Don Gabriel is a politician, one among many of the same.

He does as much as he can to make as much money as he can in as little time as he can, with no regard for literally any other principle. There is nothing he does for anyone else at any point that doesn't make their lives worse and make him richer. Every despicable person he meets, he marvels at their ruthlessness and their ability to grift, and shortly afterwards absorbs their misanthropy and greed and finds new ways to wring money out of human misery of his own creation.

The book chronicles his ascent into full-on slave trader (though he justifies his monstrousness as not *slavery* slavery because that would be immoral! and more importantly illegal!). The humor in the book is so dry as to cause despair: his callous disregard for anyone or anything other than his own enrichment and his rationalization of the really awful things he is doing. Unfortunately, I think it is a pretty accurate allegory: the final ranted blood-soaked justification summarized in the last pages, the convoluted excuses for the brutality and human misery so that some can have luxury goods and others can claim their nation is important in world affairs.

It's unsettling stuff, and I'm glad I started the Jungle Books series at #2 (The Carreta) because this initial offering is a little too bleak. I'm not sure I would have picked up another in the series if I had started with this one. ( )

http://uvula-fr-b4.livejournal.com/3979.html#cutid1 ( )