One of the most dazzling and adventurous writers now working in English takes on the enigma of the Cambridge spies in a novel of exquisite menace, ...
read full description
reviews
Oct 15, 2011
Daryl
rated it: 
Ambitious saga chronicling the disaffected, alienated generation coming of age in the WWI thirties (upper-class, well-educated, with no 'anchor') and their often-successful wooing by already-converted dons in their respective ivied universities such as Cambridge, Eton, Oxford. LeCarre' has already covered this ground somewhat, but this book is a 'life' of such a young man, played into his seventies and brutally illustrating the cost/benefits balance sheet of an existence predicated upon duplici
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Jan 11, 2012
Alex
rated it:
This is an enjoyable, if rather depressing, tale of one of the "Cambridge spies" outed for being Russian moles in British intelligence during and after the War. The account is "fictionalized", as they say, but the amount of historical detail is impressive. It might be read as a cautionary tale, as the narrator's early adoption of a Stoic (not to mean simply "stoical": he directly cites Marcus Aurelius and Seneca as his influences, and a portrait of the latter is a
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Jun 23, 2010
Al
rated it: 
Banville's story about the life and career of Victor Maskell, an English academic who, out of boredom and misplaced idealism, becomes a Russian spy in the 30s. He operates successfully until late in life. Eventually exposed and charged with treason when old, sick and dying, he recounts his life in a series of flashbacks. Banville is brilliant in conveying Maskell's vulnerability, self-deceptions, and pretensions. We watch as his life falls apart, and his smug assumptions prove irretrieva
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Mar 03, 2011
Frank
rated it:
Like many of Banville's narrators, Victor Maskell, the eponymous "untouchable", is an art historian. The details surrounding Maskell's life roughly correspond to a conflation of Anthony Blunt (1907-83), who was exposed in 1979 as a former Soviet spy, and the Belfast-born poet, Louis MacNeice (1907-63). The form of the novel is a fictionalised memoir, written out by Maskell in the last year of his life, detailing his rise from Cambridge undergrad in the early '30s to member of the Royal
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Oct 01, 2009
Steve
rated it:
After reading something written so well, it’s a disappointment having only my own less eloquent words available to praise it. Maybe it’s better to let Banville’s passages sell themselves. I’ll get to those soon, but first a bit of context. The book, I learned only today, is a Roman a clef -- more or less a true account of the infamous Cambridge spies disguised as a novel. The focus is on Victor Maskell, a composite figure based primarily on real-life Anthony Blunt. It’s structured as a memo
More...
9 comments
like
(5 people liked it)
Oct 27, 2011
Mike
rated it:
An auspicious introduction for me, to this very intelligent author. In this very well crafted novel the author takes us through a fictional account of the life of a Cambridge spy during the time around World War II. The protagonist leads a double life in almost every sense of the meaning, and finds thrills in his deception, the same way he finds comfort in art, which is his another of his loves. His identity is built on lies, and those lies are both his security, and potentially his undoing. Now
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Aug 02, 2011
The real John Banville takes on the subject of the cambridge five http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_F... While most portrayals focus on who, what, where, when and WHY, the novel unfolds at a brisk trot down memory lane(s). How well can someone who must first deceive themselves recount true memories. The motivations are minor but accumulate. The enormities (the narrators term) are dismissed. A very intriguing and different approach to the subject. Minor complaint - we all know about th
More...
Aug 01, 2011
Didn't finish it. Whilst there are some hints of self-deprecation, this novel is largely a self-conscious attempt to 'intellectualise' the spy genre, in a manner which is as shallow as any use of that word ever is. This intellectualisation amounts to an embarrassing avalanche of namedropping from the history of art and ideas, draped over a thin, insight-free plot about Cold War espionage. This gives an idea of how preoccupied in impressing you the text often becomes:
Anyway, of allMore...
Apr 21, 2009
Debra
rated it:
Difficult book to get into the writing is pretty pompus and I just wasn't enjoying it, then I was intruiged by the story ..... my main issue was the main character he is quite unlikeable with no real convictions... except his love of art history.... the books starts with him in his 70's with cancer finally exposed as a spy and then you are taken back through his life..... a well lived life yes certainly but a life well lived I live that up to the reader to decide ...but for me I think not... I c
More...
Jul 19, 2010
Harriet
rated it:
A beautifully handled, sarcastic, changeable, moving 1st person voice, in the character of Victor Maskell, Russian/British double agent and art historian. John Banville is brilliant in his creation of this prickly character, whom I love in spite of, and maybe because of, his prickliness and undecorated honesty. Brilliant, too, the way Maskell's homosexuality meshes with, resonates with, his spying -- both illicit activities in England in the 1920s and 30s (and into the "modern" era.
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Aug 29, 2010
Scilla
rated it: 
This is a novel about one of the Cambridge (Russian) spies in England before and during WWII. Maskell has been uncovered when in his seventies, long after his retirement. Maskell, who is a noted art critic and teacher, a curator of the royal collection, and in intelligence for England during the war, decides to write his memoirs. Most of the book is his thoughts about the various episodes of his life, including his first meeting with his wife, becoming a spy, relationships with his friends and
More...
Nov 04, 2011
Joanne
rated it: 
I loved this novel! Having just read The Sense of an Ending--the Booker Prize winner--and finding it just another older male naval gazing exercise, I was elated to be reading this send-up of the Cambridge Apostle and spy--Anthony Blunt. Not that the the novel isn't serious; it's very serious. Banville's prose is rich, poetic, sensuous, sly, everything one could want. It's a meditation on identity, art, betrayal, English class consciousness, treason--I could go on and on. I wonder what the Booker
More...
Dec 27, 2011
Rob
rated it:
I find myself torn between three and four stars here. The roman à clef aspect was a piquing curiosity, but also made me a bit uneasy. And the journal-as-novel style is something I've always found... tedious. Nevertheless, stories about spies and spying are always a bit exciting; and this one excited my Cold War Nostalgia, no less.
Early on, the narrative seemed to thrash around in time, which I found somewhat disorienting--was our narrator (Maskell) talking about events in his recent pa More...
Early on, the narrative seemed to thrash around in time, which I found somewhat disorienting--was our narrator (Maskell) talking about events in his recent pa More...
Sep 26, 2011
Izabela
rated it:
I'm struggling with this book as it takes some time getting used to it. The story, thus far, is interesting but the prose is unbelievably (and annoyingly) pretentious. I need a dictionary by my side as I read this book because every other word is unfamiliar. If it weren't for the prose, I might think more highly of this book.
Victor Maskell's life is over. He's dying of cancer and he's been kicked out of every organization and removed of all honors because he was a spy for the Russians More...
Victor Maskell's life is over. He's dying of cancer and he's been kicked out of every organization and removed of all honors because he was a spy for the Russians More...
Nov 10, 2008
"The man in the leather coat laughed. Now, I must say something about this laugh, which was peculiar to Soviet officialdom, and especially prevalent among the security establishment. It varied from Leathercoat's brief, bitten-off snicker to the melodeon wheeze of the ones at the top, but essentially it was the same wherever one heard it. It was not the mirthless snarl of the Gestapo man, nor the fat chuckle of a Chinese torturer. There was real, if bleak, amusement in it, almost, one might
More...
Sep 07, 2008
John
rated it:
Based on the first 80 or so pages, this is going to be amazing! A fascinating narrator, a compelling story (about the Cambridge spies), and an incredible gift for language.
Update: What a treat! I finished this a couple nights ago, and right now this is a really strong candidate for my best book this year. I don't want to give away anything, so suffice it to say that the story covers around 50 years, covers all kinds of wonderful and interesting ground, with a number of surprising tw More...
Update: What a treat! I finished this a couple nights ago, and right now this is a really strong candidate for my best book this year. I don't want to give away anything, so suffice it to say that the story covers around 50 years, covers all kinds of wonderful and interesting ground, with a number of surprising tw More...
Jun 29, 2008
John
rated it:
This is the fictional account of Victor Maskell, a Brit who spied for the Soviet Union in the mid-20th century, but also was a respected art critic, military officer, code breaker, latent homosexual (at least until his 30s and thereafter when he settles into his sexual identity), and poor family man (married to a woman who admits she doesn't love him). It is based on the true account of Anthony Blunt, a member of the so-called Cambridge spies.
The book is a brilliant psychological and More...
The book is a brilliant psychological and More...
Jan 15, 2009
James
rated it:
I enjoyed this book tremendously. John Banville has created in the character of Victor Maskell someone both complex and believable; the story is suspenseful, and his prose, as always, can only be described as both luminous and effortless. He describes his voyage to France early in the war: "The night was preternaturally calm, and our troopship, a converted steamer which before the outbreak of war had ferried day trippers between Wales and the Isle of Man, glided intently as a knife through
More...
Dec 23, 2008
James
rated it:
As with most Banville books, the prose borders on poetry with some breathtaking language and imagery, but the piece as a whole feels unnecessarily packed and rushed, depending on more conventional techniques to carry dramatic heft at key moments.
Granted, if Banville were to seriously delve into the nitty gritty details of Victor Maskell's life as a spy, a traitor, an upper class dandy, a homosexual, a distant son, an estranged husband and father, an art critic, an old man on the ve More...
Granted, if Banville were to seriously delve into the nitty gritty details of Victor Maskell's life as a spy, a traitor, an upper class dandy, a homosexual, a distant son, an estranged husband and father, an art critic, an old man on the ve More...
Feb 18, 2009
Boyd
rated it:
Now that W.G. Sebald is dead, John Banville is the most brilliant novelist of our time (what a shame that he keeps wasting himself on those Benjamin Black novels!), and this is his best book. It is the fictionalized story of Anthony Blunt & Co., of course, but beyond that it's an extended and fascinating meditation on the tricky concept of authenticity.
Someone here compared THE UNTOUCHABLE unfavorably to Alan Bennett's wonderful play (and then film) A QUESTION OF ATTRIBUTION, but in More...
Someone here compared THE UNTOUCHABLE unfavorably to Alan Bennett's wonderful play (and then film) A QUESTION OF ATTRIBUTION, but in More...
Nov 13, 2011
Jen
rated it:
This novel tells the fictionalised account of the Cambridge spies, in particular the art critic and academic Philby. At first, I found the story very slow moving, but later, the tension has built up and the narrative becomes quite compelling. A literary retelling, which occasionally becomes overwhelmingly English and slightly pretentious, but nevertheless reveals the character of Philby and gives insights into his motives.
Aug 29, 2010
Xio
rated it:
"When I was a child and heard about angels, I was both frightened and fascinated by the thought of these enormous, invisible presences in our midst. I conceived of them not as white-robed androgynes with yellow locks and thick gold wings, which was how my friend Matty Wilson had described them to me--Matty was the predecessor of all sorts of arcane knowledge--but as big, dark, blundering men, massive in their weightlessness, given to pranks and ponderous play, who might knock you over, or b
More...
Jan 29, 2011
Ft. Sheridan
rated it:
"Everybody nowadays disparages the 1950s, saying what a dreary decade it was—and they are right if you think of McCarthyism, and Korea, the Hungarian Rebellion, all that serious, historical stuff; I suspect, however, that it is not public but private affairs that people are complaining of. Quite simply, I think they did not get enough sex."
Dec 29, 2009
Mark
rated it:
I had to read most of this to realize how good it was. He is, of course, a great writer, but I was bored until about the 50% mark. In the second half of the book, its structure struck me. Reminiscent of the best Le Carré and also Graham Greene; where the deception of the characters is reflected at all levels of the story's architecture.
Oct 06, 2007
Ryan
rated it:
"Everybody nowadays disparages the 1950s, saying what a dreary decade it was—and they are right, if you think of McCarthyism, and Korea, the Hungarian rebellion, all that serious, history stuff; I suspect, however, that it is not public but private affairs that people are complaining of. Quite simply, I think they did not get enough of sex. All that fumbling with corsetry and woolen undergarments, all those grim couplings in the back seats of motor cars, the complaints and tears and resentf
More...
Aug 09, 2010
Dan
rated it:
A novel about a man who is an expert on the paintings of Poussin and who was a spy until he was exposed and was forced to leave the profession. He may or may not have been a double agent, and part of the tension of the narrative emerges from the ambiguity as to whom he was actually working for. This is not a mainstream spy novel of the type written by Robert Ludlum or Ian Fleming. There is little action in terms of firearms, gee-whiz technology or car chases. This is a literary work, written
More...
Mar 15, 2011
Conrad
rated it:
Very articulate writer and interesting subject (the Cambridge spies). It was, however, somewhat homo-erotic as it dealt with the character's sexuality, but considering it was based on real events to leave that part out would be to leave out a big part of the puzzle about these men and their motivations.
Aug 11, 2011
Pat
rated it:
Although I disliked so much about this book, I have to say that I was fairly gripped right to the end. I found most of the characters quite unpleasant in their disregard for humanity. However, the story line obviously had something that caught my interest and kept me reading.
Nov 02, 2010
Kate
rated it:
This was a difficult but ultimately rewarding read. I actually had to look up some words, which was kind of fun and definitely educational. The writing is superb, if dense, and while the story was fairly depressing, I'm glad I took the time to get through this one.
Mar 26, 2010
Djlown
rated it:
The Untouchable is beautifully crafted book and an absolute pleasure to read. It is based on the life of the art historian Anthony Blunt and explores the nature of identity and betrayal. Banville's power of description is a rare treat.
This is a book to savour.
This is a book to savour.
