A Bad Mistake at the Bookstore

I follow the custom of buying book with "Alan Furst" on the cover as soon as I see them. They're all good, but the best is the truly great Dark Star--in my judgment the best espionage novel ever written. So when I saw Alan Furst's name on the cover of The Book of Spies I snatched it up immediately.

It was only when I got home that I discovered:

1. It is not a new espionage novel by Alan Furst.
2. It is not a new collection of espionage short stories by Alan Furst.
3. It is not even a collection of Alan Furst's favorite espionage stories by other writers.
4. It is a collection of excerpts chosen by Alan Furst from espionage novels by other writers.

There's nothing worse than novellitus interruptus when the novel is a good one. I can see that this is in the end going to prove to have been a very expensive and very time consuming purchase indeed.

Novels excerpted are:

Eric Ambler, A Coffin for Dimitrios
Anthony Burgess, Tremor of Intent
Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes
Maxim Gorky, The Spy
Graham Greene, The Quiet American
John le Carre, The Russia House
W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden
Charles McCarry, The Tears of Autumn
Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel
John Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down
Rebecca West, The Birds Fall Down

Alan Furst writes:

The characters... work at the blurred edge of the Manichean Universe, where Good struggles with Evil for the destiny of humankind. Work... plagued by moral uncertainty, and always in secrecy... foreign lands, living the sort of independent and adventurous existence that may lead to love or lechery or both. There were two standards for the selections... good writing... and the pursuit of authenticity.... Taken as a subgroup, the former intelligence officers... sophisticated, cynical, and mordant... write with a kind of cloaked angst... the world is a place where political power is maintained by means of treachery and betrayal.... [L]et us being Chapter One and put a good person--at least one who is trying--into this hell and watch him do even worse. By the final paragraph, it's evident that victory is not moral triumph, and, with a few turns of the globe and changes in politics, no longer victory. Not good.

But not always. Clandestine conspiracy is always good when the opposition is evil.... Steinbeck's... Orczy's.... Clandestine conspiracy is always bad, on the other hand, when initiated by the secret police.... Conrad and Gorky, who knew what they were writing about... West....

For humor... I've included the magnificent Tremor of Intent by Anthony Burgess. Burgess may have started out with the idea of writing a send-up... but what seems to have happened next is extraordinary. He seems to have become fascinated by the genre... produced a fruity and seductive spy fiction where passages meant to skewer the conventions... don't so much satirize them as do them better, a lot better....

Comments

[kb]

Oh, I'll probably end up buying it anyway. I can't resist books by Furst either. I've read five on that list, so that should keep expenses down...

[Kent]

Gotta agree with you on the genius of Alan Furst. However, although Dark Star was very good, I thought Night Soldiers was his best novel.

But I think I'll get this particular book from the library.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Unable to wait for a new Furst novel, and unwilling to buy that anthology, I picked up Phillip Kerr's Berlin Noir, a trilogy of three noir detective novels set in Berlin in 1936 and 1938, and Vienna in 1947 (or '48)? I got it at the downtown Pegasus, on Shattuck, on their recommendation -- I'd never heard of it or him before. But I'm midway through the third novel, and have enjoyed Kerr's stuff very much.

[A. Zarkov]

You should return the book.

[Linkmeister]

No, follow your first instincts and buy them, starting with Ambler. If you're still trying to figure out the hatred that seems endemic in the Balkans, A Coffin for Dimitrios will be enlightening. If you need more about the Balkans, Rebecca West is a good choice, although the excerpted book isn't about that part of the world. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (http://tinyurl.com/cr9mz) is her master work about the former Yugoslavia.

[Jeffrey Harris]

I certainly agree re Alan Furst and in particular, Dark Star.

I have read all but Dark Voyage (and will get that when I go back to States in July, price here in Oz). Among many other virtues, Furst gets the settings down pretty well (at least the ones I can vouch for first hand concerning French and Russian details).

I have only noticed one small error, regarding Christmas in Moscow on Dec 25, when it fact it comes on January 6.

cheers

JHH

[AWC]

I've read all but the most recent Furst novel. While Dark Star is his best, Night Soldiers is also brilliant.

The funny thing is that Furst denigrates his early spy novels as too dense, complex, and long, preferring his later, atmospheric efforts. I can imagine why he'd feel this way, but the first two books are his best.

[Laughing Historian]

I thought The Polish Officer was terrific.
Speaking of Eric Ambler, I would add Journey Into Fear to the list, even though it is not strictly speaking a spy novel.

[joseph duemer]

Under Western Eyes: Now there is a depressing but essential novel for our times.

[Henry]

Started reading Dark Star a couple of weeks ago - it really is a quite extraordinary novel.

[Ivan]

Brad:

I can't stand Furst. IMO he is pompous and self-absorbed. Try "Declare" by Tim Powers. That might surprise you.

["Declare" is excellent. So is "The Atrocity Archive" by Charles Stross.]

[otto]

I love the way that that Brasserie in Paris with the bullet-holed mirror turns up in every Furst book.

[JimPortlandOR]

Do the Furst novels develop a character over time (between novels)? Or can they be read in any order since they have different characters and settings?

[Robert Waldmann]

I understand that I am joking about a serious matter, but burn that book. Burn it now. And recall it didn't make Human Events list of the most damaging books in the 19th and 20th centuries (guess it wasn't published or it would have knocked Origen of the Species or Diss capital of the list

[Ari]

What a splendid reading list. Read happily away.

[Ari]

Read happily away for the list is excelent.

[John M]

Sorry Prof, but the greatest spy novel ever written, and one of the greatest novels period, is The Honorable Schoolboy.

[sm]

Ha ha ha! The Philip Kerr books are in my public library!

And is Origen of the Species about the great Church Father/Heretic?

[JB]

Like you, I'm a Furst addict. I'll buy anything with his name on it.

The real find for me in the "Spies" anthology was the excerpt from Charles McCarry's "Tears of Autumn." McCarry's Paul Christopher novels are wonderful, and are coming back into print now from the Overlook Press. "The Last Supper" and "Second Sight"--along with "Tears of Autumn"--are the best, though the most recent, "Old Boys," is definitely worth reading.

[Jack Neefus]

A novel which upon further examination has nothing to do with the author listed on the cover? Perhaps it is related to this:

http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/calwinter.html