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The political and economic elite gone wild

The Fierce People: A trace of the Amazon in New York's wealthy suburbs

The Yanomamo tribe of South America (known to anthropologists and other social scientists as "the fierce people") and the highfalutin upper class in the United States may have more in common than would be expected. Dirk Wittenborn continualldraws parallels between the two groups in The Fierce People, which raises the question, "Who would win in a fight?"

The Fierce People is a "fictional" account of a struggling, drug-addicted hippy (is that redundant?) and her adolescent son, Finn Earl, moving from a small apartment in New York City to a suburb occupied by the wealthiest people in the nation and those who serve them. The motif of the Yanomamo permeates the novel. Finn's father, who abandoned the family, is a leading expert on the Yanomamo, and Finn maintains an interest in the tribe. Ironically, while a major theme in the novel is Finn's desire to accompany his academic father to South America to live with the Yanomamo, Finn and his mother encounter a group of people in the suburbs who equal or surpass the fierceness of the tribe. Activities such as murder, adultery, incest, alcoholism, corruption, drug addition, competition, nepotism and sexual promiscuity are rife in the community of the ultra-elite, their progeny and those who cater to their whims.

While the novel has a solemn undertone of class jealousy and enmity, the book is filled with humor and the carefree bliss of youth. Such a contrast makes the reader feel disoriented at times. The novel begins with Finn waking up to his mother moaning, "Oh my God," which, according to Finn, "mean[t] one of two things: either something had caught fire in the toaster oven again, or Mom had a new boyfriend."

Finn and his mother function as a bridge between the upper class and those below them, as Finn's mother is only able to relocate her family to the suburbs because of a patriarch of the wealthy community. Her duties to this man are ambiguous, as are many of the relationships, professions, backgrounds and motives of the characters in the novel.

Dirk Wittenborn has written a fierce account of the upper class and their relations within their own constituents and other classes. While comprised predominantly of humor and Finn's journey through adolescence, the novel is also critical of upper-class greed and treatment of other classes. Yet by the end of the novel, we see that wealth may engender just as much ferocity as the Amazon.

-reviewed by Matthew Pflaum

All the King's Men: Power-hungry politicians with a penchant for hard alcohol

"The definitive novel about American politics," screams the cover of Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men, somewhat inaccurately. The novel is about American politics the same way Calvin and Hobbes is about a stuffed tiger or Romeo and Juliet is about Italian Renaissance marriage practices. Sure, the novel has politics in it. But the politics are more set-scenes to the emotional action than the action itself.

The novel details the dictatorial governorship of Willie Stark, known as "The Boss." Stark is loosely based on real-life Huey Long, who was governor and then senator of Louisiana in the 1930s. Stark begins as a sincere champion of the common people. Unfortunately, like every other character in the novel, within five pages Stark becomes a disillusioned dictator. The politics are less West Wing, more King Lear. Stark never talks with anyone or tries to come at anything democratically. He just barks out orders and then swears and drinks.

While Stark occupies the novel?s center, the action of the novel focuses on Stark's confidant Jack Burden, the novel?s narrator. Jack might just be the most cynical character in the whole of American literature. After a couple of pages, a reader will feel, like Jack, that life is a pointless charade and the only thing left to do is retreat to a bar and bitterly remember an idealistic past. Jack's personal life gets entwined in his work, and eventually, everything around him crumbles. While at some points Jack's digressions seem to distract from the compulsively interesting Stark, they build to a conclusion fitting of Greek tragedy.

Jack Burden's voice brings to mind Mark Twain nursing a really bad hangover after being jilted by a mean girlfriend. It sounds witty and conversational like Twain's, but when the punch-line hits, it?s bitter. A typical Jack Burden conversation goes, Jack: "You know what I mean?" Woman: "Yes." Jack: "Like hell you do." A deep violence runs beneath the book?s prose, foreshadowing the fall of Governor Stark. People don't eat or drink a thing, they do damage to it, sandwiches, cakes and (of course) bottles of whiskey.

Warren started the novel in Italy in 1939, when the fascist threat rumbled on his doorstep, and the novel was published shortly after the end of the Second World War. While the plot explores the psychology of a dictator, obviously a bigger issue in 1946 than in 2006, let?s hope, the human drama in the middle of the politics is essentially timeless. A movie version of the book, starring Sean Penn and Jude Law, is slated to come out late this year.

Somehow, despite the bitterness and the tragedy, Jack Burden keeps on living, and we read his story. Because of this, a certain vein of hope and beauty runs through the book, even in its most desperate places. Life can still be beautiful, and, even after everything, some people will survive. As America again faces a political crisis, that message may still give us comfort.

-reviewed by Brendan Mackie

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