Critics’ Forum
Literature
Viken Berberian’s Das Kapital: A Post-Script
By Hovig Tchalian

This article about Viken Berberian’s second and well-publicized
novel, Das Kapital: A Novel of Love + Money Markets (Simon and
Schuster, 2007) is a post-script in two related ways: it appears just
after a flurry of articles about the novel, both in Armenian and
international periodicals; and it is about a novel that is itself a
post-modern homage to Karl Marx’s monumental work of the same name.

The novel tells the tale of an unlikely love triangle composed of
Wayne, a successful Wall Street hedge fund manager who bets against
the market (and helps his own cause by funding terrorist disasters
around the world); an unnamed "Corsican," who believes in
environmental causes and is paid by Wayne to commit acts of
terrorism; and Alix, a French architecture student living in
Marseille, who has a relationship with the Corsican and, through him,
inadvertently meets and falls in love with Wayne.

And there you have it – the makings of a smart and insightful but
ultimately unsatisfying ironic novel. Berberian pokes fun at a whole
host of modern foibles and felonies – from our over-reliance on the
adrenaline rush of modernity to our gradual incapacity to feel pain
for the sufferings of our fellow human beings.

This Berberian manages through a series of twists and reversals: the
Corsican begins by touting the environmental slogans of his youth and
ends by seeking the radical solution of global destruction (as his
lieutenant, Figolu, says on p. 135, "nature has struck back"), all to
the familiar-sounding but ultimately meaningless torrent of financial
reports from his various bases of operations; the novel’s other anti-
hero, Wayne, begins by espousing "a theory of deterministic
disaster," the calculated certainty of doom in the financial markets
(an eerie reminder of Marx’s parallel prognostication) and ends by
seeking nature and art; and Alix sends Wayne a series of JPG images
and reports on some of her beloved architectural monuments, which,
unbeknownst to her, further the cause of Wayne’s terrorist cronies.

Initially in the novel, such reversals convey considerable depth and
subtlety. Wayne’s early doomsday scenarios sound like the musings of
a twisted, if mathematically gifted, terrorist with an ear for
existentialist philosophy (67):

"Wayne waited patiently for the next global failure, a so-called ten-
sigma event: a statistical freak occurring one in every ten to twenty-
fourth power times. The ten-sigma was imminent, if not today then
tomorrow, if not tomorrow then in a year, if not in a year then in a
century or an even a later point in time. It did not matter when.
Sooner or later the mother of all disasters would strike, and if it
did not happen during his life, then that was okay. There would be
many disasters in between that he would witness. Yet even this
reassuring thought did not make him feel better."

Such reversals are interesting, perhaps most compellingly in two
extended descriptions that blend art and fatalism. The first appears
early in the novel, as Wayne sends Alix an email that describes the
Venetian Basilica that he has just helped destroy, laced with equal
parts lyricism and irony (52):

"I think you asked how I became interested in the structural aspects
of buildings. It started with the Basilica. I first visited the
Basilica and the campanile next to it as a university student. The
Bell Tower was said to be the highest structure in Venice.
Everything has come down now . . . . I did not have to turn on the
radio. I knew hat this would happen. I was prepared for it. I am
trying to remain calm now, opportunistic. I still remember the
glittering façade of the church, the exotic Byzantine architecture,
the gold mosaics covering the ceilings and walls, the marble floors,
the five vaulted domes, which formed the roof in the form of a Greek
cross. All of it gone now, and in place of the dome is a gaping
hole."

The second instance appears near the novel’s end, as the Corsican and
his lieutenant scan sketches of buildings they are targeting (132):

"Figolu flipped open the sketchbook. It contained architectural
renderings of vital structures, the regulating lines of commercial
buildings rising in tiers, one behind another. They measured their
dimension, length, width and angles. At the bottom of each sketch
were her initials.
"Look. The Crystal Palace. This is cast iron, that’s glass. It’s
all prefabricated material."
"I recognize it," he said.
"Mid-nineteenth century. Joseph Praxton."
"Human capacity?"
"There is no literature on that."
"Where is it?"
"Hyde Park, London."
Figolu turned the page to a drawing entitled Chicago.
"Recognize it?"
"Yes, she told me about it. I like the scale."
"Turn of the century. Louis Sullivan."
"What is it?"
"Department store, I think. It’s the first time a metallic frame was
used on the exterior of the edifice."
"Original," he said.
"If you like that, take a look at this one."
. . . "

The two terrorists review their targets the way art students would
survey Frank Gehry mock-ups. They appreciate the architectural
elements of the drawings, which Berberian makes sure to mention bear
Alix’s initials, like those at the bottom of paintings on display.

Wayne’s email to Alix quoted earlier and this exchange between the
terrorists together neatly encapsulate both the bizarre love triangle
at the center of the novel and Berberian’s method in elaborating it:
Wayne mimics Alix’s own love for the buildings in his email in order
to create an authentic response that she will recognize (because it
is, strictly speaking, her own); while the Corsican tries to recreate
in her sketches the faint traces of her vanished love for him.
Wayne’s description and Alix’s images act as convenient illusions of
the many criss-crossing desires in the novel, centered in Alix’s mind
but ultimately not originating in her own will.

Such insights about the world the characters – and by extension, all
of us – inhabit give Das Kapital weight and substance. But in its
relentless pursuit of irony, the novel ultimately falls a bit flat.
A representative instance occurs midway through the novel, as the
Corsican and Alix watch the harbor from a Marseille hotel balcony
(106):

"The harbor bustled with the mad rush of people dispersed in a
multitude of directions. The anchored boats creaked and groaned as
if suffering from a chronic arthritic condition. The summer light
descended on the Notre Dame de la Garde perched on top of a hill
facing their table. The cathedral basked in the glory of the
afternoon sun."

No sooner have we read this description than we get the following
(106):

"It was a majestic and uncomplicated view, yet for the Corsican it
was no more than a marketing image, fundamentally spectacular by
nature, a visual representation that aimed at nothing other than
itself. He wondered how many tourists climbed up the hill today to
take a closer look at the cathedral, this hallowed confusion, which
to him was a material reconstruction of the religious illusion."

This cynical, if lyrical, description, serves a purpose. The
Corsican refers to the scene as a "spectacle," a word he will use
elsewhere to describe his terrorist deeds. Its use here reminds us
that the scene aims at "nothing other than itself" in large part
because it is a "spectacle" of the Corsican’s own making. And yet,
the sheer repetition of such reversals up until this point and
throughout the novel weakens their meaning and the novel’s larger
impact. The reversals come off sounding a bit too glib, almost smug.

Das Kapital concludes in a similar vein and somewhat predictably,
with what amounts to an ideological swap – Wayne and the Corsican
essentially switch allegiances, with the Corsican asking for more and
more money to wreak havoc with studied efficiency, while Wayne
discovers a love for nature in Alix’s arms in Marseilles. The
eventuality is hinted at it a few pages before the end, as we witness
the global markets regain their equilibrium, in a kind of return to
primordial economic conditions (154):

"The good old days were back again. At least that was what the
headlines said. Religions no longer split us. Politics no longer
polarized us. Incompatible technologies no longer came between us."

By the time this final reversal takes place, however, the stage has
already been set for something of a letdown. The unfortunate result
of describing a world made hollow with false desires, it seems, is
the creation of a novel that ends up in part recreating it. Like
Alix’s innocent question to Wayne at one of their meetings, the novel
gets what it asks for (101):

""You’re going to think that I sound like a little girl in a floral
dress, but I keep thinking of the Basilica bombing," she said. "Who
would do such a thing?"

"I’m not sure you should pursue that line of questioning," Wayne
said. "Why don’t we walk up to Elizabeth Street and talk about
something else?""

The ultimate irony of a novel such as Das Kapital that relentlessly
pursues irony, then, may very well be its own inability of escaping
it. That may not be an all too pleasant post-script. But it is, I
think, a fitting one.

All Rights Reserved: Critics Forum, 2007

Hovig Tchalian holds a PhD in English literature from UCLA. He has
edited several journals and also published articles of his own.

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