Class and Inequality in God’s without Men by Hari Kunzru (Book Review)

“Haikya! I have taken so many tablets of pseudoephedrine! It took me so long to get!” (p.1). As a devout Christian, this was the moment I realised that despite the title ‘GOD’S without men’, this was no ordinary religious book. The sole reason for my choice for review. However, the mythical native American creature Coyote the trickster, commonly found in Wile E Coyote comics, introduced an enlightening element of spirituality (Llena, 2016). This underpinned each story, character and the place bringing them all together, the Pinnacle Rocks. The elements of the supernatural, eludes to a human quest to find pattern and meaning in life. Kunzru’s non-linear timeline structure spans from 1871 to an analogue of the 2008 Wall Street crash. Here, Kunzru maintains reader’s attention by deliberately revealing pieces of the puzzle with ambiguous explanations of how they fit together (Jeffries, 2019). Nonetheless, the supernatural elements perhaps reveal more about the world of finance than one initially presumes. The novel begins and ends with an explosion much like the fate of many American employees involved in the 2008 economic crash.

Amongst the densely populated list of characters presented, Kunzru finally decides to start speaking finance and introduces the somewhat disordered sceptic although highly intelligent, mathematician Jaz. He believes everything is potentially knowable. Through recommendation from an old friend, Jaz began working for a hedge fund, ‘banks and hedge funds were hungry for specialists in finance, mathematicians and computer scientists who could take uncertainties of international capital flows’ (p. 91). Though worthy of the job in his own right, Jaz was perhaps a little troubled too, ‘Raj began to scream properly […] for a moment Jaz fantasised about throwing him into the pool, watching him sink to the bottom’ (p. 60). In all fairness, probably an ideal candidate for the role. Through a string of internal conflicts to do right by his family, wife and culture as a traditional Sikh man (although not practicing) married to a white American Jew Lisa, inequalities in social class unveil in all aspects. This is seen through family dynamics, as Jaz fought to move away from the shame of his background and low family inheritance regarding social and economic capital. Social inequalities arise in the workplace from this, present in his interactions between colleagues in the quest to ‘fit in’, ‘Jaz traded his first bonus check for a class Mercedes sports car ‘(p.92). This is a narrative presented for the privileged and the acceptable level of social and economic inequality allowed to retain social standing, in which Jaz fell victim to. Believing that a rise in social class is possible through elite education, lifestyle and pretentious behaviour, proving true. Karen Ho (2009: p.41) presents the idea of meritocracy the “smartness” of “ideal investment bankers” represented by “default upper-classness, maleness, whiteness, and heteronormativity,” which Jaz although trying to be, was in fact not.

Kunzru was actually raised by a Hindu father and Christian mother, therefore, displays interest in the battle between differing religious heritages and underlying links to social hierarchy (Jeffries, 2019). This is seen both through social class systems and the Sikh Caste system. Although these are in no way the same. Within the caste system strict rules govern decisions such as marriage. Kunzru explores faith with the social role of capital markets (Jeffries, 2019). Jaz marries a white woman Lisa, with a son named Raj, unacceptable by his mother standards, and then is again faced with issues relating to class, income and economic disparities in Wall Street and mainstream America. However, Jaz as a skilled mathematician and through countless years of pretending to be someone he was not, was often able to bypass these biases as he helped the company make money.

Class hierarchies are identified and the descriptions of characters within the book are a fairly cliché depiction of the typical ‘wall street guy’ (p.93). This is recognised by Jaz’s father in his description of Jaz, ‘he was sad because he couldn’t connect himself with this image of his smiling crop haired son, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, linking glasses with sunburned white boys’ (p.59). In all honesty, from this description, Jaz is seemingly the perfect candidate for the Wall Street from my experience during my year in industry, when I visited my companies London branch of finance interns on an intern day out. Furthermore, it seems as though Kunzru has some experience in the financial sector. Although not as an employee per-se, but as an observer, forming preconceived opinions of the world of finance and the causes of the financial crash. Perhaps eluding to the idea that employees often know the damage they cause, but do nothing about it ‘I understand you feel a little queasy about that trade […] but we didn’t cause anything anywhere, Shit happens Jaz. If it wasn’t us it would have been someone else’ (p.155).

Kunzru was interviewed stating that he is unsure about speculative finance, finding it “intellectually thrilling and socially disgusting” (Jeffries, 2019). Hence a narrative presented in the novel of pretentious capitalists with questionable boundaries, rummaging for the next pay check ‘you won’t feel so bad when you get your bonus’ (p.155). Furthermore, Kunzru continues the interview with, “the idea of predicting and controlling is idealistic, it’s all about the will to believe […]. What’s happened since 2008 is a class war based on faith and credit, a fantastic con trick by the ruling class to immiserate the poor further while concentrating wealth more than ever in the hands of the rich.” (Jeffries, 2019).

Kunzru is previously known in novels for describing the infusion between culture, personal relationships and technical “systems” (Linklater, 2019). For example, in a previous novel Transmission, a computer virus is transmitted as an image of a Bollywood actress (Linklater, 2019). Therefore, the introduction of Walter the investment model was of no surprise, set to ‘discover certain predictable behaviours of the market – regularities and trackable cycles, using that knowledge to trade’ (p. 134). Walter once a sweet little predictive model began to form a mind of his own and eventually as Jaz claims ‘ruins the Honduran economy’, “We fucked their country” (p.154). Jaz foresaw issues with Walter as the model, then actor in the market, eventually changing what it was supposed to be modelling, ‘It felt alive’ (p.134). However, struggled to convince colleagues of this, perhaps due to the underlying corporate attitude of ‘not trying to fix something that is not broken’.

The economy eventually crashed, leaving readers questioning whether Walter was in fact a ‘God without men’ and whether he had the ability to ‘predict’ or was in fact the ‘cause’, ‘Walters power. The power to affect the thing it observed, to alter the course of events with its predictions’ (p.139). Many anticipated and profited from shorting during the crash in 2008, and a familiar narrative is seen in books such as The Big Short. If Jaz was not too busy fixing his marriage and searching for his missing child, his prediction was true, and he should have possible invested against the market for a fairly substantial return.

This is Kunzru’s first novel set in America and allows for a diagnostic of minorities in the western world (Llena, 2016). Inequalities regarding race, economic and income disparities present themselves throughout the novel. Racial inequalities in the finance sector is an ever-growing battle, and this book does not disappoint in showcasing the unconscious biases. There is an affinity to those similar, and Jaz spent years crafting his new identity, though this can bring feelings of imposter syndrome. This highlights the subjective nature of hiring practices, relating to cultural and demographic diversity (Llena, 2016). However, Jaz himself was often the perpetrator of racial biases ‘Jaz told himself she was nothing but a ganghi rundi, a filthy whore like all the white girls’ (p.57). He had spent so much time trying to be someone else that he did not know who he truly was.

Despite the many differing characters and lack of chronological structure, this was a great read, however, I did finish less excited than I began. The author did well to unveil the unconscious biases of social class and inequalities presented within the financial bubble. However, the common structure of a novel to mention something at the beginning and then explain it at the end, was not the case here. Many aspects do not add up, eventually draining meaning away. ‘Dans le voyez vous, il y a tout, et it n’y a rien c’est Dieu sans les hommes’. The title is itself inspired by Honor de Balzac’s ‘Une passion dans le désert’ (1830) and makes us question the human quest to find meaning in life. Since ‘God ‘s without men’ is in fact not going to teach me about Christian doctrine, I was left with many questions. The innate need for humans to find meaning creates questions often too complex for one undergraduate to answer. So, for the now the most important question remains, what happened to Raj when he was kidnapped? A guess is that he was taken by a UFO.

References

Barron. M (2019) Interview with Hari Kunzru – The White Review. Retrieved from http://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/interview-hari-kunzru/

De Balzac, H. (2014 [1830]). A Passion in the Desert.

Ho, K. (2009). Liquidated: an ethnography of Wall Street. Duke University Press.

Jeffries, S. (2019). Hari Kunzru: ‘What’s happened since 2008 is a class war based on faith and credit’. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/07/hari-kunzru-class-war-faith

Kunzru,H. (2004). Transmission.

Kunzru,H. (2011). God’s without Men.

Linklater, A. (2019). Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru – review. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/31/gods-without-men-hari-kunzru

Llena, C. Z. (2016). A Cosmopolitan Conceptualisation of Place and New Topographies of Identity in Hari Kunzru’s Gods Without Men 1. Transnational Literature, 8(2), 1.

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