Green with Greed

One of the various things that I actually cherish about travel is the time it affords or, perhaps more accurately, requires to maintain sanity by catching up on reading. This trip is no different, with five or six books pulled from the "when I get around to it" pile. There are a couple of the usual spiritually/getting one's life in order that I throw against the wall for their annoying simplicity. "If you are feeling stressed, it's a good sign that there may be too much stress in your life." Then I pick it up the next day, amazed by how profound it is. I'll refrain from going into all the details of those.

A somewhat trite but compelling read that I've always wanted to get around to diving into is a bio by Charles Slack on the life of Hetty Green, the Witch of Wall Street. A woman so miserly that she refused to take her son to a free clinic until his condition worsened to the point of amputation of his leg, she has been someone whose dark tale I've always wanted to know more about. So far it's worth the time but not exactly superbly written. Mean, greedy women of means have always fascinated me, much more than men of the same ilk. Mr. Burns on The Simpsons has his appeal, but a woman squirrelling away her fortune is just somehow more intriguing. No wonder Zazu Pitts, the San Francisco lottery winner hiding her winings from her man in Greed is just more example to cite for it's fascination.

Hetty's story really cries out for the proper over-the-top stage or film adaptation, though let's hope to God a musical version does not lure Stephen Sondheim out of semi-retirement.

Greed has always been the opposite of my compulsions, and perhaps that's why the Hetty Greens of the world hold so much lure. If I ever got into the billionaire category, I am sure it would be gone within months, although I'd have every edition of the Criterion collection and several warehouses full of doorknobs that I could give away to friends for decades to come.