This one represents something of a pivot from what we’ve seen before, stylistically speaking. It’s not the first we’ve seen, nor is it necessarily more drastic than earlier ones. But it is in a new direction, though still evolving from earlier Cantos.

I am reminded of the writings of Gertrude Stein. Not so much her famous Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas but more of earlier works like Tender Buttons.

More than any other time, Pound puts a systematic focus on capturing colloquial dialogue (something Stein is notably famous for achieving).

This dialogue is focused on charting the decline of the United States and other western nations due to the influence of the banking industry (and with a hat tip towards his dislike of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt), but through the lens of conversations about legal cases.

I am also struck by how relevant some of his complaints seem today. This stanza, for instance:

Hath benefit of interest on all
the moneys which, the bank, creates out of nothing.

Forgetting for a moment the author’s disturbing and despicable prejudices, taken on its own, doesn’t this sound like an indictment against the global financial system, creating fake money and turning it into real wealth for millionaires and billionaires, and then turning it all into real tragedy and the destruction of America’s real wealth.