Nothing in late '08 should be as outdated as the spy novel, but I am old and so is the Cold War, and since we're fucking up the present wars it's kinda cool to look back on the time spy v. spy kicked up the dust all across Europe, colonies and lesser nations.
John le Carre was one of those cats people who blurbed novels were always on about as being a great author who happened to write genre. Maybe they were right. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) holds up like nothing else I've read in modern or neo-noir or whatever the hell you call it. Characters worthy of Dickens in their presence (though not depth--there's one Dickens after all and not many) and I'd know them all walking the street. George Smiley is a fat old man who can out think anyone and le Carre has fun showing his cool head prevail while others lose their minds.
Halfway through the second book in the Karla trilogy The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and it's just as good, showcasing old Hong Kong when I knew her, ruled by the Brits and the mad hub of Eastern nonsense, tradecraft, and shenanigans. Good history here too; I had no idea that Mao dumped the Shanghai mafia into HK, thus leading to all those cool movies in the 1990's. Really smart people once made a tremendous difference in the world, and then it was said they all decided to make money on Wall Street. Since we know now that wasn't the case, where are the sleeping geniuses who are gonna save us in the modern world? My bet is on some unknown novelist to bring them back in from the cold.
That author should note the fun in these old books and learn a lesson--not a hint of dour navel-gazing woe-is-me crap that bugs readers and non-readers alike as our everpresent news and media both old school mainstream and digital is rife with downers. Entertainment! That's what novels used to be, and we need more of that now more than ever, now that we've outed the young memoirists as cocksucking frauds and guaranteed via the economic collapse that no one is gonna spend $26 for a hardcover novel telling of young immigrant Akbar's magical realist experiences in his South American yurt which include friendship with a wise talking goat. The Booker and MacArthur people will award their prizes to clowns, but no one cares. No one can afford to care. For this I am happy.
God bless the 500 page paperback book printed on cheap paper that retailed for $3.95 twenty-five years ago. I want art for the masses back and I'll take it without asking.
3 comments:
This sounds like a good tip. BTW- given recent comments by Swedish Nobel person about Amerian novelists....have I been redeemed in my criticism of som many US novels focused upon the interior lives of people? It seems to be a growing complaint.
when i wrote this i realized i am coming around to your constant screed about books. i was horrified and vomited in my mouth.
the nobel dude should get fucked by a rabid elk, but have you seen the bestseller lists of late? oprah picked the number one book; of course it's about a mute who breeds dogs. magical horseshit.
thank god the new Roth did not disappoint. that american knows he's a god, and i'm a disciple forever...
The Swedish dude did not complain about individual interiority in American novels, but cultural insularity. In other words, American writers, in his PC-cluttered brain, are too obsessed with ephemeral America-in other words, they do exactly what you want them to do at the expense of universality (and looking outward at superior cultures like Sweden).
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