Tag: spies

Recent reads: winter

Work has been crazy busy and while I have been able to find time to read, I have not been keeping notes or thinking about writing reviews while I read. So here’s some very brief thoughts.

Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty islands I have not visited and never will
by Judith Schalansky
translated from German by Christine Lo

atlas of remote islands

This might just be the most beautiful book ever made. Judith Schalansky was raised in East Germany, and in her early childhood it looked like she would never be able to travel, so maps and atlases held a fascination for her. She has created the most gorgeous object here – every detail is considered, functional, exquisite – typography, art, infographic, end papers, edging.

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For the record this is me talking

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The Last Thing He Wanted
by Joan Didion

The Last Thing He Wanted

So Tim went on holiday without me and the only thing about it I am jealous of is his discovery of the Last Bookstore in LA, which looks pretty darned amazing. And because Tim is quite nice really he bought me some books there, a couple by authors he knew I’d like and one book entirely based on the recommendation of the bookseller. Now I’m not sure how long Tim spent telling this bookseller about my taste in books, but she got it so very right. I had never read any Didion (although I had heard of her and may even have one of her journalistic pieces on my wishlist) but this novel is completely up my street.

Usually this is the point where I give a very brief plot synopsis but that’s going to be quite tough here, not necessarily for fear of spoilers, but more because for most of the book I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on or what it was all about. It did all come together in the end, but I think that feeling a bit lost was an integral part of the reading experience for me.

“There were hints all along, clues we should have registered , processed, sifted for their application to the general condition.”

I suppose you could call it a thriller, maybe a political thriller. It has the right elements: spies, embassies, arms deals, shady characters, multiple identities, an unspecified island location. It even has a reporter as its central character, Elena McMahon, only she’s not there as a journalist, she’s somehow involved more deeply in the murky goings-on of an island that should be tourist heaven but isn’t. However, it’s not written like any thriller I’ve ever read before. The story is in a jumble, not stream of consciousness but not straightforward narrative either. But it’s not messy, it’s carefully constructed. There are repeated phrases and fragments, like memories someone is trying to put back together in the right order.

“Goddamn what’s the matter out there.
Smell of jasmine, pool of jacaranda, blue so intense you could drown again.
We had a real life and now we don’t and just because I’m your daughter I’m supposed to like it and I don’t.”

And who is that someone? The story is narrated by a curious combination of omniscient narrator and background character. But how can one character possibly have all these veiled links to Elena and have access to all these government files and interviews that are supposedly being used to put together the story of what happened to Elena McMahon on that island in 1984? So are we being misled?

“For the record this is me talking.
You know me, or think you do.
The not quite omniscient author.
No longer moving past.
No longer traveling light.
When I resolved in 1994 to finally tell this story, register the clues I had missed ten years before, process the information before it vanished altogether, I considered reinventing myself…a strategy I ultimately jettisoned as limiting, small-scale, an artifice to no point…
The best story I ever told was a reef dream. This is something different.”

In some ways, this book reminded me of a good film, like Open Your Eyes or Tell No-one, in the way it unfolds, with repeated flashes of key scenes and the situation devolving further and further from safe normality. As a reader, it’s an odd experience. I never felt I “settled into” the story; more than halfway through I was still shaking my head trying to figure out where it was going (though the clues are all there, and it would be interesting to read this again to see if it’s a more straightforward read second time around) but I still enjoyed it.

My only reservation is that to sell the government side of the plot, there are forays into political language that I would characterise as mumbo jumbo, or even corporate speak. And there’s a very definite attempt to make sure you don’t know if you can trust Elena, to the point that it becomes a little alienating. But then again not knowing who to trust is half the fun of a thriller, right?

Published 1996 by Vintage Books.

Source: Present from Tim, who bought it in a real (and awesome-looking) bookshop.

Each of us has only a quantum of compassion

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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
by John le Carré

Audiobook read by Michael Jayston

Many years ago I was sent a free copy of this novel (I think as a welcome gift to one of those book-buying clubs; I loved those when I was a teenager with my first part-time job) and I turned my nose up at it. It sat for years on the bookshelf and is probably still there at my Dad’s house faded and unread. Then when the film came out last year one of the newspapers offered the audiobook free to its readers, so I downloaded the mp3s and finally got round to listening to it over the past few weeks.

I have discovered more about me and audiobooks, I suspect, than I have about the book itself. Because it turns out I’m not great at listening to audiobooks, especially not during my commute (when I usually listen to podcasts). My mind wanders; I don’t always have a free hand to turn up the volume when the traffic noise drowns out the narrator; if I see someone I know I get chatting and fumble over hitting pause. I had more success listening to it at home while doing housework or, my favourite discovery, while having a bath (so much better than getting a nice book wet!). But even when giving it my full attention without distracting background noise, I still struggled a little. I think I just don’t take in information as well audibly as I do when I read it. I missed being able to flick back through the pages to check a name or other detail. I missed marking quotes I liked. Which was a real shame because there were some gems in here. I cribbed these off Goodreads:

“’I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,’ Smiley went on, more lightly. ‘Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things.’”

“The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.”

For those who haven’t read the book/seen the film/watched the TV show, this novel follows George Smiley, a spy who was forced into early retirement from MI6, as he is persuaded to help former colleagues track down a mole within the British ranks. Le Carré really brings alive the day-to-day existence of a spy, often humdrum, occasionally explosively exciting, always suspicious. I loved the language of Le Carré spycraft – how MI6 is “the circus” because it is (fictionally) located at Cambridge Circus in London; how babysitter, caretaker, janitor and mother are all euphemisms for jobs within the circus (there are others too that I missed; see this list for more); and terms I remembered from the brilliant children’s book I had of spycraft, which I think was a forerunner of the Usborne Spy’s Guidebook.

The story is heavily political, with real ambiguity about whether any of what any of the spies is doing is of use to their country, or humanity at large. There’s a lot of men talking in rooms, as I believe Mark Kermode said of the film, and what action there is is in flashback. There are two main narrative threads – the main one following Smiley and an occasional one following a former spy called Jim Prideaux, who is now working as a schoolmaster at a boarding school in Somerset and has developed a sweet facsimile of a spymaster–apprentice relationship with one of the boys there. The latter thread was more immediately accessible and has made me interested in Le Carré’s earlier novel A Murder of Quality, which sees Smiley investigate a murder at a boarding school. (Incidentally, I hadn’t realised this wasn’t the first Smiley novel and now hope I can read the earlier ones without plot points having been spoiled for me.)

Michael Jayston’s narration was spot-on and it was only a small surprise to discover that he played a main role in the 1979 TV series. I loved his voice for Smiley, a quiet, almost bored, quickly forgettable tone perfectly in keeping with Le Carré’s description.

I wish I could properly assess Le Carré’s writing but, aside from knowing that there were many brilliant phrases that stood out for me, I don’t think listening to the words allows me to be sure of my reaction the way reading them would.

First published 1974 by Hodder & Stoughton.