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harveymcfly 's review for:
Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt
by Arthur T. Vanderbilt II
Not a great piece of literature and strangely historically bereft this was nonetheless an interesting overview of the Vanderbilts. This is a tightly focused view into the Vanderbilts and the exclusive social circle which they finally penetrated and dominated as it became increasingly crushed by the weight of its own ostentation and outmoded, silly snobbery. The role of "History" in the demise of this world--the rise of factory class and the middle class, mass immigration, WWI, the Depression and WWII and so on--is barely even background to this recounting. And that makes this book feel rather frivolous. Not unlike many of its stars.
The fact that this was written by a Vanderbilt adds poignance to a multi-generational family history of people who were for the most part selfish, rigid and remarkably unpossessed of social conscience. Greedy, grasping, pompous and ostentatious for certain. Unless one knew they were for real one would have suspected Edith Wharton of weaving their story entirely from fictional threads. Their unkindnesses among themselves chill the blood. The story of green-backed social climbing and head bumping on the ceiling of old-money's sclerotic, uniquely American caste system is what continues to fascinate us with the Gilded Age. And underscores why ours in America was not La Belle Époque.
This also could be a cautionary tale for those who did not learn the lesson of today's never-ending recession. We cannot count on those whose overriding mission is to cling to unnecessary wealth to care for society's challenged when their greatest solipsistic needs are to build monuments to themselves.
The fact that this was written by a Vanderbilt adds poignance to a multi-generational family history of people who were for the most part selfish, rigid and remarkably unpossessed of social conscience. Greedy, grasping, pompous and ostentatious for certain. Unless one knew they were for real one would have suspected Edith Wharton of weaving their story entirely from fictional threads. Their unkindnesses among themselves chill the blood. The story of green-backed social climbing and head bumping on the ceiling of old-money's sclerotic, uniquely American caste system is what continues to fascinate us with the Gilded Age. And underscores why ours in America was not La Belle Époque.
This also could be a cautionary tale for those who did not learn the lesson of today's never-ending recession. We cannot count on those whose overriding mission is to cling to unnecessary wealth to care for society's challenged when their greatest solipsistic needs are to build monuments to themselves.