Towards the end of his life, Ravelstein has taken his teachings and published them in book form. Surprisingly, this has made him a rich man, able to indulge the tastes that had previously left his finances in a ruinous state. When we first come across him he is talking with Chick in a suite at the Hotel Crillon in Paris prior to a shopping trip and a trawl through the cafes and restaurants of the city. Now Ravelstein has the means to match his extravagance. Significantly, the accumulation of goods is not an end in itself, but rather a concession of sorts to the general cultural drift towards satisfaction through material ends.
Money is spent, but the reader always senses a deeper force at work.
There is comfort in the possession of wealth, but only if we acknowledge the possibility of something other than wealth. What Chick admires in his friend is that he has attained success on his terms, not by pandering to any fashionable ideas. Indeed, Ravelstein's ideas on art and culture look all the way back to Athens and the Greek texts he frequently cites. His teachings throw a spotlight on the paucity of modern life, the denigration of culture and the gradual diminishing of the individual intellect or, as he implies, the part of us that could be called a soul. The challenge of modern freedom, or the combination of isolation and freedom which confronts you, is to make yourself up.