M&D, GR: House of All Nations

[pynchonoid]

I don't recall if this has been mentioned re the
whorehouse Dixon is thought to frequent in M&D and the
one that Major Marvey does patronize in GR. I bought a
battered copy of this novel yesterday, from the
25-cent table at the Berkeley public library. 

<http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/steadc/house.html>

House of All Nations
Christina Stead
1938
Jacket illustration by Gilbert Stone. 

Dustjacket synopsis:
"For money, wrote Balzac, "people fight and devour one
another like spiders in a pot." In House of All
Nations, the pot is an exclusive private European
bank, and the spiders are a rich mixture of
high-stakes gamblers, tax evaders, and shady
speculators, all united by their love of money. They
burn for it, hunger for it, and indeed would sell
their souls for it had they souls to sell. Leading
them on the chase is the cynical and mercurial
director of the bank, Jules Bertillon, for whom every
political or natural disaster is a potential shower of
gold. The supreme manipulator whose only principle is
money. Bertillon is a master of the devious maneuver,
and his clients trust and even love him for it. In the
end, he is the duper duped, but it is the clients who
pay: for Jules, unprincipled to the last, has not been
so foolish as to believe in himself. 

"Set in the Paris of the interwar period, House of All
Nations is a vast panoramic novel of the intrigues,
swindles, and manipulations of this world on
international fiance. "No one ever made enough money,"
says Jules Bertillon at the outset of this story of
greed and power - and that is the leitmotif for the
blackmailers, playboys, brokers, and bankers who swirl
through this multilayered book. Intent on their
personal gain, they play out the turns of fortune
against a backdrop of worldwide economic depression
and the rising tide of Fascism. Here are the thirties
brought to life - the decadence and indifference, the
selfishness and short-sightedness that would culminate
in world war. 

"First published in 1939, House of All Nations was
greeted with great critical praise. "Combined with her
Hogarthian humor, brilliant vocabulary, high-keyed
imagination, the result is one of the most savage
satires on 'the principle of money' since Balzac,"
said Time. The New Yorker acclaimed it as a book "full
of rich comedy, crowded with Balzacian characters...a
work of extraordinary talent."  [...] 



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