Why do we have to be invaded in order to exist as a collective entity? It is a remarkable question for the leader of a state that had not in fact been successfully invaded since it was formed in 1707, and of an island that had not suffered any serious external invasion since 1066? Implied in the question is an existential terror: without invasion do ‘we’ really exist at all? In this light, novels like SS-GB and Fatherland are not just masochistic fantasies, they are symptoms of a much deeper pathology in which pain is an existential necessity.
