Have just finished reading “The Outcast” by Sadie Jones. Strange that I should finish it because in the beginning I could feel my upper lip curling, as it were, at the paucity of her prose: plain, simple, banal even and the best way I could describe it as seemingly written by a twelve year old for the understanding of a ten year old. This is another of those books nominated for a literary prize and hailed by the critics and the reason why I say strange is because, unlike books I cant get on with in the beginning and therefore don’t bother to finish, “Purple Hibiscus” for example, I found I couldn’t put this one down and, in the end, found it rather moving even though at times I felt Sadie maybe didn’t quite know what she was talking about; that twelve year old pretending to have the wisdom of someone many years her age. I wonder on whom she modelled her characters or were they purely fictional? That, anyway, was the feeling I got but, like I said, I finished it and found ultimately that her style, or lack of it, whatever, was actually dead right for her story. If Sadie or any of her friends ever reads this Blog, they can have a go at me and tell me if I’m wrong.
Meanwhile our friend Wolf Kern in Munich suggests I am too much of an angry old man in my Blogs and need to lighten up a little and talk about pleasant things! Well, can’t think of anything at the moment, Wolf, because even the weather is shitty and has been for a while back and I guess old men tend to get a bit grumpy at times, especially when reading the news and coming to the conclusion that the world is going to hell in a hand basket! Like I was going to talk about the bankers’ epiphany so here it is. “CITIGROUP BOSSES FOREGO BONUSES.” That’s it. Surprise surprise, how magnanimous of them. This particular bank (in line with all the other banks I suppose) is laying off staff, here to the tune of 53,000 to be thrown on the dole. Robert Rubin, since 1999 has banked $115 million dollars, the bank has had to rely on a government bailout to get it out of trouble and he and his fellow directors whose greed and incompetence put it there in the first place now magnanimously decide they won’t dig their greedy snouts any deeper into the trough. Where on earth is the logic in this type of financial shenanigan and, Wolf, you wonder why I am sometimes angry?
At least Madoff, and if the first three letters of his name sum him up, was/is a crook of the very first water and knew it all along. Writing about him in the financial section of The Mail, Rabbi Dovid Roberts says – If all the allegations are true, Madoff will go down in history as a bare-faced thief who has caused untold grief to Jewish charities, individuals and institutions. Rarely will an individual’s actions have been more destructive to Jewish repute.
But, when you come to put two and two together to get minus five in the world of high finance, is he really any worse than the others?