I think I read Taylor Caldwell's autobiography On Growing up Tough when I was a child. Somehow I had an impressive impression of her, but I believe this is actually the first novel of hers I've read.
The woman wrote over 40 novels I believe. She was a brilliant novel spewing writer with a capital W. She wrote her first novel at age 12.
First I was impressed with her sheer intelligence just jumping off the page. I was pulled into the story immediately. She's a masterful wordsmith and character builder.
I love history, and this is definitely a historical novel.
She reminds me a little of Pearl Buck - both my impression of her character and her drive, ambition, and genius. I just confirmed that they were contemporaries - born around the beginning of the 1900s or so.
Taylor Caldwell isn't just telling a story here, I soon realized. She's inserting her political philosophy and perhaps hoping to influence the reader against the wiles of socialism and globalism. Her main protagonist, bitter, cunning, ascetic, and complex Irish immigrant Joseph Armagh (love that surname) uncovers the secret society that direct the affairs of finance, governments, and apparently the world. She continually mocks "common man" in its perpetual pursuit of a "rajah." They pretend to want independence but they really just want a charismatic leader to tell them what to do. I suppose we're all to some degree tribal. There's a reason why CEOs are usually tall. There are certain physical traits that people are drawn to and it comes straight from the amygdala, or wherever that grey matter is that goes underanalyzed.
If you're wanting to read a happy book, hurl this one in the opposite direction. It begins with starvation and tragedy, leads to wealth gained by vice and trickery, a mystical curse which leads to everyone's death, and unhappy marriages with intense idealized extramarital relationships that provide only temporary solace from the plunging darkness of the human tide.
I walk away wondering if there is a secret society with quiet men who plan wars. I did enjoy the way she portrayed such a variety of personalities and bents. There are some great characters in this book and kind of like Tolstoy - there is a real psychological study that has gone behind this - informally perhaps - but a kaleidoscope of people and their varying motivations and temperaments. She also inserts some analysis of the Irish and I love cultural studies. Hofstede's cultural dimensions are almost as interesting as Keirsey's Temperament sorter, but not quite. Don't worry Keirsey, I will stand by you.
I may pick up On Growing up Tough again and read it. I find myself more interested in the author than in reading more of her fiction at the moment. Also because I don't like to read fiction that's too sad. Life has plenty of sadness already. Thankfully I don't need for us to wait to figure out the perfect governing system in order to be filled with gratitude, love, and hope in this very moment.
