The Way We Live Now

It’s fundamentally who you can con, and for how much, until you get caught. Melmotte’s cry as he’s standing for Parliament is heard from street to street, what’s needed is a man who understands “the way we live now”.

His business ventures will bring enlightenment to the Hottentots, ease for the coolies and liberty to the Slavs, except he’s a complete fraud. When a film critic for The New Yorker publishes a book on being taken by just such an empty show, it’s a sad day indeed for letters. Evidently the best work on The New Economy is an old one.

The Beeb is galvanized by Trollope like frog legs at Maxim’s. Masterpiece Theatre understands The Way We Live Now, because it has embarked upon a venture to remake, it would seem, the masterpieces that made its name. It’s all the rage now, redoing the past. The only trouble is, it’s one hell of a way to run a railroad.