Never has "the money game" been more deliciously exposed than in this ingenious comedy-satire.
Grand Fenwick's secret weapon this time is its Grand Pinot chewing gum. At the conclusion of its victorious war against the United States, the duchy had lodged manufacturing rights to the product in an American company, where they had lain dormant. But now the anti-smoking campaign is in full tilt, gum sales have boomed, and Grand Fenwick receives a check, unheralded and unwanted, for one million dollars-its 40 per cent share of the first annual profit.
What consternation! For surely nothing good can result from the influx of those unneeded dollars into the tidy economy of Grand Fenwick (15 square miles; 5000 souls).
And indeed the consternation is well founded. One year later, the ills of inflation already afflicting every Grand Fenwickian, high or low, Conservative or Labor, the profit check is not one million dollars, but ten million.
Now only the benign Gloriana XII can save her people, and inspiration is equal to the perilous moment. Determining to lose the money by investing it on Wall Street, she closes her eyes-a classic method-and jabs at the financial page with her embroidery needle. Then, having airmailed off to the States a purchase order for stock in the company her needle has skewered, she settles back comfortably and confidently to her embroidery.
Clearly Gloriana XII is no financial genius, and, of course, her scheme goes awry. But just how so is a matter for Mr. Wibberley's risible ingenuity and for his readers.
Suffice it to say here that mergers merge, conglomerates conglomerate, and in due course all the money markets of the world begin to wobble. For what if Grand Fenwick should liquidate its billions-yes, they're billions now-of American assets and demand payment in gold?
Book Description
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great farce (or is it?),
By A Customer
This review is from: The Mouse on Wall Street (Hardcover)
I read this long ago in my school library, and I'm rather disappointed to find it out of print. It's a direct sequal to "The Mouse that Roared", where the Duchy of Grand Fenwick deals with a serious problem -- too much money. Individually, we can wish for that problem, but on a nationwise scale, too much money equals inflation. To cure a nationwide inflation problem, the ministers come up with a solution -- lose the money in the stock market. As with "The Mouse that Roared", the plan gets seriously fractured by the agents used to implement it, and some real crazy stuff goes on before things are settled.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fiduciary Fable,
By Gord Wilson "alivingdog.com" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE)
This review is from: The Mouse on Wall Street (55305699075, S569975CABB, 1971 Printing, Second Edition) (Paperback)
The Mouse That Roared was made into a popular movie with Peter Sellers. The Mouse on the Moon also made it to cinema. This third novel of Grand Fenwick, so far as I know, has yet to hit the silver screen. In my opinion it's not quite as funny as the others, but other factors kept me reading. Chief among these was the fact that Irish-born author Leonard Wibberly knows a lot about how finance works, and somehow managed to explain it clearly enough in this convuluted farce that even the economically challenged-- read: broke writers-- like myself could catch a glimmer of the mysteries of the dismal science.
For those who don't know, the Mouse in the title is a tiny country, Grand Fenwick, ruled by Duchess Gloriana XII and Count Mountjoy, although the Labor Candidate gets into office in this third novel. When the country's only profitable enterprise, a wine flavored gum made in the United States, begins to bring in a bankroll, Mountjoy sees the specter of mounting inflation, and schemes to get rid of the money. When the Duchess attempts to play the market in an attempt to buy worthless stocks, however, things go awry and in a comedy of errors she makes more and more of the green stuff until the world economy is in jeopardy. It's all a bit of a lark but I got enough of a clue to be able to read the stock exchange page and have some inkling what's going on. If this one makes it to the movies,I'd picture someone like Eva Gabor (from Green Acres) as the Duchess: charming yet unleashing a whirlwind with her Wall Street speculations. Three cheers (and four stars) for the Meece.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Listmania!
|
|
