华尔街轮回：光环、财富与迷失的灵魂

    不同于叙述加评论的杂志特稿风格，卢斯更加偏重于描述事实——“这就是现实，女士”。有时候，这种风格可能会令人失望。书中写道，当切尔西得知自己被分配到美国银行(Bank of America)公共财政部门之后，她“强忍着几乎夺眶而出的泪水，”原因是，“她将要从事一件她自己几乎一无所知的工作。她随后约了几位朋友去酒吧，一醉方休。”读到这里，我们渴望作者提供一些分析：是不是所有的华尔街新人都会遭遇这种事情——他们最初一点也不了解自己正在从事的业务，都是边干边学吗？但卢斯并没有进一步阐述。相反，在引用了切尔西的话之后，他眼睛一眨，写了一句你完全能够想象到的句子：“三天后，情况稍微有点明朗。一个醉意朦胧的公司实习日绝对算不上最糟糕的履新方式。”

    就算是吧。当你看到切尔西在美银美林(Bank of America Merrill Lynch)一年一度的实习日与她的老板们把酒言欢——这些活动通常“在新泽西州一家豪华的乡村俱乐部举行，每个活动站都备有一桶啤酒，”你就会很难对她产生同情心。卢斯从未非常明显地怜悯或嘲笑过他的主人公们。阅读这部著作时，你基本上感受不到他的存在，卢斯可不是欢蹦乱跳的迈克尔•刘易斯【刘易斯的代表作包括《说谎者的扑克牌》(Liar's Poker)一书——译注】。这种风格可能是正面的，也可能是负面的，这取决于你对非虚构文学的理解。

    一个值得注意的例外情况恰好也是这本书最精彩的场景。在一场惊心动魄的卧底行动中，卢斯偷偷溜进了一个光怪陆离的闭门活动，也就是华尔街Kappa Beta Phi社团的年度晚宴现场。【《纽约》杂志(New York)非常明智地选择了这段经历作为本书的摘录，还给它加了一个噱头十足的标题——“揭秘华尔街秘密社团”，收获了不少点击量。它还配有好几段不容错过的音频文件。】

    这次活动的高潮部分荒诞不经，以至于卢斯最终只是简单地列举了一下：一位男子头戴印有南部联盟旗帜的帽子，演唱了一首关于金钱的歌曲；一个拿希拉里•克林顿开涮的笑话（她“长着胡子，臭不可闻”）；一个团体表演一首源自《摩门经》(The Book of Mormon )，但歌词经过改写的歌曲（“我相信，是上帝创造了华尔街”）。不可避免的是，卢斯最终还是被人盯上了：亿万富豪投资者迈克尔•诺沃格拉茨要求卢斯表明身份，接着还要没收他的手机。“他的眼睛布满血丝，脸红脖子粗，”我们认识到，本书最栩栩如生的描述终于出现，这或许是因为这件事碰巧是作者本人的真实经历。随后，我们这位无畏的向导勉强逃到了大厅。在那里，这个团体的两位成员试图让他相信，“我刚才看到的景象其实不是一群极富权势的金融家在讲同性恋的笑话，嘲笑穷人，吹嘘自己的商业成就。”

    尽管读起来令人愉快，但这个场景似乎与本书主题不太搭调，因为这些顽皮的狂欢者都是有头有脸的大人物：他们是正在财富之海游弋的华尔街保守派。卢斯关注的则是最新一代的华尔街奋斗者。但你会产生一种不祥之感：他笔下那些天真无邪、精力旺盛的年轻人都怀抱着一颗加入Kappa Beta Phi社团的野心。一旦他们熬到五十多岁，最终跻身亿万富豪的行列，他们在最底层打拼的艰难岁月就将变成遥远的记忆。于是，华尔街这样的轮回还会继续下去。（财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒

    Roose's style is more "just the facts, ma'am" than the magazine feature formula of quote plus commentary. At times, that can be disappointing. When we learn that Bank of America (BAC) recruit Chelsea "fought back tears" after learning she'd be placed in public finance ("she would be doing something she barely understood yet again ... she went out to a bar with friends and drank until the world blurred"), we crave some analysis from our guide: Is this the case with all Wall Street recruits -- they have no clue what they're doing at first, and pick it up as they go? But Roose doesn't pursue it. Instead, he follows her quote up with a line that you could imagine is written with a wink: "Three days later, things were looking a little brighter. A boozy corporate field day was hardly the worst way to start a job."

    Well, yes. Watch Chelsea play flip-cup with her bosses at the annual Bank of America Merrill Lynch field day, "held at a posh New Jersey country club" with "a keg of beer at each activity station," and you'll have trouble sympathizing with her. Roose never overtly pities nor mocks his subjects. He is mostly absent from the narrative -- a Michael Lewis romp, this is not -- which can be a positive or negative, depending on how you like your nonfiction.

    One notable exception is the book's finest scene, a thrilling undercover operation in which Roose sneaks into a bizarre, closed-door affair: the annual dinner of Wall Street society Kappa Beta Phi. (New York magazine wisely chose this as its excerpt of the book, headlining it "What I saw when I crashed a Wall Street secret society," and has reaped the resulting clicks. There is also some must-hear audio.)

    The highlights of the event are so ludicrous that Roose finally just rattles them off as bullet points: a man singing about money while clad in a Confederate flag hat; a joke about Hillary Clinton (she "has whiskers and stinks"); a group performing a song from The Book of Mormon with the lyrics rewritten ("I believe that the Lord God created Wall Street"). Inevitably, someone picks up on Roose's presence: Billionaire investor Michael Novogratz asks Roose to identify himself, then demands his cell phone. "His eyes were bloodshot, and his neck veins were bulging," we learn -- some of the most vivid writing in the book, at last, perhaps because it happened to the author himself. Our fearless guide narrowly escapes to the lobby, where two of the group's members try to convince him "that what I'd just seen wasn't really a group of wealthy and powerful financiers making homophobic jokes, mocking poor people, and bragging about their business conquests."

    The scene feels a bit out of place, delightful though it is, because the naughty KBP revelers are top dogs: They are the old guard, now swimming in money. The focus of Roose's book is the newest generation of Wall Street strivers. But you get the sinking feeling that many of the naive young bucks he focuses on are the aspiring KBP members of tomorrow -- that once they're billionaires in their fifties, their days on the bottom will be distant memories, and the cycle will continue.