The Titan

This book is a must read for any investor. It makes clear that economic bubbles and financial crises have the same causes in all centuries: excessive debt, secured by speculative assets. Once the collateral falls in price, the lender requires to repay the debt or add more collateral. Since the borrower have used excessive leverage, he is unable to handle the debt and goes bankrupt, which leaves the lender with illiquid assets. Here are some examples: 1871: Frank Cowperwood have used stocks of Philadelphia's railroads as a collateral to huge loans, and when the Great Chicago Fire sparked a financial panic, he could neither repay the debt nor add more collateral, thus became insolvent. 1929: Widespread use of margin, of up to 90% was one of the reasons of the Great Depression. The investor could buy $100,000 worth of stock with $10,000 of own cash, borrowing the remaining $90,000 from the broker. The sharp drop of the stock price made the investors unable repay the debt, they became insolvent. The brokers were left with cheap stocks and became insolvent also. 2007: The dot-com bubble of 2000 contributed to the housing bubble. Once stocks fell, real estate became the primary outlet for the speculative frenzy that the stock market had unleashed. The families were buying houses when they knew that they cannot afford the mortgage for a long time, they were buying only to sell it to later at higher price. The rise in home prices was very attractive for construction industry: the number of newly built houses have significantly increased. When the prices of the houses have fallen due to the balance between the supply and demand, the speculators who run out of cash to repay the mortgages could no longer sell the houses at a price they bought. This essentially led homeowners to foreclosures. The great amount of foreclosures have caused huge losses to the lenders, made them insolvent or put under Government's conservatorship, when the shareholder value was diluted if not wiped out. While the first book in the trilogy, "The Financier", is not a skilled picture of smallest traits of a human soul when it comes to love and feelings, this second book, "The Stoic", covers the human soul better, but not as good as in writings by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (take "The Brothers Karamazov"). When it comes to the financial aspects, they are very well covered. I recommend you to read the whole trilogy: "The Financier", "The Titan" and "The Stoic".

Theodore Drieser's _The Titan_ (1914), book two in the author's trilogy of the uber-American businessman, describes the "come back" of the unscrupulous yet charming financier Frank Algernon Cowperwood. _The Financier_ (1911), the first book in the series, ends with Frank Cowperwood being convicted of financial conspiracy and bribery of public officials in Philadelphia. _The Titan_ picks up with the second phase of Cowperwood's financial life. Having completed his prison sentence, Cowperwood, now in his early thirties, walks into the daylight from the Eastern District Penitentiary walls in Philadelphia with the realization that he is no longer a young man and that he must begin his life anew. The early chapters chronicle Cowperwood's journey to Chicago and his efforts to establish a new life in a society with Aileen Butler, his mistress who becomes his second wife after he secures a divorce. With a longing to "test whether the world would trample him under foot or not," Cowperwood undertakes a long, complicated journey to emerge on top, not only of the financial world of Chicago in the 1880s but of the United States as a whole. Constitutionally, Cowperwood is, in a large measure, fit for the challenge. First, we see Cowperwood's acumen in financial matters as he acquires a small Chicago gas company, which over time challenges for a controlling interest in public gas in Chicago. He then purchases a streetcar line in north Chicago, threatening the entrenched business oligarchs of Chicago. Suborning public officials and always finding the right people to undertake his schemes--throughout much of the book Cowperwood uses proxies to advance his business aims and remains behind the scenes--he becomes a scandalously powerful mogul. At the same time, his private affairs descend into chaos. Numerous reckless extra-marital affairs undermine his business partnerships with Chicago's elite, making former friends into deadly adversaries. The intrigues and deceptions of a Cowperwood's public and private lives are put under the microscope in hundreds of detailed pages. Early in the novel Cowperwood seduces Rita Sohlberg, a woman married to a failed violinist, and from this relationship a pattern emerges. In urging his suit, Cowperwood argues, "Life is between individuals, Rita. You and I have very much in common. Don't you see that?" He adds, "There is so much that would complete your perfectness." The first of many affairs, Cowperwood's relationship with Rita is supported by a view of the world where the individual's needs reign supreme. The public and private identities of Cowperwood merge within this credo: one's obligation is to satisfying oneself alone. Throughout the novel, Drieser himself, like many of the secondary characters in _The Titan_ is seduced by Cowperwood's persona and prone to forgive his faults. In the final paragraphs, the narrator attempts to explain the meaning of Cowperwood's life and his magnetism as a fulfill

THE TITAN is Dreiser's sequel to THE FINANCIER, which was about the rise and fall and sudden rise again of Frank Cowperwood, streetcar tycoon of Philadelphia, who at the end of that first volume was leaving Philadelphia with his mistress for Chicago. THE TITAN traces his business success (and personal failings) in Chicago. Through unscrupulous business practices Cowperwood achieves the financial and political power he's always craved, but social acceptance is denied him. He blames this on his beautiful though crude mistress (now wife) Aileen, who adds to her shortcomings by taking to the bottle; their marriage is a disaster, and both have affairs. Cowperwood falls in love with the very young and na?ve Berenice Fleming; seeing herself being pushed off the scene, Aileen attempts suicide. Seeing a chance to seize total control of all the streetcar lines in Chicago, Cowperwood does everything in his power to win the necessary city council approval, but reform groups mobilize and defeat him. He leaves Chicago with Berenice for Europe. Dreiser's power as a novelist, his left-to-the-jaw, tell-it-like-it-is style captures Cowperwood and the financial dealings of a large city perfectly. His blunt approach was relatively new at the time and offended many readers, but to a modern reader it seems the only way such a story could be related. The novel is sweeping and relentless, and the reader can't help but be caught up in its flow. Although THE TITAN was published only two years after THE FINANCIER, the third volume (THE STOIC) would not appear until another 30 years had passed. Cowperwood's character was based on the real streetcar tycoon Charles T. Yerkes.

The Titan is an excellent sequel that, unlike many sequels, does not require the reader to have read its prequel, The Financier. Frank Cowperwood is a still-waters-run-deep kind of central character. Our story begins with his release from prison for racketeering, his descent onto Chicago with new bride-to-be, Aileen, and a stoic determination brewing behind those blue-gray eyes that, "somebody is gonna pay for this." That somebody is first the gas companies and then the newly emerging "Elevated" light rail lines of Chicago, which he proceeds to take over. Cowperwood is an immoral man. He cheats compulsively on his wife, pays off the city council and mayor to get franchise awards, and even contrives to bribe and blackmail the Illnois governor. This is not a character we are supposed to admire, in fact few of the characters we meet--Aileen, Mrs. Carter, Hosmer Hand, or Berenice Fleming--are heroic characters in the swashbuckling sense. But Dreiser warns us that human frailties are not without struggle, that lack of conscience does not always make it easy to inflict one's will and evil-doing on others, and that, most of all, in high society, money has its limits (at least in 1914). Be prepared to have a dictionary handy when reading Titan, many words that have long fallen out of favor are used extensively, including, "peregrination," "trig," "fag," "ermine," "bacchanal" and "phatasmagoria." Titan is a terrific read that draws on the history of Chicago as a burgeoning megalopolis.

Dreiser's second novel of a three book series, the first being The Financier, continues the saga of Frank Cowperwood's quest for power and wealth through the use of financial acumen found in only a relatively few individuals. While written as fiction, the novel is also a wonderful history lesson of the political structure and shenanigans employed by the political and financial mavens of that period. The characters and events of the late 19th century are brought to life through Dreiser's rich and descriptive prose. Relatively few authors are able to attain the degree of detail Dreiser devotes to his plot and characters, all the while employing word usage in such as a way as to create a virtual masterpiece.