The Novel That Came in for the Win

There are a number of reasons, I think, that John Le Carre’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold made it on to this list. 

First, the book marked a shift in the spy novel genre.  By the time Le Carre began writing his bestseller, Ian Flemming had already published seven James Bond novels.  The spy as international man of mystery was already a glamorous public figure.  Alec Leamas, the protagonist in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, is no James Bond.  He’s aging, he’s angry, he’s rough around the edges, and he never once draws a gun or uses a gadget.  There are no casinos, no femme fatales, and no mysterious villains with odd behaviors and plans to destroy the free world.  Everything about the novel makes spy work look like a dirty and unpleasant job.  When the book was published, it made huge waves and was hailed as a genuine look at the spy game in an increasingly tense cold war.  In spite of Le Carre’s protestations, reviewers treated the book as though it revealed dark secrets against the wishes of the intelligence community because the book got at some ugly truths.  The novel provided a much need counterpoint in the genre and set a new standard for spy stories.

Second, the book is short and sharp.  My edition is 225 pages long, and I read it in about three days, which is very quick for my slow-reading self.  But even in its brevity, the novel manages to make the reader not feel short-changed on anything.  The characters are quickly drawn, but they are full characters with the complete feeling of depth and a life that goes beyond the pages on which they are printed.  The relationships and exchanges echo in the deep well of a suggested past.  It may be only the illusion of depth, but as a reader, I never felt cheated.  In this same vein, the story moved quickly without leaving out needed details or leaving questions unanswered. While the prose didn’t send me running to Facebook to update quote after quote, it was sharp and controlled, admirably well written without ever seeming “beautiful” or pretentious.  Any more florid of a style would have been out of place with the moral landscape of the world Le Carre created.  And like the characters and the prose, the plot was deceptively simple too.  There were no twists and turns leading to an explosive climax, no red herrings leading Leamas down fruitless paths, no minor characters with their own agendas that interfere with Leamas’s objectives.  And once again Le Carre turns this simplicity into a strength, propelling his plot with a singular focus that is absorbing and compelling.  The one twist it gives is a whammy and more than enough to reward the reader.  At every turn Le Carre make simplicity a power.

Third, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a morally ambiguous mess, as one can only imagine intelligence, counter-intelligence, and matters of national security necessarily are.  Again and again we are told that the only thing that matters in the intelligence game is results.  The ends always justify the means.  If bodies of the innocent stack up on the roadside in order to protect the “greater good,” then so be it.  This all comes beautifully to a head in the penultimate chapter when Liz and Leamas argue over the roles they have played in this spy game.  Liz clings to her understanding of right and wrong as Leamas angrily attempts to explain the murkiness of it all.  He simultaneously rejects and embraces what he is saying, and we as readers are stuck in the middle with Leamas.  It is an ugly position to be put in, but one that we always knew was there.  The complications of the intelligence world are made plain and made to be felt, which is really all that any reader could ask for.  And this simple presentation of a complex situation is precisely why reviewers in 1962 felt that they were being given an inside look into something they were never supposed to see.   Even Le Carre’s portrayal of Liz and the British Communist Party is surprisingly gentle in the heart of the cold war.  The novel does not in any way endorse communism, but it has an understanding of the everyday people who embrace its on-the-face message of peace and equality.  And the criticisms it lays against the Party at the highest levels are equally laid against the leaders of the British intelligence community, as both powers are presented as ruthless and without a moral compass.  That too, I think, contributed to the book’s reception as an expose of ugly truths.

My only disappointment in the novel was the strain of sexism that ran through it.  Leamas shock at and distaste for any woman in a position of power (I’m thinking of Miss Crail and the presiding judge at the tribunal) are not subtle.  The female warden who is in charge of Liz is an unthinking and unquestioning buffoon of sorts.  And Liz herself is a rather sorry figure, even as she is the moral center of the novel.  At 23, she is alone and unloved, naively embracing the communist’s “historical inevitability.”  The only man for her is a 50-year-old gruff partner who offers her nothing emotionally, but to whom she devotes herself whole-heartedly.  She is, as Leamas says, “a frustrated little girl,” and that’s about all the respect she gets from anyone.

But for the short shrift given to Liz, this is a fantastic novel.

A Dance to the Music of Time - Book IX - The Military Philosphers

I have not read a lot of books about World War II, either fiction of non-fiction, and didn’t know what to expect heading into the three-part section of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time that dealt with the war years.  The novels up to book VII, which begins Britain’s involvement in the war, while ranging near and far in Nick’s travels into manhood, were mostly in the style of novels of manners, so I was interested to see if we were thrown into the thick of battle or if the style persisted.

Given that Nick and his friends were deep in their thirties when the war began, they were not placed anywhere on the front lines.  In fact, Nick worried about how he could enlist quickly given the handicap of his age.  Nick did manage to enlist, and after working in different posts in England through books VII and VIII came into the lasting position of his military career in Book IX, that of managing the attaches from first Poland and then Norway and Belgium.  These final positions had him stationed in London. 

As a result of these matters, Powell is able to maintain his tone and style even as the war rages on in the form of blitzes and the reports of those who have fallen.  Not only does it suit Powell’s style, but it’s also a fascinating way to recount the war.  Of these last three books, the second one, The Soldier’s Art, was to me the most enjoyable because we spent the most time with characters we had been following before the war broke out.  But this latest book, book IX, The Military Philosophers, was the most interesting from an historical perspective.  So little time can be devoted to the war in our history classes that we really only get the highlights of the big moments in the war.  I had never even given thought to the political relationship between the greater powers and those of the smaller countries on the side of the Allies.  Powell’s focus is always on the movement of time and people, so he does not spend a lot of time uncovering the lives and political nuances of the situation, and while his coverage is sufficient to let us know the general ins and outs of Nick’s life, I found the quick skim over the surface of things made it difficult to really submerge myself in the fiction.  Because we weren’t diving down, I found myself becoming impatient and wanting to rush through the chapters to find an encounter in which we could spend some time.

It can be tempting to rush through what seems like humdrum material in Powell’s books, and I needed constantly to remind myself to slow down for two reasons.  First, the prose is so beautifully constructed that it would be a waste to blow past the sentences in search of a chapter.  Second, Powell is writing something that is much larger than any one book, attempting to capture the very motions and patterns of life as we live it, which means things that are humdrum today can prove to be critical tomorrow.  Powell is not interested in wasting anyone’s time, least of all his own, and I have to believe that what is laid out for us here is important not only at the moment but also down the line.

Powell shows his power as an author most readily in his concluding chapters.  The final chapter of The Military Philosophers is not only the final chapter of this one book, but the final chapter of this trilogy on World War II.  The war’s ending is celebrated and the lives that were once pulled together begin once again to separate, and Powell takes his time beautifully gathering each thread and placing them together, revisiting once forgotten moments as Nick sorts his thoughts out about the last five years of his life.  It was a fantastic ending to three enjoyable, though at times tedious, books.