I figured that I would see Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” at some point, and I like to read the book before I see the movie.
So I took Jordan Belfort’s 2007 “memoir” out of the library. A better (or at least more accurate) title might have been “The Degenerate Lying, Drug Abusing Con Man from Long Island.”
It’s hard to believe anything Mr. Belfort has to say. He doesn’t seem to have taken any responsibility for his crimes, and he takes great pains to describe the copious amounts of cocaine, alcohol, painkillers and other intoxicants that he ingested.
In short, he’s (at best) an unreliable narrator. While his stories of excess might be entertaining, it’s hard not to think of the lives he probably ruined through his “pump and dump” stock scams.
It’s strange, but after reading the book I don’t really feel the need to see the film.
Read reviews from the NY Times and the Daily Beast.