Customer Reviews

The Last of All Possible Worlds

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"The Last of all Possible Worlds" AND "The Temptation to do Good" are outstanding and brilliant novels. They are very important additions to Peter Drucker's outstanding and comprehensive picture of management thinking and practice. If you dive into the world of different characters as described in Peter Drucker's novels as well as in his "Adventures of a Bystander" you will become fully aware and affected by profiles of psychological dynamics of people in action.

Peter F. Drucker may have gone the way of Southwest Airlines. Just like the low-cost carrier is famous for its no-frills, comical service within its own niche of flying short, profitable routes, Mr. Drucker is considered the founding father of the very recently developed art of effective, result- oriented management. His adventure into the tumultuous world of today's fiction may be akin to Southwest's dangerous foray into the cutthroat business of flying long-distance routes. "The Last of All Possible Worlds" occurs in the world of upper-class European society of the transitional age just before World War I. Central to its story are: the aristocratic Polish Prince Sobieski, a wealthy landowner, businessman, and the Austro-Hungarian diplomat to Great Britain; Hinton, a mathematics historian and an immensely successful banker; and the wealthy Jewish banker Mosenthal. "An Die Musik" completes the quartet. Sobieski's fourth of the novel takes place over only a few days, but seemingly all of the narration is either a look back into his long and eventful past or an insipid description of his daily duties. His dry, dull rise through diplomatic circles, countless one-night stands, and quixotic adventures with two lovers hardly arouses immediate interest, nor does it prove to contribute to the recital of the basic story, if there is any. Throughout the book, terms unfamiliar to most people, including élève, beau sabreur, Doppelgänger, jeune fille, ein Gebildeter Mensch, and even whole sentences (Ce pauvre homme; Je suis Grèque, vous saves, mais j étais née Egypte; Wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt) appear, presumably to express certain thoughts that English is not suitable for. The over-frequent references to European history, such as the Polish Soldier-King Sobieski of the late seventeenth century who freed Vienna from the Turks in 1683 and the Paris Commune of 1871 and the ensuing Prussian siege, would fluster the ordinary, perhaps even the well-educated, reader. Mr. Drucker's proclivity for erudite colloquy is evident in his narrative style. No less puzzling is the portrayal of the mathematical genius Hinton, who figures out his life by studying his mantra of Riemann's saying, "Don't define a problem, organize the set." Through long-winded examinations of three previous situations in which his life took major turns due to the financial scandals those around him had gotten involved in, Hinton discovers what he must do when a prominent English lord he has ties to is caught operating a counterfeiting operation in the French Riviera. Although the underlying thesis and focus of Hinton's struggle to act properly to salvage a bank are quite clear, Mr. Drucker strays off several times into half-riveting, though irrelevant, accounts of minor acquaintances of Hinton such as psychologist Dr. Ferenczi. He proposes the "Oedipus Complex" in which little boys develop libidinous feelings for their mothers and repulse their fathers. Although Mr. Drucker's novel begins like a typical fiction book, with characters engaging in relationships and having adventures, it quickly becomes obvious that he cannot restrain himself from discussing business. There are traces of explanations of the intricacies of banking and managing in Sobieski's section, but it begins in earnest with Hinton. Mosenthal's fourth of the book is filled with references to the Jewish styles of banking and management of Sobieski's estates, not to mention ambitious plans to industrialize backward, rural Austria and Hungary through the development of railways financed by the three men. "An Die Musik" is both a name of portrait of a woman fifty years older than she was in another portrait and a musical composition by Franz Schubert. This last fourth of the book hardly ties together the disparate story of the first three parts, though few, certainly not Mr. Drucker, could have written a conclusion capable of resolving the story. He has proven himself one of the best and most respected thinkers on management and society, but that is as far as he ought to go. Other airlines endangered themselves by leaving their niches, as Southwest may be doing. Mr. Drucker's endeavor into fiction has not been successful; he must stick with his specialty. After all, as he himself would say, "You've got to go with what works."