Review: Treasured Bonds of Friendship between British Blokes
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 12, 2014
This book sounded like an interesting yarn.  Take someone like Sherman McCoy, the self-designated "Master of the Universe" and arrogant investment banker of the Tom Wolfe classic "The Bonfire of the Vanities," and put him in a gang warfare story like The Outsiders or the film West Side Story.  And it's in London, England, the financial capital of Europe.Ultimately though, with all its local dialect and name-dropping, such as discussions of local football (soccer here in Canada and America) teams, London bank and street names, investment banking terms and history, this book doesn't feel inviting to me.  I understand if the dialogue is local, but the prose is also all local.  It feels like only an investment banker who actually works in London would get through this book with ease.One puzzling aspect of this book is the notion that investment banker firms are so driven by loyalty to the team that they engage in street warfare.  I wasn't sure if that was actually intended to be reality in the story or imagined in the mind of Charlie, the narrator of the story.  But seeing how Charlie's wife reacted to his injuries at the end of the book, I think such gang warfare must have intended to be real.  Then the question arises of why a group of wealthy people who work long hours would be interested in gang warfare.  Ultimately, though, I moved on, deciding the book must be satire and intended to convey investment banking as a brutal business, even if not physically harmful through their antics.I really liked the friendship of the trio of guys who bonded together long before the story started, and continued to do so.  The sexual hijinks added some spice to the story.The author writes really well.  I think I would enjoy the book much better if he made it much more accessible to the reader, and saved the strong jargon for the dialogue only.  There is a purpose to "dumbing down" - investment banking in London is something that needs to be conveyed to the reader in a way that makes him feel part of it.Again, since the author has a knack for story-telling, I see great things for this author in the future.