Random Questions

[Brian]

Thought these questions might be interesting and generate some conversation.

1. What book got you interested in the espionage genre? For me it would be The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

2. Can a case be made for Deighton being superior to LeCarre? I say yes.

3. Who is an author of spy fiction that feel is overrated? I’d say Alan Furst. Frankly, I find most of his books to be very dull.

3. Who is an underrated spy novelist? John Gardner. The Herbie Kruger and Railton family series are excellent.

4. Who is a new or relatively unknown author you would recommend? Roger Croft and his Michael Vaux novels.

[Feliks, Moderator]

Well done Brian.

[Brian]

Care to respond? Curious as to your thoughts

[Feliks, Moderator]

I enjoyed seeing mention of Gardner. Always feel he should be more talked about. Certainly an energetic novelist in the genre.

Alan Furst, I myself can't venture to say. Too recent an author for me. His titles haven't captivated me, but that's as much as I've seen of his style, just the covers and his choice of titles. Who's that other writer he competes with, Olaf Peterson? Something like that?

I agree about Deighton being leCarre's equal but not his superior; their respective scope varies too much to allow one to measure well vs the other. leCarre has a genre-defining 'saga' of five dovetailing works whereas Deighton writes slick, fast, one-off romps which are more stylish than historically accurate. Deighton however, is superior in the case of his 'Bomber' which is one of the finest Brit novels of the century.

Bravo for TSWCIFTC.

[Roger]

I agree that Deighton is Le Carre's equal. But he too wrote 'dove-tailing' books--GAME, SET, MATCH and HOOK, LINE, SINKER.
I think they were brilliant and all interlinked.
I would add Eric Ambler to the honors list.
As for Alan Furst, I find his novels supremely atmospheric with the espionage a sort of subsidiary additive. Sex comes in heavily--which is okay but hardly adds to tradecraft--unless it's with a double agent! Of course, I agree that Croft's Mideast trilogy novels are must-reads for any espionage aficionado. I understand that the series is about to become a quintet!

[Feliks, Moderator]

I've commented on Deighton in the past. From my perspective, 'Game, Set, & Match' --a very fine work --is still (in my view) merely the equal of any one single, major, leCarre novel such as 'Honourable Schoolboy' or 'Drummer Girl'. I say this because the depth of leCarre is just that many more times fine-grained than Deighton's. The three books which make up G,S, & M are stylish; they glide along; where leCarre drills downward into the pith of society. Deighton's follow-up to GSM --three further books! --I have never really even counted as anything. What were they a historical prequel? They can't be a sequel; Samson's story properly ends with Bernard Samson losing his lifelong mentor at the Wall. He should have moved on to something else; it's one of those cases where it's irksome to hear an author doesn't know when to stop a story. I even loathe the title --how does 'hook, line, and sinker' (a fishing metaphor) dovetail with a tennis metaphor of the first three books? Do you see what I mean?

Ambler: I'd rather put it that he was a crucial figure in the development of the novel of 'intrigue'. Furthering a fine tradition begun in the 1870s; Ambler is the heir to John Buchan. But espionage was not specifically what he carved out. We talk about him in this group but its almost like 'proto-espionage'. Some say he wrote just as well after WWII but it seems to others that he stayed in his same 1930s mode. It's an open question.

Oh well. Just ruminating aloud here.

[Feliks, Moderator]

Just discovered this fun leCarre quote. He doesn't make a lot of quote, so I'm pleased to run across this one.

"Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen become bouillon cubes."

Ah yah. And yes his 'Smiley' saga is 'interwoven' as I said, but also in a very different method than what Deighton did. LeCarre's novels are related but at the same time, unrelated to each other.

Deighton started out with a subtle trick which was at once revealed once you grasped the play-on-words in the book titles. It was a trilogy planned as a trilogy in advance. But 'Smiley' is certainly not a trilogy or a quintet or a tetrology and wasn't planned at all ahead of time; it took shape organically. Remember he is just a minor character at times.

It's maybe just the difference between doing something 'inside-out' vs doing in 'outside-in' but it affects how i regard the two men's output. I'm glad you like Deighton as much as you do but what really wowed me was his 'Bomber'.

[Feliks, Moderator]

Eh? Eh? Mighty terse post...Born what?

[Feliks, Moderator]

We don't charge by the word around here. Full sentences. Is this a Kiwi thing, this clipped speech pattern? Or are you on a time-share?

[Feliks, Moderator]

Oy I get it you're talkin bout same book. BOMBER by Deighton.

My god that is a haunting read. Takes you places you don' wanna go. I still think about it years later whenever I'm distraught about anything

[Feliks, Moderator]

Australia has a secret service (but all they wanna know is where the hot sauce is)

[Feliks, Moderator]

Trying to re-phrase what I mean above, talking about situations where 'sequels run on too long'. In the case of Bernard Samson, I didn't expect to hear any further about him, and it's not just me being stodgy. Because what elevated the GSM trilogy to the fine heights it attained was Deighton's first-ever use of 'grand theme'. This is what brought his trio up to the level of LeCarre's. In this case a Biblical theme; the story of Samson. He executed it really well. But then, what? Should we expect to hear more? No, because there's no sequel to Samson in the Bible. You can't carry an analogy farther than the classical source material you draw from. You have to cleave to the theme you start with. I'm sure it was good --whatever it was --but I myself had no yen for it. The other late-career series he trotted out, I heard was some kind of historical thing set in Czarist Russia? I'll let someone else fill in the details on that..

[cool breeze]

I thought the second three books of the Game, Set, Match series - Hook, Line and Sinker - were first rate. This was not at all a case of a sequel running on too long, at least through Sinker. Faith, Hope and Charity were good, but not quite up to the same standard as most previous installments. Hook is the only one of the nine that I rated three stars rather than four. Winter is also three stars, but it is strictly for Bernard Samson junkies.

Spy Sinker, the sixth book, retells the story of the first five books through the eyes of a different character (I am trying to avoid spoilers here). Much is revealed, and it adds interest to its predecessors. This is a relatively unusual literary device and Deighton pulls it off very well. In my opinion, Spy Sinker is arguably the best of the Bernard Samson series.

Feliks, if I am correct in thinking you haven't read Hook, Line and Sinker, you are missing some of Deighton's best work.

[cool breeze]

Also, I think Furst and Ambler are just OK. I didn't continue reading them after a few books. Are they overrated? I don't think so, because I don't think many rate them in anything like the first rank.

One author who hasn't been mentioned yet who I think is underrated is Charles McCarry, who passed away this year at 88. He ranks third with me, after le Carré and Deighton.

[Feliks, Moderator]

Charles McCarry hasn't been mentioned yet?? Maybe in this thread, but certainly in any group I have the honor to moderate his name is conspicuous. Isn't that so?

Anyway very keen to learn he holds your #3 spot. Bravo.

My god how I loathe the phrase 'over-rated'. I want to ban the term from all my groups. But in the case of Ambler and Furst the nub of the issue is their advent. Ambler is proto espionage and post intrigue; Furst is a latecomer to the field entirely. More like a historical author.

[Feliks, Moderator]

Anyway, cheers Breeze Man.

re: Deighton vs Lecarre; think of it this way. Could Deighton alone have turned the world on its head as LeCarre did, if LeCarre had not ever been on the scene? I myself do not think so. There's more than just good writing in leCarre.

[KOMET]

Paul wrote: "I'll mention a spy author in the underrated category: Charles McCarry.

My first experience reading him was
The Miernik Dossier,
, and I was hooked. Read his spy stuff in order, ..."

I wholeheartedly agree. I became a fan of Charles McCarry after reading " The Tears of Autumn" several years ago.

[cool breeze]

McCarry's Shelley's Heart (1995) eerily anticipated some of the events of the 2020 election, 25 year beforehand. It was on National Review's list of "Ten Great Conservative Novels" (their list included books written since 1950 and was published in 2010, before National Review became completely cosplay conservative). Even left-wing NPR put the book on its 2004 list of "Best in Political Fiction". The lists have some interesting overlap, Advise and Consent being the other.

My personal favorite is still the roman à clef The Spike, which is non-fiction with the names of the guilty changed to forestall libel lawsuits (some happened anyway). Since it was published in 1980, before Al Gore "invented the internet", I did a first draft at creating an internet version of a key, or clef, to the real names of the guilty parties, who include Vice President Walter Mondale and Senator Frank Church. The key is available on goodreads at the end of the book listing in the discussion section. Several other people have contributed identifications, confirmations and corrections to the discussion, but we are still not completely sure about a few characters, including the woman that Feliks described as an "outrageous nymphomaniac" (best current assessment: French actress and journalist Claude Sarraute, the second wife of Jean-François Revel), so please take a look and contribute any thoughts you might have to the discussion.

The Spike is even more fun to the read with the key to know which of the real-life people were stone cold traitors / committed communists, which were compromised / blackmailed traitors, which were fellow travellers / "useful idiots", and which were in it for pure graft, treason-on-demand for a fee, which always includes "10% for the big guy".

[Ben]

Feliks wrote: "Australia has a secret service (but all they wanna know is where the hot sauce is)"
Hi Feliks,
Yes we do have a secret service and its the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) https://www.asis.gov.au/ Even here in Australia, we don't get to hear about it very often. As for the hot sauce - I'll let ASIS know I have several varieties in my fridge!
kind regards,
Ben

[John]

After Papa Le Carre, Furst and Ambler are clear favourites of mine. Also very much in tune with Graham Greene. I don't re-read very much but recently re-read "The Human Factor" and felt it a different book (that is, even better) the second time around.