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The "Goldfish" — обложка книги
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The "Goldfish"

Автор Arthur Train
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Дата написания1970-01-01
Язык книгиen
Возрастное ограничение0+
Жанры
истории успехазарубежная старинная литературабиографии и мемуары

Описание

Книга представляет собой личный монолог 50‑летнего Артура Ченни Трена, юриста и инвестора, который в ходе размышлений о своём дне рождения, элитных мероприятиях, воспитании детей и управлении капиталом приходит к выводу, что материальный успех не приносит удовлетворения, а истинное счастье связано с реальными отношениями и простотой.

Главный конфликт / проблема

Внутренний конфликт между материальным успехом и внутренним недовольством, а также внешняя борьба с женой по поводу изменений в образе жизни и ценностях

Ключевые идеи

  • Материальный успех не гарантирует счастья.
  • Возраст вызывает внутренний конфликт между внешним и внутренним восприятием себя.
  • Необходимость объективного самопознания и анализа собственной жизни.
  • Критика социальных обязанностей и потребительского образа жизни.
  • Отношения с семьёй и их влияние на личное удовлетворение.
  • Американское общество оценивает статус главным образом через богатство, а не заслуги.
  • Элитные мероприятия полны искусственности, поверхностных бесед и отсутствия реального общения.
  • Переход американских женщин к французскому демимондэйн отражает моральный упадок общества.
  • Театральные и культурные развлечения становятся площадкой для сексуальной провокации.
  • Проблема поверхностного образования и отсутствия критического мышления.
  • Родительская дистанция и привилегированное воспитание приводят к социальной изоляции детей.
  • Деньги как источник власти и благополучия, но они могут стать пустыми и изолирующими.

Вывод

Книга приводит к выводу, что богатство и статус могут стать тяжестью, и истинное счастье достигается через простоту, реальное общение и переосмысление ценностей.

Кому полезна

  • Люди, стремящиеся к самопознанию
  • Бизнесмены и инвесторы, ищущие баланс между богатством и личной жизнью
  • Критики общества и ценителей философских размышлений

Главные темы

  • Критика элитного общества и поверхностности американского статуса
  • Моральный упадок и влияние французской культуры на общество
  • Влияние богатства и материального успеха на личную жизнь и семейные отношения

Персонажи

  • Артур Ченни Трен — Пытается адаптироваться к требованиям элитного общества, но чувствует себя неуклюжим и чужим. Критически относится к современным моральным и культурным тенденциям. Он богат, но эмоционально отстранён, живёт в изоляции от семьи и друзей, руководствуется прагматизмом и подходом к деньгам. Сочетает материальный успех с внутренним недовольством; стремится к самопознанию.
  • Жена Артура — Участвует в общественной жизни, но не всегда понимает внутренний конфликт мужа.
  • Сын Артура — Показывает интерес к танцам и развлечениям, но не совпадает с интересами отца.
  • Дочери Артура — Обладает независимостью, но их жизнь воспринимается как часть семейного статуса.
  • Mrs. Jones — Молодая женщина, с которой пытается танцевать нарратор.
  • James Hastings — Работает в компании главного героя, но отказывается от карьерного роста. Показывает, как можно жить без излишеств, и критикует чрезмерное богатство.
  • Германский клиент — Поставил главному герою дело, которое привело к его становлению в доверительном фонде.
  • Миссис Хастингс — Поддерживает гостя, но не участвует в философских обсуждениях.
  • Старый ирландский нянь — Служил детям с раннего возраста, проявил глубокую привязанность.
  • Валет — Подготовил багаж для нарратора и жены, но не смог помочь в нужный момент.

Цитаты

  • «Мы выросли буквально бояться быть бедными. Мы презираем любого, кто выбирает бедность, чтобы упростить и спасти свою внутреннюю жизнь.»
  • «Я не могу представить, что я счастлив, если не чувствую, что мои усилия и достижения имеют смысл.»
  • «Это замечательно утверждать, что здесь, в Америке, из «демократии возможностей» возникла «аристократия достижений».»
  • «В первый раз, когда меня и мою жену пригласили на уикенд‑вечеринку в загородном доме известной нью‑йоркской хозяйки, мы оба были очень взволнованы.»
  • «Театральные представления, особенно в Нью-Йорке, становятся площадкой для сексуальной провокации, что, по его мнению, подрывает традиционные ценности.»
  • «Проблема поверхностного образования и отсутствия критического мышления.»
  • «Тяжесть богатства… это как цепь, которая сжимает человека»
  • «Я хочу освободиться от своего груза»

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* * * * *

I laughed a hollow laugh when she had gone. Really there was something humorous about it all. What was the use even of trying? I did not seem even to belong in my own house unless my clothes matched the wall paper! I lit cigarette after cigarette, staring blankly at my silk pajamas laid out on the bed.

I could not change things! It was too late. I had brought up my son and daughters to live in a certain kind of way, had taught them that luxuries were necessities, had neglected them—had ruined them perhaps; but I had no moral right now to annihilate that life—and their mother's—without their consent. They might be poor things; but, after all, they were my own. They were free, white and twenty-one. And I knew they would simply think me mad!

I had a fixed place in a complicated system, with responsibilities and duties I was morally bound to recognize. I could not chuck the whole business without doing a great deal of harm. My life was not so simple as all that. Any change—if it could be accomplished at all—would have to be a gradual one and be brought about largely by persuasion. Could it be accomplished?

It now seemed insuperably difficult. I was bound to the wheel—and the habits of a lifetime, the moral pressure of my wife and children, the example of society, and the force of superficial public opinion and expectation were spinning it round and round in the direction of least resistance. As well attempt to alter my course as to steer a locomotive off the track! I could not ditch the locomotive, for I had a trainload of passengers! And yet—

I groaned and buried my face in my hands. I—successful? Yes, success had been mine; but success was failure—naught else—failure, absolute and unmitigated! I had lost my wife and family, and my home had become the resort of a crew of empty-headed coxcombs.

I wondered whether they were gone. I looked at the clock. It was half-past twelve—Sunday morning. I opened my bedroom door and crept downstairs. No; they were not gone—they had merely moved on to supper.

My library was in the front of the house, across the hall from the drawing room, and I went in there and sank into an armchair by the fire. The bridge party was making a great to-do and its strident laughter floated up from below. By contrast the quiet library seemed a haven of refuge. Here were the books I might have read—which might have been my friends. Poor fool that I was!

I put out my hand and took down the first it encountered—John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. It was a funny old volume—a priceless early edition given me by a grateful client whom I had extricated from some embarrassment. I had never read it, but I knew its general trend. It was about some imaginary miserable who, like myself, wanted to do things differently. I took a cigar out of my pocket, lit it and, opening the book haphazard, glanced over the pages in a desultory fashion.

"That is that which I seek for, even to be rid of this heavy Burden; but get it off myself, I cannot; nor is there any man in our country that can take it off my shoulders—"

So the Pilgrim had a burden too! I turned back to the beginning and read how Christian, the hero, had been made aware of his perilous condition.

"In this plight therefore he went home, and refrained himself as long as he could, that his Wife and Children should not perceive his distress, but he could not be silent long, because that his trouble increased: Wherefore at length he brake his mind to his Wife and Children; and thus he began to talk to them: 'Oh, my dear Wife,' said he, 'and you the Children of my bowels, I, your dear Friend, am in myself undone by reason of a Burden that lieth hard upon me.' … At this his Relations were sore amazed; not for that they believed that what he had said to them was true, but because they thought that some frenzy distemper had got into his head; therefore, it drawing toward night, and they hoping that sleep might settle his brains, with all haste they got him to bed: But the night was as troublesome to him as the day; wherefore, instead of sleeping, he spent it in sighs and tears."

Surely this Pilgrim was strangely like myself! And, though sorely beset, he had struggled on his way.

"Hast thou a Wife and Children?

"Yes, but I am so laden with this Burden that I cannot take that pleasure in them as formerly; methinks I am as if I had none."

Tears filled my eyes and I laid down the book. The bridge party was going home. I could hear them shouting good-bys in the front hall and my wife's shrill voice answering Good night! From outside came the toot of horns and the whir of the motors as they drew up at the curb. One by one the doors slammed, the glass rattled and they thundered off. The noise got on my nerves and, taking my book, I crossed to the deserted drawing room, the scene of the night's social carnage. The sight was enough to sicken any man! Eight tables covered with half-filled glasses; cards everywhere—the floor littered with them; chairs pushed helter-skelter and one overturned; and from a dozen ash-receivers the slowly ascending columns of incense to the great God of Chance. On the middle table lay a score card and pencil, a roll of bills, a pile of silver, and my wife's vanity box, with its chain of pearls and diamonds.

Fiercely I resolved again to end it all—at any cost. I threw open one of the windows, sat myself down by a lamp in a corner, and found the place where I had been reading. Christian had just encountered Charity. In the midst of their discussion I heard my wife's footsteps in the hall; the portières rustled and she entered.

"Well!" she exclaimed. "I thought you had gone to bed long ago. I had good luck to-night. I won eight hundred dollars! How are you feeling?"

"Anna," I answered, "sit down a minute. I want to read you something."

"Go ahead!" she said, lighting a cigarette, and throwing herself into one of the vacant chairs.

"Then said Charity to Christian: Have you a family? Are you a married man?"

"CHRISTIAN: I have a Wife and … Children."

"CHARITY: And why did you not bring them along with you?"

"Then Christian wept and said: Oh, how willingly would I have done it, but they were all of them utterly averse to my going on Pilgrimage."

"CHARITY: But you should have talked to them, and have endeavored to have shown them the danger of being behind.

"CHRISTIAN: So I did, and told them also what God had shewed to me of the destruction of our City; but I seemed to them as one that mocked, and they believed me not.

"CHARITY: And did you pray to God that He would bless your counsel to them?

"CHRISTIAN: Yes, and that with much affection; for you must think that my Wife and poor Children were very dear unto me.

"CHARITY: But did you tell them of your own sorrow and fear of destruction?—for I suppose that destruction was visible enough to you.

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