Why do we like to read about bad things that happen to rich people

“Eat the rich.” This is what the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said during the French Revolution; a maximum repeated several times in me house growth. But no matter how much someone would like to pant a billionaire just to learn a lesson, we are much more concerned about a kind of much less literal consumption: the story.

Just look at the best Oscar image this year, Anori, about understanding a sex worker with an oligarch, or 2023 Saltburn, about a cuckoo in the imposing house nest; or recent TV phenomena such as SeriesFollowing an unimaginably rich family for power or The white lotusTaking a persistent delicious look at the characters in luxury hotels, while their life reveals themselves in trivial ways and stops the heart.

In literature, f Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby – Probably, the defining text of richness without towing, repulsive – celebrates its centenary publication next month, which makes an interesting time to consider what happened and has not changed into the stories we tell about money Since.

An eruption of the novels of the 21st century confesses our lasting fascination for the rich and their fibers: from the novels of Elena Ferrante, About the damages to friends through the financial disappearance of Liane Moriaty Nine perfect strangersAbout 10 wealthy clients odiously, which take place at a wellness withdrawal. So well established is our interest in fictitious money, in fact, that the newest generation of books deals with the fascination itself.

Universality of Natasha BrownThis week and one of the most anticipated spring versions, is a slippery genre, which is not only addressed to our appetite for rich terrible people and investigates it.

Hot on the way of her debut 2021 Assembly, the first piece of Universality He tells the story of an anti -capitalist commune established in the country’s land of the rich banker Richard Spencer, during a Covid blockage, just for the leader to be a bludagon with a solid gold rod on Richard’s lever by a former dissatisfied member.

A banker when he does not write, Brown is perfectly placed to play with the narratives we say about our financial systems. The story of the Golden Bar Bludgeoning, for example, offers an irresistible example of the supposed corrupt influence of money; a metaphor for violence that some people attribute to capitalism.

But as the book continues, we discover that its first section is actually a long -lasting viral reading – a (fictive) journalism piece The gold of a fool, The success of which the life of the independent writer Hannah has changed. Thus, reformulate, we begin to see the bay between the version of the events and what happened “really”. Universality begins to ask interesting questions: how much of the success The gold of a fool Is it according to confirmation prejudice in its class -conscious readers? Who is really to benefit from the story told?

After The gold of a fool, universality It takes over different narrative perspectives-including Agronved Richard, who believes it was presented wrong (starting with the fact that the bar “only tungsten plated with gold”, rather than solid gold). However, his relations are blown by Smithereens in the unpleasant awakening of the article. “Richard was too attractive to ignore, too easy to criticize and moralize,” writes Brown. Hanna’s pen is quite poisonous, after all, it ends The gold of a fool With a flowering: “Richard Spencer’s leadership asks the question: Why does our society tolerate these greedy, pitiful people?”

Richard could feel More complex than the caricature painted by Hanna’s article, and Brown assures us to be (“he did not hurt anyone, he has not exploited anyone. He tried, as far as possible, to work hard and correct”) – but that does not stop him also to be complicated in the systems that reward people who look like him to the detriment of others. The book seems to suggest that it is much easier for the general public to digest the latter than the first, which makes a fascinating look at our sometimes questionable pleasure to moralize about money.

Universality It is not the only novel in this month that dissects wealth. Another new popular version, Meatfrom the Booker-Shortl author David Szalay, Comes with just as interesting ideas.

The novel follows the protagonist István as he passed from Hungary to London as a young man. Here, he works as a security security in a strip club until a chance meeting sees him to keep his private body. Finally, its proximity to the rich in Uber becomes more than professional and, when marrying a former customer, is catapulted to the top of wealth.

With amazing prose and amazing incisivity, Meat It depicts the parameters of money from the perspective of someone who first meets it – from what tragedies can and cannot isolate you; How, for those who do not grow inside, the Wealth cocoon can be withdrawn as quickly as they descend.

Talking to me about Roman, Szalay explains that, if it is abundant or extremely missed, “money is almost always there as a determining factor, which shapes destiny (István). All our lives are, to some extent, modeled by these forces. “

According to capitalism, money can be a proxy for almost anything: power, freedom and safety; Even violence, according to Szalay. “Like violence or threat of violence, money is able to make others give you things or do things for you,” he says.

With his careful numbers, the money also gives the impression of objectivity – something we could all get if we only solve the right formula. This promise of meritocracy wants the society to tick, but in reality, of course, the distribution of wealth is more arbitrary.

A function of the rich fiction has always been amortized that blows with moral superiority, allowing us gawp at traps hyper-wise Lives while they feel better than the characters (often terrible) who occupy them – something that, for Szalay, “feels a little too easy, a little too bed. There is something a little awful about everything. “Certainly there are no moral shortcuts in Meat – While the money regulates its external circumstances, Szalay’s characters remain impermeable internally, neither corrupt nor raised by his influence.

But terrible or not, there is clearly something irresistible in terms of stories do Scratch -the Schadenfreude itching, submitting lucky characters to their misfortunes their counterparts seem to be dedicated to real life.

Equally, we are fascinated by stories about people whose wealth insults by any coming a kind of all-powerful fantasy, as in the case of Richard Universality. If the money makes the world return, then its abundance is a kind of superpower – and the fiction has always been the perfect sand box to test the limits of such things.

Since our first stories, King Midas has changed carefully, turning their daughter in gold or Robin Hood by stealing from the sheriff NottinghamPeople have rotated stories about money since the currency was invented – and in 2025, our appetite for them only grows.

As capitalism is contorted in increasingly scandalous forms, it is more urgent for metabolizing the differences in widening power in fiction; To test the ideas about morality, exorcise resentments that is the natural foil of wealth and confronted with the ways in which our own lives orbits it.

Stories in which bad things happen to rich people give the pleasant meaning that some cosmic scales are directed – but in 2025, fiction This expectation is more and more awaited. As much as we could want money to meet morality, art is increasingly removed from this comforting equation in Murkier – Truer -. As Brown and Szalay prove, it is the time that our obsession for money has undergone a certain control on their own. Both dare to whisper the same devastating question: What happens if the rich are not worth eating more than you?

Natasha Brown universality is published by Faber, 14.99 pounds. Flesh by David Szalay is published by Jonathan Cape, 18.99 pounds