I’m in Switzerland – with a monstrous, wealthy father-in-law

Dr Fischer of Geneva is a short book by Graham Greene which is set, as the title implies, in Switzerland, although the author was British. It’s a strange morality story and I am not sure that the setting is vitally important to the book because it could have been set anywhere, I think.

The story is told by a Mr Jones, a translator in a chocolate factory, who falls in love with the daughter of the eponymous Dr Fischer. She warns her fiancé about her father and over time he begins to understand what a monstrous man he is, although he has to see it for himself to understand fully. Anna-Luise is not like her father and she fears that her marriage will be destroyed by his actions.

This is a book about corruption and greed. Dr Fischer has accumulated a number of wealthy friends who are in thrall to his much greater fortune. He holds grotesque dinner parties where he humiliates these “friends” by setting them horrific tasks or treating them badly to see how far they will lower themselves to gain more money. Mr Jones attends one of these events and is disgusted by the behaviour of these people who all have positions of power in the local community. Ironically, Mr Jones needs the money more than they do but he is unwilling to behave like the wealthy and thus he receives none of the insanely expensive gifts that Dr Fischer offers.

This is a clever and captivating novel and I was hoping that Mr Jones wouldn’t fall prey to the attraction of wealth or give in to greed as Dr Fischer’s “friends” do. The moral of the story, however, seems to be that those with wealth will do anything that they can to acquire more and that those without, who get the opportunity to have more, may feel that they are morally better by resisting temptation but remain poor. It’s quite a depressing message because the author doesn’t pretend that wealth and power are unimportant but just that, for most people, they are unattainable because the wealthy will hold on to what they have, and want and gain more.

I thought that this was an unusual novel and I am glad that I have read it. I had an old Penguin Classics copy of the book which was very well read and worn and which I picked up secondhand somewhere. I have now passed the book on to a charity shop so that it can find another reader.