Hi. So...

Welcome to the blog, I guess. Sit down anywhere you like, make yourself at home. But take your shoes off, you filthy animal, there’s a cream carpet in here.

Don’t expect any common theme to these posts, at least not one that I’ve consciously created. Several times over the past few years I’ve considered starting a blog – sometimes for short stories, sometimes for politics, sometimes for TV reviews, sometimes for makeup and hair tutorials. I am what you might call a modern renaissance woman, if the Renaissance was a time when people ate a lot of Kit-Kats and then wondered why they were gaining weight. I was paralysed by these choices, so I reasoned that no blog at all was better than a blog with too narrow a focus. And so I carried on my life, with no creative outlet except the doodles on my uni notes, which psychologists could probably use to identify me as a serial killer. Having spent my childhood and adolescence playing with words, instead of with a football like a normal child, I was saddened to realise that I haven’t really written anything in recent years, except for academic essays, snarky Facebook posts and the occasional vodka-soaked letter to those who have betrayed me (“HAVE MADE A BLOOD SACRIFICE TO PAZUZU, NOW TASTE MY REVENGE”).

But last night, my friends, God came to me in a dream.

“Ciara, for Christ’s sakes. It’s eleven o’ clock.”

“…God?”

“I mean, seriously. Everyone else was up four hours ago. That’s a sixth of a day.”

“Why have you come to me, O Lord?”
“You have a gift, young woman. A gift that is wasting away. Go forth, and start a blog. Everyone loves blogs.”

“But what if it’s no good, O Lord? What if it’s twaddle that no-one wants to read?”
“It probably will be. But you will never improve as a writer if you never write. And you are a writer, Ciara. REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE.”
“Are you quoting The Lion King?”

 “YES.”

Can’t argue with God, really. So: read and subscribe if you like, but I’m not expecting anything because I’m really just doing this for me. So I have a place to stick my thoughts and hone my skills, which certainly feel rusty right now. Hopefully after a few months of regular posting I’ll be better, and then maybe in addition to this I can work on some fiction or some other project. Bear with me while I get less clunky, and while I try to work out exactly what sort of stuff goes on here. Maybe somewhere down the line I’ll find my niche, but in the meantime this blog will be like my personality: incoherent and admired by no-one.

Right, so: book review.

 
A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers

I read this on my recent holiday in Italy, because when I’m in paradise sipping a Mojito I still like to read something that makes me lose my faith in humanity a little. This book, by former Lehman trader Lawrence G. McDonald (with the assistance of Patrick Robinson), supposedly documents the culture and interplay between individuals at Lehman in the years leading up to its bankruptcy.

Good things first. This is certainly easy to read for a non-expert. If you’re not entirely au fait with the 2008 collapse of the banking system, or you hear words around a lot like ‘securitisation’ and ‘credit default swaps’ but aren’t clear on what they mean, McDonald does a good job of explaining in a sentence or two concepts that can seem intimidating or loaded with jargon (it seems to be McDonald’s story rather than Robinson’s so for shorthand I’m going to consider him the main ‘author’ – sorry Pat, if you’re reading this, but if you read down further you might be glad I’m not involving you too much). If you’re interested in the topic, books like this are always going to seem worth a look, and if you’re not, it doesn’t make the topic dry or scary.

However, if you’re going to read this book, you are going to have to put up with an appalling author.

First of all, McDonald’s self-adoration drips through this book until it stains your fingers. The first third or so is devoted to his life pre-Lehman, from his humble beginnings as a pork-chop salesman to his co-founding of an internet company with the rather uncatchy name of ConvertBond.com. All of this has no bearing on Lehman and seems to serve no purpose except to allow McDonald to talk about how great he is at stuff. I suppose it’s quite a telling portrait in its own way of Wall Street arrogance, but I don’t think that was intentional, and certainly not worth the eighty pages. I presume Robinson’s job as co-author was to contribute his storytelling skills, adding structure and, um, writeryness to McDonald’s account. I guess he didn’t feel brave enough to tell McD that simply typing “I am a dick” would be punchier. And save on paper. The bragging continues throughout, as he describes how he and his friends (who are all also really great and really smart) made millions, snatched victory from the jaws of defeat (caused by other people), and dated gorgeous women. All without ever making a single mistake, or ever falling for this subprime mortgage stuff. Before this book, I don’t think I have ever wanted to punch words before.

Second, McDonald may have been a gifted trader (according to himself), but he sure as hell is not a writer. Where were you, Robinson? Why have you allowed this book to drown an interesting storyline in awful clichés and tired prose? Why is it that EVERY TIME a company is mentioned, you have to describe its headquarters as being “deep in the California desert/Midwestern sun/Colorado mountains” as if you were trying to sell it as a holiday resort? Why so many dreadful analogies? Why is the style so repetitive? Also, for some reason, whenever a female in the industry is described as ‘beautiful’ in this book, despite ‘beautiful’ being a pretty innocuous compliment, it somehow feels so creepy that I have to wash my hands after reading it. I’m still not sure why.

Third, I just find his explanation of the Lehman collapse – that everyone was wonderful except for Dick Fuld (not the name of an obscene strand of origami but the name of the CEO), who was stupid and borderline unstable – unconvincing. If this was the fault of one person, how does that explain similar problems at Bear Stearns and other banks? What about the role of ratings agencies, the government, the general culture? These things are mentioned in the book and then pushed aside, in favour of denigrating the personality of Fuld (who McDonald, incidentally, had never even met).

Generally I found this book had interesting parts to it, but I just found McDonald an unreliable narrator, so I don’t know what conclusions I can draw from his opinions. He paints all the people in his department, whom he liked, as infallible geniuses, and the higher-ups he didn’t know as incapable sociopaths. Maybe this is accurate. I can’t know. But I’m not really inclined to believe it’s that simple, and McDonald’s viewpoint is probably not helped by him being so darned unlikeable. Actually this book weirdly does help to explain the crash, in a totally unintentional way – if McDonald is a typical example of those who work on Wall Street (and I don’t know any, so I can’t be sure), and the whole banking system was run by people as self-important, as lacking in self-awareness, as surrounded by excess and so convinced by the magic of the markets as he evidently is, maybe that gives us some sort of clue.

Amazon recommends I try ‘Too Big to Fail’ as a comparable, better-rated book. I’m interested to check it out and see how similar or different its viewpoint is.

In summary: worthwhile subject matter, but probably not worth the expense of reattaching your arm when you chew it off in frustration. Two stars