Somewhere in the last 100 pages, Duchess tells us that in vaudeville, it is all about the setup. He brings up Mandrake the Magnificent, who wasn’t a great magician, but what he lacked in the general act, he made up in the finale. The book is something like that. The countdown approach to chapters also helps set up a fantastic climax.
The Lincoln Highway is not Rules of Civility, it’s definitely not A Gentleman in Moscow. You’ll be better off without that set of expectations. The characters are younger and less sophisticated though still fascinating, and the narrative didn’t have the subtle nuances the earlier books had. It is probably closer to say, a Huckleberry Finn. Or as someone wrote, it’s an ode or love letter to the classic American road trip. I didn’t love it like I did the other two, but having said that, it is well structured and an absolutely enjoyable read. Something about the book(s) reminds me of Jeffrey Archer – the unambiguity of right and wrong, morally upright characters and a world that was less complex.
The story is of three boys in their late teens who know each other from a juvenile ‘camp’ – Emmett, Duchess and Wally. And Emmett’s precocious younger brother Billy, the fourth musketeer. Towles does a good job of creating multiple narrators – they add perspectives and help in making the characters (and their actions) relatable. The circumstances of the three are completely different, as are the reasons they landed up in the camp. Both of these factors exist on a continuum, with the three characters at different points. And in many ways, this have an impact on their character and the decisions they make. That’s essentially the book – good, evil, the choices we make, and their implications – now and later. In fact, with the destinations and detours, the road (The Lincoln Highway) from one end to the other (in this case, America) is probably a metaphor for life.
The book has connections to Towles’ earlier works. Amor Towles doesn’t seem to be done with Manhattan, and while it doesn’t have the presence it did in Rules of Civility, it is at least a side character. On p455, when Wally describes his uncle’s watch, I had a feeling of deja vu. Turns out the uncle is Wallace from Rules of Civility! The camp at Adirondacks is also revisited. And this might be just a coincidence, but June 1954 is when The Gentleman in Moscow ends. That’s also when this book begins. Maybe we have an Amor Towles Universe forming. I, for one, won’t mind that at all.
Asides: Once you’ve read about Leonello’s amazing business model and that special dish – Fettuccine Mio Amore (p 138), look up Amor Towles’ website for the recipe 🙂 My favourite part was in p505-6 when Abacus Abernathy gives a perspective on the two halves of life – divergence and convergence. First, the world opens out and then, as we age, it closes in. It was amazingly articulated and I could relate to it a lot.
If it doesn’t upend deeply held beliefs and origin stories, it isn’t really a Graeber book! The story goes that from money came debit and credit, but in Debt, he argues, with excellent evidence as always, that long before money came into the picture, we had ‘human economies’ which were imprecise, informal, and had a community-focused and shared ecosystem approach. An ‘everyday communism’ in which people owed favours to each other. And then the favour was converted into a mathematically precise entity, mostly thanks to the machinations of war, and sponsored by the state. Cash, barter, and every other method of financial transaction came later, and began exclusively for scenarios where there was low trust. Debts cannot be stolen, gold and silver can. Favours are relationships. Debt is a transaction. And thus ‘the history of debt is also the history of money’.
He begins with the morality of debt and the paradox of two popular views – paying back what one owes is moral, and lending money as a habit/profession is evil. In the fantastic section on ‘primordial debt’, he traces the cultural narrative of humans owing debts to the God who created them, and how sacrifices were a means to try and pay a debt that could never be repaid. People also owed a debt to society in general, and governments became the custodian of it.
Using evidence (or the lack of it) he shows how the common story of barter leading to a common currency is a myth and that it stemmed from a narrative of ‘the economy’ that was ‘separate from moral or political life’. Barter is a very recent phenomenon, and the correct order is actually credit systems (‘virtual money’ – not to be confused with digital!) – money – barter. And when money came into the picture, it served as a yardstick – of debt. A coin was an IOU. And one that the state was interested in because they wanted uniform systems of weights and measures across their kingdom. He proposes that there are three moral principles on which all economic relations are founded – communism (or love if you don’t want to sound political), hierarchy, and exchange. The first was based on expectations and responsibilities from/to each other. Then there is exchange based on equality and reciprocity (these don’t lead to a ‘market’). The hierarchies, over a period of time, formalised inequalities into castes and related customs and behaviour.
In early civilisations – India, Sumer – there were ‘primitive money’ mechanisms, such as the ones which were used to arrange marriages, resolve blood feuds ans other social interactions where there was a debt, but which was not easy to quantify. It was common for people to get into levels of debt that forced them/their family to get into ‘peon service’, which resulted in slavery. But they could work their way out of debt. Also, early kings did a reset on a regular basis by canceling all debts. But when violence got into the picture, things changed. War converted ‘human economies’ into ‘market economies’. In war, a person ‘owes’ his/her conqueror his/her life, and the conqueror can extract anything he wants. Humans became slaves, a commodity that could be bought and sold. To be a slave was to be ‘not free’ and in debt, forever.
All of this last part began in the Axial Age (800BC to 600AD) when markets first started appearing as a side effect of government administration. But this soon got mixed up with war. When wars abounded, being a soldier became a profession. Coinage was a way to pay these soldiers/mercenaries. Gold and silver were mined by slaves and/or acquired during a war, and states started insisting that they serve as legal tender for all payments. A sort of ‘military-coinage-slave’ complex. This was the time that coinage was invented. First by private citizens and then appropriated by the state. Alexander was apparently responsible for killing the old credit systems. Precious metals, owned by temples and rich people thus far, started making its way into the life of common folks.
In parallel, historic all-time greats such as Pythagoras, Confucius and Buddha co-existed (with little knowledge of each other) and humans started reasoned enquiry into the nature of things, and practically every major religion in the world was born, trying to find new ways of thinking about ethics and morality. They rejected the violence of politics, and tried using the knowledge from impersonal markets to create a new sense of morality. But except in China, religion and market couldn’t stay together for long. In the Middle Ages (600-1450 AD), when old empires collapsed and new ones began to form, hard currency began to be less commonly used, but the system of accounts and credit continued to be used. Even Europe did not revert to barter. And elsewhere in the world, new financial systems and instruments began to emerge – promissory notes and paper money (China, where the empire survived), and letters of credit and cheques (in the Islamic world). The roots of most of the worldview in finance can be traced back here. First, China’s less-than-appreciative view of capitalism. ‘Merchants were greedy and immoral’ and ‘if kept under careful administrative supervision, they could be made to serve the public good.’ There is a very interesting part about Buddhism turning to high-interest loans and altering debt-contracts to fuel its expansion! In the Islamic world, the merchant was a respected figure, pursuing honourable adventures in far lands, sealing transactions with ‘a handshake and a glance at heaven’. Despite this capitalism in its current form didn’t emerge there because the government was kept away from the markets, and the merchants ensured profits were the reward for risk. Guaranteed returns (fixed rates of interest) were a concept frowned upon in Islam. Interestingly, over in Europe, this was when Roman law was revived and ‘interest’ began to be seen as ‘a compensation for losses suffered due to delayed payment’. It was also when the Jews started getting a bad rep for charging high interest rates. Interesting side journeys include the Crusades as a way to create new markets, and Shakespeare’s ‘Merchant of Venice’ being a guilty projection of terrors directed the other way around.
We finally get to the Age of the Great Capitalistic Empires (1450-1971 AD) – the Atlantic slave trade and the mining of gold and silver in the Americas, which was mostly used to trade in China, India and the Far East. This prompted the return of the bullion economy and the emergence of Italian city-states which ignored the Catholic Church’s ban on usury and ultimately led to the current age of great capitalist empires. Also, a reemergence of military endeavours – ‘when Vasco da Game entered the Indian Ocean in 1498, the principle that the seas should be a zone of peaceful trade came to an immediate end’. In the Axial Age, money was a tool of the empire. When the latter collapsed, the former went with it. But now, money was autonomy and political and military powers were reorganised around it. Municipal bonds were first introduced by the Venetian government as a way to levy a compulsory loan on taxpaying citizens to fund a military campaign. It promised 5% annual interest and these bonds were negotiable, creating a market for government debt. The beginning of paper money in the Western world. But it was the creation of the Bank of England in 1694 and its bank notes that truly made paper money mainstream.
In 1971, Nixon announced that foreign-held US dollars would no longer be convertible to gold. And that was the end of the gold standard. Since then, American imperial power is based on a perpetual debt – a promise to its own people and nations across the world! Fiat money backed by public trust. When it needs money, it prints it! And the premise that some of us have to pay our debts and some of us don’t.
Thus, a book that has world history, religion, the state and the military, and yes, the origin of money. It isn’t as though I can absorb or understand all the contexts and perspectives that Graeber offers in his books. But I read it for three things – one is that he provides view that is starkly original, different and thought-provoking as compared to prevalent narratives, the second is that his research quality is so good that even though I may not comprehend everything, there are bits that are amazing information/insights, and the third is that is that he is incredibly empathetic and earnest about how things should be better for everyone.
Michael Finkel begins the book with a quote attributed to Socrates – “How many things there are that I do not want.” It’s a perfect start because the subject of the book – Christopher Knight – eschewed everything that was non-essential to himself back in 1986, the year that Chernobyl happened, when he was twenty. In his first road trip, he drove till he nearly ran out of gas. “I took a small road. Then a small road of that small road. Then a trail off that.” And then he disappeared for the next twenty-seven years, in the woods of “the maine land of New England”, Maine. Living less than three miles from society, and yet inhabiting a world that was only his.
He ‘raided’ camps for his food, fuel, entertainment and other requirements. Books were a weakness – spy novels and science fiction to Ulysses, his favourite was ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’. Never extravagant, he only took what he absolutely needed, and felt deeply guilty about that. Reactions to him ranged from a deep admiration for the life he chose to hatred for the feeling of insecurity he created among residents. Eventually, he came to be known as the hermit. One whom no one could track, because he didn’t even leave footprints. He tried not to even give a hint that the place had been robbed, even refitting doors if it came to that! Though sensors and surveillance tools became more efficient, he managed to evade them. A camp for the disabled was ‘his private Costco’, and that’s where he was finally caught.
He didn’t really know why he chose to do this, but he was an introvert who found interactions with society and its rules tedious. Hermits are usually of three types – protesters, pilgrims, and pursuers. Japan has a million of the first kind – hikikomori – dubbed the lost generation. Most religions have the second kind. The third are the most modern, and they seek ‘alone time’ for what they want to do -from artistic freedom to self discovery.
Knight left because ‘the world was not made to accommodate people like him.’ ‘It wasn’t so much a protest as was a quest; he was like a refugee from the human race. The forest offered him shelter.‘ His plan was to eventually die in the forest. After he was apprehended, he spent some time in prison. In his own way, he tried to adjust. But he just couldn’t socialise, even his meetings with the author were awkward and full of silence. When the author saw him last, in court, after he had been living with his family for a while, he seemed compliant, where once he had been full of defiance. ‘He had seen the bottomless nonsense of our world and has decided, like most of us, to simply try to tolerate it‘.
I found the book deeply poignant. There is something noble about a person whose response to the way of the world was to quietly withdraw from it. Twenty seven years is a long time to survive outdoors, especially in a geography whose winters are cruel. And yet, that’s where he found peace.
Favourite quote: Not till we have lost the world do we begin to find ourselves ~ Henry David Thoreau
As a journalist and for this book, William Green interacted with over forty marquee investors – from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger to Jack Bogle, Sir John Templeton, Howard Marks, Nick Sleep & Qais Zakaria, and many others whom I encountered for the first time. With access to not just their behaviour and rituals, but even their homes, relationships and deepest philosophies, Green is able to glean insights and synthesise them into great lessons for investing, and to some extent, life.
There are fantastic stories – Mohnish Pabrai’s relentless cloning, John Templeton’s cold remorseless discipline (in evaluations of others and self), his willingness to be lonely, and that amazing ‘short’ during the dot-com boom and bust when he was in his late eighties(!), Howard Marks’ lessons of humility from Japanese Buddhism, Eveillard’s view on not depending on the kindness of strangers (amen), McLennan’s appreciation for entropy being the ironclad rule of the universe, Greenblatt’s preference of a sensible and good enough strategy over an optimal one, Tom Gayner’s approach of small, incremental advances over long stretches of time, Geritz’s ‘price of a hotel room’ heuristic in a country she’s considering for investments, Kahn’s prudent thoughts on preserving wealth, and Munger’s principles for avoiding idiocy, and his seminal lesson to Buffett- ‘It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.’ And yes, omnipresent is the towering godfather whose influence is visible in many conversations – Benjamin Graham.
Their philosophical inspirations range from Vivekananda and Buddha to Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus to Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). The great truths, as Green mentions, are deceptively simple, but few have the wisdom, the focus, and the nerve to create and apply their philosophy, while subtracting everything else, over extended periods of time.
After I finished reading, I wondered whether there is an over-indexing on richer, then wiser, and only then happier. Why is this important? While money definitely is not a guarantor of happiness, and people can be wise and happy even while not being rich, both wisdom and happiness have its own mindset play and a line of thinking and doing, to achieve it. It isn’t that it doesn’t get a mention. Many investors do bring up their philosophical inspirations and the books they read, in addition to fitness, mental health, family and relationships, ‘purpose’, but the focus is clearly on investing. In my case, I have realised that I need to be financially secure for me to get (what I currently think is) my gateway to happiness – freedom, from the opinion of others, and time (which they use to read). This is interestingly a common point that I share with at least a couple of investors. That’s encouraging!
Favourite quotes ‘Hope is not a method‘ ~ Jeffrey Gundlach ‘Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.’ ~ Demosthenes
I don’t know if I (sub)consciously avoided travelogues since 2020 because I would miss travel even more. But irrespective of that, there was something very poignant about the title itself, so I just had to pick it up. The good news is that it lived up to its promise. Anna Sherman does in this book what my favourite books about places do – let me travel in time and space.
The second part of the title – Meditations on Time and a City – gives a very good idea of the book’s focus. It talks about both the changes in Edo (before it came to be called Tokyo) with time, as well as its changing relationship with time itself. Like many other concepts, the Japanese have many words for time according to the context. Before its citizens started using manufactured devices to tell time, Edo’s time was told by the ringing of bells. At first, there were three, but by 1720, as the population touched a million, six more were added. And these bells are what the narrative follows.
With each, there are stories attached. Origin stories of the locality and the bell, and its journey through times good and bad – victories, wars, earthquakes, fires and so on. Nihonbashi – the Zero Point has its prison stories (prisoners let out during a fire would voluntarily return because they’d be found and killed otherwise). Asakusa has its beauty and murder story. Akasaka has the smallest bell, and love-hotel rooms which cater to any and all fetishes, with protocols that outsiders will find difficult to understand. Mejiro is home to the stone that honours the rebel samurai Chūya Marubashi. Nezu has a fascinating tale of clockmaking and how time shifted from personal to shared, and ‘the idea of time became mechanical.’ Ueno, where the battle in 1868 marked the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. A few months later, Edo would start making way for Tokyo. Where the bell-ringer knows he is probably the last of his kind. Kitasuna, where more than 700,000 bombs landed on 9-10 March 1945, and caused the deaths of more people than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The book did a fantastic job of transporting me to the time and place. The words somehow gave me a visceral feeling of the place, the emotions of the different people who lived there, their daily existence, the events they have gone through, and sometimes I tended to see the place as a person too – changing, shifting, sometimes slowly and sometimes suddenly. It was like walking through the lanes. The one thing that I wish the book also had was maps so I could also get a better directional sense of where these places are. I think, after this book, when I do visit Tokyo (Edo), I will see it through new eyes and old stories.
