September 15, 2014
At the end of his life, Dutch Jew and dubiously ethical entrepreneur of the newly emerging field of pharmaceutical hormones, Mordechai De Paauw, is physically incapacitated but mentally fit enough to recount his life’s story, which he claims helps him by “putting off the time of departure.” The tale seems solely for Mordechai’s benefit, however, as he recalls cavorting with one factory girl after the next, refers repeatedly to the former power of his phallic “beast,” and generally drones along in an unconvincing first person. Set in the before, during, and after of World War II, Goldschmidt, who is Dutch and whose own father survived Bergen-Belsen, has a potentially riveting connection with the history. More often than not, though, that history is established through overly expository statements such as, “We were in the throes of the most serious economic recession the world had ever seen, and since those uncertain times a reorganization might become necessary, I wanted to be in a position to make the right decisions when the time came.” As both De Paauw’s own family and Europe as a whole crumble, he holds fast to his determination to invent what will next change the world all over again—the Pill, but the book never becomes as interesting as all its elements would suggest.
September 15, 2014
Dutch author Goldschmidt's first novel, an attempt to fictionalize the history of a Dutch pharmaceutical company that survived World War II although it was owned by Jews, offers a less than savory view of business ethics.Twin brothers Mordechai and Aaron De Paauw inherit the family butcher business in the early 1920s when they're only 27. Ambitious Mordechai is soon running things while mild-mannered, morally upright Aaron remains in the background. In 1923, Mordechai teams up with Rafael Levine, a Jewish scientist from Germany, to found Farmacon, which will manufacture insulin from animal pancreas excretions. The partnership flourishes, making scientific discoveries and lots of money, although Mordechai chafes at Levine's efforts to hire as many German-Jewish refugees as possible. Ironically, Mordechai marries Rivka, the daughter of one of the German scientists, who bears him four daughters and a son. Meanwhile, Mordechai, a self-styled ladies' man, enjoys summoning female employees to his office to "seduce" them and wonders at Aaron's lack of sex drive. Without Levine's knowledge, Mordechai arranges for his brother to test out the testosterone Farmacon has been developing. The result drives Aaron temporarily insane with lust, and he goes to prison in 1938 without divulging Mordechai's culpability. As the Nazis arrive, Mordechai escapes Holland with his family although Rivka, having learned about Mordechai's predatory sexual activities, ends their marriage. But Mordechai's primary concern is Farmacon's continuing growth even as the war rages and those he left behind suffer. Returning to the postwar Netherlands, he breaks with Levine because Levine's German (though Jewish) background might hurt business. Rivka, Aaron and Levine have all become fodder for Mordechai's greed. Even as an old man approaching death, he has no epiphany to leaven the reader's perception that he is a narcissistic creep.Although Goldschmidt gives him a distinctive, if repellent voice, Mordechai reports the events of his life in a deadening follow-the-dots style that does nothing to mitigate the novel's simplistic portrayal of nobility versus capitalist evil.
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September 15, 2014
Scientific progress and human decency butt heads in this debut novel, which was inspired by the real-life founder of Organon, the first pharmaceutical company to make and market birth control pills and testosterone replacement therapy. A Dutch meat company executive, Mordechai de Paauw built a pharmaceutical empire amid the chaos of Hitler's rise to power, in the process betraying his partner, his twin brother, his wife, and the young women who worked in his factory, whom he exploited sexually. Mordechai's only punishment is a helpless old age and the knowledge that his son will pay for his own crimes. What's most exciting about this novel is its portrait of unregulated entrepreneurial science, with a ruthless CEO who thinks little of testing his company's creations on vulnerable women and even his own brother, with disastrous consequences. Less interesting is Mordechai himself, since the conscience he finally develops is too little too late; it's impossible to care about him. VERDICT Recommended for fans of other indictments of capitalism, from Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie and Frank Norris's The Octopus to Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia.--Evelyn Beck, Piedmont Technical Coll., Greenwood, SC
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