Has everyone seen this? A New York Times finance writer has a piece on how he got sucked into the subprime mortgage mess. This is part of a forthcoming book. Lucky writer: he can get plenty of publicity for his forthcoming volume.
You can read the article yourself. I blasted through it last night. I cannot read it again. This is why. As I read, I began to have all sorts of physical symptoms: dizziness, shortness of breath, constricted feeling in the chest. Hmmmm. All the signs of a heart attack???
I had a similar set of symptoms as I read a volume of Trollope last summer. My father-in-law gave me a complete hardcover set of the Chronicles of Barset. What a pleasure! How had I missed these all my life? The perfect level book for my summer reading and to have six of them was a pleasure beyond the norm.
Anyway, the book that set off the feelings of a heart attack was Framley Parsonage. Here is the Amazon summary.
Mark Robarts is a clergyman with ambitions beyond his small country parish of Framley. In a naive attempt to mix in influential circles, he agrees to guarantee a bill for a large sum of money for the disreputable local Member of Parliament, while being helped in his career in the Church by the same hand. But the unscrupulous politician reneges on his financial obligations, and Mark must face the consequences this debt may bring to his family. One of Trollope's most enduringly popular novels since it appeared in 1860, Framley Parsonage is an evocative depiction of country life in nineteenth-century England, told with great compassion and acute insight into human nature.
From the second Mark Robarts guarantees that debt, you can see what is coming. Ditto for the New York Times writer.
I remarked a few posts ago that I seem to be frugal by chance (that is, nature), rather than by choice. My physical response to stories of debt--one of which is, let us remember, fictional--suggests why I am so debt-averse. If I get into debt, I will surely die of a heart attack. I should not receive any plaudits for paying off our mortgage early. Once again, dear Readers, it is my nature.
Dear Readers, any good summer reads for me? With a financial focus or not, I'm always looking.
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