The New Meaning of Treason in Espionage Aficionados

Nov 07, 2014 Feliks rated it really liked it

Shelves: good-nonfiction, criticism, brit-lit-classic

The number of women nonfiction authors represented on my bookshelves are scant; but this doesn't reflect the high esteem I hold for their general ability to excel in this field. Indeed several nonfiction milestones (in my view) issue from the pens of women authoresses. Joan Didion on culture, for example, or Rachel Carson on the environment. Barbara W. Tuchman, writing on WWI. Elizabeth Eisenstein, for European history.

Lately--I would definitely say--Rebecca West will be added to these elite ra The number of women nonfiction authors represented on my bookshelves are scant; but this doesn't reflect the high esteem I hold for their general ability to excel in this field. Indeed several nonfiction milestones (in my view) issue from the pens of women authoresses. Joan Didion on culture, for example, or Rachel Carson on the environment. Barbara W. Tuchman, writing on WWI. Elizabeth Eisenstein, for European history.

Lately--I would definitely say--Rebecca West will be added to these elite ranks of my most favorite female thinkers. She has chosen a fascinating little topic for her milieu; and one much to my interest. And she is very good at delivering it.

Now, when I picked up her book and read the first few pages I congratulated myself that I could immediately recognize a markedly feminine prose style--even had I not known the authorship. It stands out nakedly to the eye. There are places even in the earliest few chapters where West lingers over 'appearances' ...'how someone looked', 'how he dressed'--rather more than any male writer would.

It is for this reason that I might likely have sniffed and set it aside--if this were a novel, for instance--but not in this case. West is not not remiss in the handling of facts; and the items she adds (which a male author might not) just for this type of material--add tremendous value.

For here, West is circumscribing the bounds of a subject matter for which her personal training as an observer --as well as any hereditary faculties she gains from her gender or private life--all come to the aid of material which cries out for intuition and emotional insight.

That subject is, betrayal. Really, who better than a woman to probe such issues? Who better to size them up in a fellow? It is a fantastic premise for a work of research. For such a topic, precisely *where* a pact or a bond or an obligation was broken and abandoned, must be sifted. Tiny details matter greatly!

Falseness and faithlessness can not be determined in a laboratory. Criticizing citizenly behavior from a purely legal point-of-view helps of course, (and West does this in great measure) but surely, in the final analysis of honesty in human relations--a woman's sensibility is the best judge.

For the basis of her investigation--and very likely the impetus for the book itself--West was furnished (via the coincidence of living and working at a time) when the most calamitous incidents of civic betrayal were afforded to public life and audience. World War II and its aftermath contains the most livid examples of treason known to the modern world.

The book begins with the analysis of William Joyce ('Lord Haw-Haw') who bedeviled the European airwaves during the Blitz. One could hardly ask for a better specimen of treason. Very promising start to what looks like a fabulous, savory read.

Updates to follow. ...more

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