Manuel Borda: The Wide Road to Destruction – The Downfall of the Privileged, Strategic Book Group, 2011, 391 pp.
If you want a good read, a whodunit that races breathtakingly over several continents and many years, then choose this book by a well-known Maltese economist, ex-politician and ex-Speaker of Parliament. It is a morality tale about a reversal of personal fortune through a life of vice.
You can think of Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray in which you follow a man’s descent into evil by scrutinising a painted portrait, which writhes and withers vicariously while the original retains a surface cool.
Borda’s tale of moral decomposition rings no new bells as such.
There are many such stories in the Old Testament and one well-known parable about a prodigal son in the New Testament.
Borda depicts this descent of a man against a background of economical wisdom. In a previous book he had outlined an ascent through honest business dealings.
In this second book, the wheel turns the other way, to undo by vice what virtue has won.
As a practising Christian economist himself Borda takes up the story of a successful businessman who has made it good by being inspired by the Gospel all along, and who now leaves the narrow road of success for the wide road of destruction. The title of the book spells this out.
It sounds like one kind of book, but there are twists and turns and elements that make this book a captivating read.
You could read it for its knowledgeable tour of emerging nations or climbing economies: the Falkland Islands, Barbados, Botswana, Burma, Egypt and Zimbabwe.
Borda here makes use of his vast professorial expertise and travels, to discuss one upcoming country after another. The author’s wide knowledge and judgement can be attractive in themselves.
In the course of his travels, the protagonist, who has lost a wife in the past through the botched murder attempts of jealous ex- business partners, gets involved with a Zimbabwean girl, whom he ultimately marries.
The man, who has turned to sex, drugs and drink, little knows that the girl brings him her own parcel of woe: she is targeted by her government as a spy.
The writing is staid but not stiff or difficult. It flows easily over large spaces and time intervals.
It contains no ornate descriptions and rarely stops to consider breaking day or setting sun.
Though the protagonist has a roving eye, scenes of seduction are swift and purposeful.
Perhaps in the world of wickedness, nothing is done without purpose.
The story alone is booty enough, but for the curious, there is plenty more about many things and many strange places.
And evil is ugly and takes many faces.
Borda’s novel contains a long list of characters.
The novel starts with a glorious party and ends with another – a kind of literary inclusion. In both celebrations sad things occur.
In between the two festivities, the man who has risen to the top by goodness, descends to rock bottom by forgetfulness of the same principles that once pushed him to the top.
Definitely nicer to go up than to go down.