. Breevort? Well that really reminds me of Weston from Perelandra. Also this is another instance of the theme I keep coming back to of who is hiding behind who or being the spokesperson for someone else.

When World War I starts the Breevorts are in Switzerland. The effect it has on each parent is worth noting. Mrs. Breevort is feeling right at home because everyone now has to live like she has been living for years. Mr. Breevort spirals downward quickly.

Leopold’s thoughts curved and curled on themselves, forming a circle that Helen could not enter and he was unable to leave. (44)

Shortly afterwards Leopold is institutionalized and Helen meets Sheldon Lloyd (Benjamin Rask’s front man). How appropriate that Sheldon meets Helen first! It is almost as if he woos her en persona Rask (this reminds me of Abraham sending his servant to find a wife for Isaac). Now, mind you, I don’t think this was Sheldon Lloyd’s intention. But he seems like a pretty good sport about it.

We get to see how manipulative Mrs. Breevort is in so many instances: in “not recognizing” Sheldon Lloyd, in her excessive verbal flattering, and in her shrewdly timely way of revealing their situation. He takes them back to New York and then she slyly convinces Sheldon to back off a bit “so his intentions seem uninterested” and then gets him to reveal more and more about Rask and finally weasels out an invitation to one of his parties. She is like an evil and successful Mrs. Bennett!

Helen is not at all impressed with Benjamin’s wealth…

The temples dedicated to wealth—with their liturgies, fetishes, and vestments—had never managed to transport Helen to a higher realm. She failed to be raptured. (50)

She is like Benjamin in a way. Also the opposite of her father in another way. I am interested in how Diaz will compare spirituality and business.

At the dinner Mrs. Breevort is sitting by Rask and it is almost the mirror of Sheldon and Helen. They are so alike that Helen recognizes his facial expressions and gestures even though she’s barely met him. The mirror imagery keeps coming up after they meet one on one.

…they shifted from one foot to the other at the same time. (52)

Helen knows that her mother has worked her magic and he will propose and she decides that she will say yes.

In his vast solitude she would find hers…he would either ignore her or be grateful for the good companion she would try to become. One way or the other…she would succeed in influencing her husband and obtaining the independence she so longed for. (53)

THREE

Great expectations die hard for Mrs. Breevort. Instead of the high society wedding she envisioned Benjamin and Helen are married quickly in a small ceremony with no honeymoon. Benjamin even ends up being at the stock ticker (at Helen’s prodding) on the staycation they do have.

Rask seems to be on the up and up and again! The language is filled with math, beauty, and references to the supernatural. The blurring of the lines between the supernatural and math makes me think of Helen’s father and the education he gave her.

Wall Street was perplexed by Rask’s accuracy and his systematic approach, which not only led to consistent earnings but also was an example of the most rigorous mathematical elegance—of an impersonal form of beauty. His colleagues thought him prescient, a sage with supernatural talents who simply could not lose.(63)

Helen becomes a philanthropist and it all centers on authors, psychiatric cures, and music. The way her philanthropy is described brings me back to thoughts of her father and I think the three things are all related. They read the books together, he went crazy, and music is math you can hear.

The speed at which Benjamin enlarged his fortune and the wisdom with which Helen distributed it were perceived as the public manifestation of the close bond between them. This, together with their elusiveness, turned them into mythical creatures in the New York society they so utterly disregarded… (70)

Then comes the crash of the stock market and everyone comes out pretty bad except one person. Coincidence? No way.

Everything…had been orchestrated by Rask. His hand was the hand behind the invisible hand. (75)

What an apt choice of words given some of the music metaphors we’ve encountered! As a result Helen is ostracized and starts being a complete recluse, albeit a very altruistic one. She fears the illness that her father had and with all the doubling and mirroring I am concerned too!

She could feel herself think differently and knew that, in the end, it did not matter whether this feeling was based on reality or fantasies. What mattered was that she was unable to stop thinking about her thoughts. Her speculations reflected one another…The mind becoming the flesh for its own teeth. (83)

Helen’s mind here is being referred to in the language of the stock market/money that Benjamin used earlier (the incestuous way that money begets money). As her illness progresses, Helen’s world is getting smaller and smaller like her parents shutting up the upstairs rooms. Now she can’t go down the stairs. It is like she was shut up in the rooms too.

She starts religiously writing in her journals…

She hoped her future self, the one reading her diaries, would be able to use those writings as a measure of how far into her delirium she had gone. (83)

However, Helen’s condition continues to worsen on the inner and outer level.

Only now, by seeing the violence on the surface, did he understand the turmoil within. (87)

Helen requests to go to the institution where they lost her dad. This doesn’t bode well. There is so much repetition between her parents’ story and hers that I am worried we are going to lose Helen too.

FOUR

Benjamin is now fully involved in Helen’s care and even gets annoyed when work concerns are brought to him. We get to see his (or his company’s) manipulative/controlling side (and power) when he requests extensive changes at the institute. Helen’s world is getting smaller as she is confined to her bed (not only her house, the top floor, or her room). This has to be an objective correlative for her mind turning in on itself as well.

When they get to the Institute we see the power language has on her mind…

Helen seemed calmer in German. Although she spoke it with remarkable ease, she also had vast lacunae, as is usually the case with those who have somewhat haphazardly taught themselves a language. Because she often had to pause and find circumlocutions to bypass grammatical voids and lexical gaps, she gave the impression of having slowed down, of having mastered, in some measure, her anxiety. (99)

The effect of the German language on Rask, however, is much different than that of Helen. It makes him more anxious about her state of health.

The doctor at the Institute also has an indifference to money. He is very reluctant to let Rask pay him off. It is interesting to see three characters in the book care so little about money (in some sense) when the rest of the world idolizes it and them for what they have.

I love the way the Institute talks about the body (and not only the mind) when it talks about healing!

(The Institute) did not reduce the body to a metaphor…. (104)

The more she exerted her body, the quieter her mind became...Little by little, her body was teaching her how to be quiet again. (104)

But, Benjamin doesn’t feel the same way as I do. He thinks it is all mumbo jumbo and decides to take her somewhere else. But in reality we can all see that he can’t handle not being in control.

there would be nothing that did not make sense to him, nothing that eluded his authority. (109)

Helen runs away from the institute just like her father. See what I said before? We were right to be worried. Helen has to be restrained in order to calm down from this event.

Every time she woke up and saw her bonds, Helen was surprised, then angry, then inconsolable. (110)

In response to this Rask gets his own doctor, his own staff, and closes her off in the north wing of the institute until she is healthy enough to be moved. The new doctor is much more “scientific” and Rask understands his rationale much better. The way he describes the precursor to Shock Therapy reminds me of the way G.K. Chesterton talks about the madman being rational.

…the madman’s explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory.

G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)

Also, the implication that the swiftness of the convulsive therapy makes it more humane is terrifying. But these numbers are ultimately what give Benjamin a sense of security.

But alas, even with all the assurance Rask felt, Helen dies in her last treatment session. It is so sudden and painful that we feel it with her.

Benjamin goes back to work, but never has the same success that he did while married to Helen.

Benjamin Rask’s time…was over. (124)

For the Love of Language

Time became a constant itch (12)

…she thought there was no greater violence that the one done to meaning. (41)

…privacy requires a public facade. (63)

She was particularly interested in living authors, although she initially refused to meet them, knowing the distance between the work and the person could be covered only by disappointment. (63)

Prohibition had no influence on the household’s innately temperate habits….Benjamin never stayed for these abstemious cocktail parties… (67)

Most of us prefer to believe we are the active subjects of our victories but only the passive objects of our defeats. We triumph, but it is not really we who fail—we are ruined by forces beyond our control. (73)

Only a fool would distinguish past from present in such a way. The future irrupts at all times, wanting to actualize itself in every decision we make; it tries, as hard as it can, to become the past. This is what distinguishes the future from mere fancy. The future happens. The Lord casts no one into hell; the spirits cast themselves down, according to Swedenborg. The spirits cast themselves into hell by their own free choice. And what is choice but a branch of the future grafting itself onto the stem of the present? (99-100)

The developments of the market reached him only as “news,” which is how the press refers to decisions made by other people in the recent past. (102)

Themes and Questions As We Move Forward

This book has been called meta…what is the story saying about story?

Where are we seeing people hiding behind someone else?

Here are some phrases I’ve heard Hernan Diaz use about the book and I think we should keep in mind…

• aesthete of money

• monkish qualities

• American myth making instinct

• Money’s ability to distort reality

• The relationship between history and fiction/fact and fabrication

Where is this book going and why haven’t we met any of the following books’ authors in the first book?

Diaz said that this first book was inspired by Edith Wharton…are you seeing those connections?

Reading Schedule

Friday, May 16th- Introduction and Reading Schedule

Monday, May 19th- ep. 55: Introduction to Trust w/

Sean Johnson

(from Close Reads)

Wednesday, May 21st- Bonds by Harold Vanner (pgs 3-126)

Wednesday, May 28th- My Life by Andrew Bevel (pgs 127-192)

Wednesday, June 4th- A Memoir, Remembered by Ida Partenza (pgs 193-360)

Wednesday, June 11th- Futures by Mildred Bevel (pgs 361-402)

Thursday, June 26th- Trust Virtual Book Club (contact us for a link to the zoom meeting)

Monday, July 7th- ep. 63: Revisiting Trust

Until next time, keep revisiting the good books that enrich your life and nourish your soul.

In Case You Missed It:

On the Podcast:

• ep. 52: Bookish Bio of Joel J. Miller

• ep. 53: Beauty and Imitation w/

  DANIEL McINERNY

• ep. 54: Revisiting the Moonstone

• ep. 55 Intro to Trust w/

  Sean Johnson

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What We’re Reading Now/Next:

June

Trust by Hernan Diaz

July

Everything Sad is Untrue by

Khosrou Daniel Nayeri

August

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

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