Bankster

Wikipedia article

Summary

'Bankster' is in most respects a well written, traditional, psychological, realist novel, and a good example of the genre. It tells the story of an individual without attempting to any significant degree to put it in a wider or more general context. Marks is a young person who has worked in a bank. He was doing well before the Crash, and seemed absolutely typical of his section of society. He sails more or less unknowingly to his doom just as one imagines the majority of ordinary bank employees have. Along with his wife, he is in a good position to continue his life well educated, with almost no debts and doesn't have much to complain about. But what eventuates, on the other hand, is neither a new life nor a development of the old, but rather a familiar downward spiral: the lack of purpose and activity bit by bit take over Marks's life. The only thing he does is to write by himself in the diary that his friend, a historian with an interest in preserving sources about the present, gives him. But writing provides him neither with freedom or a way out of the financial crisis on the contrary it's as if get gets sucked into it, and the world of authorship threatens his reality and his chances of getting out of this vicious circle.Translated from Jn Yngvi Jhannsson, 'Lesi skugga hrunsins: Um skldsgur rsins 2009', 'Tmarit Mls og Menningar', 71.4 (November 2010), 81--98 (p. 95).

Reviews, studies, and relevant interviews

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