Das Kapital: A novel of love and money markets [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Viken Berberian (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 5, 2007

Moving seamlessly between the financial skyscrapers of New York and the crisp blue skies of Corsica and Marseille, Das Kapital is an extraordinary homage to Marx's seminal work for the twenty-first century. Wayne is the emblematic Wall Street trader: opportunistic, brash and driven. His position is something of a rarity; he bets against the market's rise, gambling vast quantities of money on the short sell and profiting hugely from the collapse of entire economies and cultures -- in short, from the dissolution of financial and social infrastructure on a global scale -- all from the remote comfort of his Gloomberg terminal.

To accomplish this, Wayne enlists the aid of a cryptic Corsican whose own culture and identity are fast disappearing in the rise of a universal nationality -- one whose common language is email and whose treasured artifacts are zipped into slick JPEGs, viewed only in thumbnail size. Unbeknownst to them, both men are involved with the same woman, an architecture student named Alix who lives in Marseille. But while she and the Corsican have a physical relationship, it is the playfully erotic and strangely elusive email correspondence between Alix and Wayne that evokes both passion and tenderness.

Exquisitely written and infused with moments of irresistible humor, Das Kapital is a riveting story about capitalism and love, and the technology that controls them both.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A quirky combination of satire and thriller, this short novel defies easy categorization. "The Corsican," a bitter former tree cutter for a Corsican firm, goes to New York to see Wayne, a Gordon Gekko–like hedge fund runner who has recently sold a major stake in that company. When the Corsican, a nationalist seeking revenge on his former employers, asks Wayne about a job, Wayne is initially dismissive, but is soon employing him as a market-altering terrorist. Meanwhile, Alix, the Corsican's sometime lover, conducts a steamy, unrelated e-mail correspondence with the ferociously windy Wayne. Soon, all three converge on Marseilles as another scheme is set to unfold. While the story and characters tend to be all surface, Berberian's clear delight in Wall Street parody and in the eccentric details of Corsican life offsets the facile quality. Berberian (The Cyclist) also gets in some Paulo Coelho–like rants against modernity that pay homage to Karl Marx's great work, Das Kapital, but readers won't need to know any Marx to enjoy this clever and interesting tale. (June)
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About the Author

Viken Berberian is a novelist and author of The Cyclist. He has written for The New York Times, the Financial Times and the Los Angeles Times. For the past five years he has lived and worked in Manhattan, Paris and Marseille.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743267230
• ISBN-13: 978-0743267236
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #382,576 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Viken Berberian is the author of The Cyclist (Simon & Schuster/2002) and Das Kapital: a novel of love & money markets (Simon & Schuster/2007). Berberian has contributed to the the New York Times, the Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune, Le Monde Diplomatique, the Los Angeles Times and Inculte, a French literary and philosophical quarterly. His novels have been translated to French, Hebrew, Dutch and Italian. He is the recepient of a writing fellowship (2009-2010) from the Centre National du Livre of the French Ministry of Culture.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Berberian's writing style is the real star here, February 20, 2008

By 

JustinWrites "book-y" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Das Kapital: A novel of love and money markets (Hardcover)

The title of the novel is a direct play on the Marx/Engels non-fiction analysis on capitalism and its critical applications in society and on the laboring man. Berberian, who has written for the NY & LA Times, as well as for The Financial Times, knows his way around global markets and hedge fund traders, which he exploits to the fullest here. The action takes place from Manhattan's Wall Street to Marseille's mean streets, revolving around three main players: trader Wayne, architecture student Alix, and the mysterious Corsican. Global economies, terrorism and e-mail connects the three players, cocooned in a literary style that is at once cold and calculating while managing to also be very lyrical and haunting. It reminded me of a book from the capitalistic 80s that was never written (something that McInerney or Ellis would have written if they weren't so solipsistic) and had tones of narrative structure and tenseness that Alex Garland achieved in the wonderful "The Tesseract." Ultimately, all of the pieces don't quite come together in the way the author intends, and I was left a little hollower when I finished than when I began... but the writing is tremendous, the juxtaposition between poetic language and stock-trading terminology a near-to-masterful feat. I was never really invested in the characters, yet I followed the author's lead regardless, and let the stellar writing carry me through to the story's conclusion.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Necessary reading for citizens of capital markets, July 24, 2007

By 

The Just (CALIFORNIA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Das Kapital: A novel of love and money markets (Hardcover)

Much like the main character Wayne, I avoid fiction novels - unless there is an important lesson that may be derived from the reading. This book perfectly encompasses the reasons why I think fiction should ever be read and it does so with a subtle mockery of the reason that was the source of my disdain: the capital markets.

I loved this book because it so simply highlighted how in our persistent pursuit of wealth, we rarely make the effort to appreciate what we were presumably accumulating the wealth for in the first place. The pleasantries of life such as companionship, of natural beauty, of moderate laziness are replaced with electronic toys, quick thrills (like a ten million dollar play against the market), fragile designer furniture. We become concerned with salaries, investments, 401Ks, retirement planning, expected growth, dividends ... except we forget that the original plan was to use these things to somehow enjoy our lives - although we may have forgotten how to enjoy anything besides the increased return on investment of our portfolios. What good is money if you don't use it?

Berberian clearly understands all of this and coupled with his immaculate descriptions of people, places, and things, he creates a wondrous projection of our capitalist society - not to condemn it but to show that capitalism need not be the sole governing philosophy of our existence.

In total, the perfectly placed instances of humor along with the important and relevant societal messages make for a thoroughly enjoyable and significant literary work. Every lover, financier, employee, and hopeful bon vivant should read this book.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Das Kapital for today, July 9, 2007

By 

Erato (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Das Kapital: A novel of love and money markets (Hardcover)

You're going to want to reread this book as soon as it ends. It is the story of today's world, froth with suspension of conscience in the abysmal pursuit of wealth, abated only by primal human needs and wants. You will find the protagonist Wayne endearing despite his obnoxious Manhattanite tendencies complete with a Varda shoe collection and Hans Wegner furniture. You will find comical the fustian melodrama with which he greets his hedgefund colleagues AND his sandwiches that consistently arrive sans the desired avocado. You might even dismiss his utter and specific dedication to econoterrorism. Berberian propels you there. You will be drawn to Wayne's cryptic partnership with a Corsican obsessed with ecopreservation and all things bucolic. He executes Wayne's strategy of blasting international financial landmarks for market manipulation, in as clandestine a manner as he preserves his relations with Wayne's beloved. You might find the Corsican esoteric but easily engage his frustration with a world not concerned with losing its trees or finding its red ants. Perhaps you will most relate to Berberian's Alix. A capricious architecture student, she offers an appreciation of Marseille--its hues and babble--strangely, but alluringly, from its rooftops. Ultimately, she provides Wayne and the Corsican with the actual blueprints necessary for their schemata, and this story the grace it yearns. Berberian tells a harsh story, reminiscent of daily CNN reports (to which we're now immune) from seemingly the middle of nowhere across the Atlantic, with the delicacy of Queen Anne's lace. He weaves, with unparalleled ease, algorithmic theorems and ideologies long-forgotten with amorous details of keeping count of a lover's birthmarks and the sequence of their emails. His storytelling is almost algebraic in design, such that the reader is comfortable with the organized chaos of the intersecting yet linear lives of the characters on different continents and different spheres of thought. He quotes Guy Debord within a page of a generic "roses are red, violets are blue" poem, and, in doing so, helps you internalize and champion the ideologies, strata and human condition of each of his characters. Berberian has a way of making you feel like you are part of the story, aware of every iota of the characters' environment, from furniture that has affect, to eateries screaming with personality, and swimming-pools in glass buildings that tout the best capitalism has to offer. Nothing about Berberian's writing is incidental. His approach is scientific, his lexicon poignant, his wry humor inescapable. However, there is nothing categorical or conditional about the organic manner with which he presents you this story and helps make it your own. This is the story of today's world in which Marx's Das Kapital is challenged daily, and the ultimate victor is never really clear and always victim to interpretation. You're going to want to reread this book as soon as it ends.