Rachel Kushner – I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance! This is so good, guys! I picked up a discarded copy of The Flamethrowers a few months agoRachel Kushner – I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance! This is so good, guys! I picked up a discarded copy of The Flamethrowers a few months ago (why the hell was it discarded, I now ask myself!), but hadn’t yet read it. Then this one passed through my hands, and I couldn’t resist – the title, the cover, and the jacket blurb hooked me. The first page had me checking it out and bringing it home.
“Neanderthals were prone to depression, he said. He said they were prone to addiction, too, and especially smoking.”
I had to know why a novel about a thirty-four-year-old woman, an American secret agent sent to a rural commune in France, would begin with this peculiar statement about Neanderthals. Well, to be honest, I sort of guessed the link between this area of France and its prehistoric caves and the Neanderthals, thanks to Beebe Bahrami, author of Café Neandertal. However, I was super curious about Kushner’s angle by bringing up the Neanderthals in the very first sentence. If you haven’t guessed already, I’ll warn you now: this is not a typical spy thriller. But… it had me turning the pages and itching to get back to it whenever I had to set it aside. And it’s funny too, in a gloriously subtle but snarky kind of way. After reading that first sentence, nearly 150 pages later the narrator, “Sadie”, tells us this:
“I used to smoke, perhaps on account of some percentage of Neanderthal in my lineage, although I’ll never know what percentage, not wanting my DNA in any database.”
If weird little things like that make you snicker too, then we just might get along. I’m not really explaining the point of the Neanderthals here though. See, Sadie has been sent by some shadowy private sector group to infiltrate an organization of rural activists, the Moulinards, in the region to find proof of sabotage and further plans of possible subversions. Bruno Lacombe, through email communications, is a mentor to the group. Sadie, in turn, has access to these communications. Bruno Lacombe is thoroughly immersed, perhaps obsessed is a better term, with the Neanderthals and the ancient way of life. He blames Homo sapiens for the mess we are in. Lately, it’s not too hard to get on board with his way of thinking.
“The use of fire for harm instead of good seems to have taken hold, suspiciously, and damningly, just as the Neanderthals began to disappear and Homo sapiens rose up, an interglacial bully who shaped the world we’re stuck with.”
Another word about Sadie. She doesn’t give a shit about anyone, except for Sadie. And that’s what makes her such a fantastic character. I mean, we all care, arguably in varying degrees, for our fellow humans. But don’t you sometimes wish – admit it! – that you could care just a little bit less?! Okay, perhaps I’d just like to be Sadie for a day. Or two. She’s the sort of person you might also run into in a Marcy Dermansky or Ottessa Moshfegh novel, minus the undercover agent skills. She has no background that we know of, besides some previous undercover work. She has no friends or loved ones – except for those she feigns an interest in. Sex is used to get what she needs – usually more information. She’s messy, she has “conventional” looks, she likes her beer a bit too much perhaps, and she’s irreverent.
“I try to be respectful of other women’s shortcomings. The dumb luck of good looks is akin to the fact that it may very well rain on the sea in times of drought, and will not rain where it is needed, on a farmer’s crops: grace is random, dumb and random and even a bit violent, in giving to the one who already has rather a lot, and taking from the one who has been denied, who doesn’t have a pot to piss in.”
We learn a bit more about Sadie through her very remote connection to Bruno. She gets closer to him by reading his thoughts on mankind and the stars and the underground world of caves. Her preoccupation with Bruno’s emails allows us to see under her skin, if that’s even possible. I, for one, caught a glimpse of a beating heart.
As an aside, I pay little attention to prize nominees, or winners for that matter. I hadn’t been aware this was on the Booker longlist when I brought it home. And it’s a complete coincidence that I’m writing this right after the shortlist was announced! In fact, I was mid-review when I scrolled through Instagram and saw the post. Read this. It’s intelligent, invigorating, funny, and refreshingly different from the usual reading fare.
“Coincidence is a term you choose for the good work it does to cover what some part of you knows, but a part that cannot be allowed to speak. The coincidence, as an explanation for things that are mysteriously aligned, is hiding what is not a coincidence and is instead a plot.”...more
Not a spoiler but a warning: overly enthusiastic, slightly tacky review ahead.
“Yes, I am adept. I spy. I betray. I love when it is too late.”
I’d say bNot a spoiler but a warning: overly enthusiastic, slightly tacky review ahead.
“Yes, I am adept. I spy. I betray. I love when it is too late.”
I’d say better late than never, Jonathan Pine. You’ve now joined the ranks of my imaginary fictional lovers (several of whom are le Carré creations. Hello Jerry Westerby and Justin Quayle. Shout out to Charlie Ross and her handler, Joseph!) But I’m already digressing: John le Carré writes espionage not romance novels, for god’s sake. Still, he knows how to insert just the right amount of passionate intrigue in his books. Really though, he does construct such wonderfully nuanced characters – particularly his main ones. Jonathan Pine is living a self-imposed life of isolation as the night manager of a Swiss hotel. His troubled past and the ghost of a woman he felt he has betrayed haunt him. It leads to a lot of self-recrimination and self-examination.
“Look at himself how he might, he saw nothing but half-measures, failures and undignified withdrawals… In childhood he had struggled night and day to be an inadequate adult. As a special serviceman he had cloaked himself in blind obedience and, with occasional lapses, endured. As a lover, husband and adulterer, his record was quite as thin: a burst or two of wary pleasure, followed by years of abuse and craven apology.”
All of the above lends well to the fact that Jonathan makes an excellent candidate for the British intelligence agency to recruit as an undercover agent in the illegal arms and drugs trade. The settings are magnificent, sending one across the globe from places like Switzerland, Cornwall, Quebec, The Bahamas and Panama. There’s a bit of glamour to this particular piece, with the billionaire Dicky Roper, “the worst man in the world”, taking the lead as the baddie. Still, it’s leagues above your run-of-the-mill spy story. In fact, no one but an insider could know the ins and outs of the intelligence world. The first time I read le Carré, I admit to nearly giving up because I couldn’t easily grasp all the spy jargon, the various agencies (like the arms of an octopus, as one character aptly describes it). What I’ve learned after several books now, however, is that I won’t necessarily get it all immediately, and that’s okay. The further along I read, the more comfortable I become with the various characters and their relationships to one another and their respective agencies. It all (or nearly all!) becomes clear by the end.
Oh, and remember how I carried on about my love affair with Jonathan? My role is all in my head. The actual titles of lover go to Sophie and later Jed. I always have fun with these, even if those love interests are a bit sexist. I still came out at the end as a bit of a drooling fool, feeling a bit emptier between the ears than normal… Poor Jed. She’s a bit misunderstood, perhaps.
“I haven’t heard you express a single thought worth a damn, and most of what you say is affected bilge. Yet every time I think of something funny, I need you to laugh at it, and when I’m low, it’s you I need to cheer me up. I don’t know who you are, if you’re anyone at all… I think you’re a total mess. But that doesn’t put me off. Not at all. It makes me indignant, it makes me a fool, it makes me want to wring your neck. But that’s just part of the package.”
Brilliant writing, nicely paced plot, plenty of “gray” characters, and loads of tension made for another hugely satisfying reading adventure. If I were a nail biter, I’d have had them down to the quick by that ending. Instead, I queued up the trailer for the miniseries and watched it whenever I felt on edge (or needed my daily Tom Hiddleston fix).
“… what he needed to do from now on, if there was going to be a now on, was abandon his morbid quest for order and treat himself to a little chaos, on the grounds that while order was demonstrably no substitute for happiness, chaos might open the way to it.”...more
"Life is duty... It’s just a question of establishing which creditor is asking loudest. Life is paying. Life is seeing people right if it kills you."
I"Life is duty... It’s just a question of establishing which creditor is asking loudest. Life is paying. Life is seeing people right if it kills you."
I’ve been reading John le Carré’s espionage novels like I would that little bag of my favorite dark chocolates that I hide in the bottom drawer of my refrigerator. Not one right after the other, because honestly, there are other treats I like to indulge in as well. There are the Reese’s peanut butter cups and the Trader Joe’s roasted pistachio toffee (dark chocolate as well, naturally.) But I like to make a good thing last, savor it a while, before dipping my hand back into the bag for another best of the best. In terms of books, rather than chocolate, I have to say that I don’t recall reading an author’s work in such relatively quick succession as I have since childhood when I devoured one mystery novel after another. Despite the fact I won’t share my favorite stash of candy, I have been more than happy to share the le Carré journey with a fabulous little group of women that have the same joy in reading these over the past year or more. The adventure has been that much more rewarding as a result.
It has always been a debate rather nature versus nurture shapes us more as a person. In the case of Magnus Pym, I think it would be safe to say that both contributed a significant piece. This is not so much an espionage thriller, though it is that too, but a reflection on a man’s life and how he was shaped for the role he plays. Magnus has been dubbed the perfect spy. His childhood was one of deceit and lies, yet he yearned for love and always aimed to please. He could just as easily have been the perfect actor. He managed to create and portray the character he felt each person wanted him to be.
"Magnus is a great imitator, even when he doesn’t know it. Really I sometimes think he is entirely put together from bits of other people, poor fellow."
My heart broke for the young Magnus Pym. The elder Pym was more of an enigma to me. By book’s end, I felt little sympathy for him any longer. He was groomed from an early age to work in the spy business. He was good at it. His talents did not go unnoticed. I believe his fate was sealed in one moment in time.
"In a single Christmas, God had dished him up two saints. The one was on the run and couldn’t walk, the other was a handsome English warlord who served sherry on Boxing Day and had never had a doubt in his life. Both admired him, both loved his jokes and his voices, both were clamouring to occupy the empty spaces of his heart. In return he was giving to each man the character he seemed to be in search of."
If you’ve ever read le Carré, you’ll know that his books are not bursting with action. The spy world is not the glamorous, fast-paced one that we see depicted in most films. Rather, what draws me to his work is the fine writing, the sharp analyses of the inner workings of the agent’s mind, and the intricate dynamics between the various characters. Yes, some action-filled scenes are appreciated. In A Perfect Spy, much of what happens is relayed to the reader after the fact. These are the musings of a hunted man on the run as he writes his own book about his past and what drove him to do the things he did. As a result, I felt a bit more distanced from the man himself. Much like I would feel being stuck in the back row of the theater. I understand what is going on, but I don’t feel like a part of the drama myself. Of course, I’m unfairly comparing this one to my last le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl, which so completely absorbed me that I could not let it go for a number of weeks after finishing. The brilliant prose is still here, but the emotional pull was wanting. Don’t get me wrong though, even one of my least favorites by this best-loved author still ranks higher than most of what is out there right now!
"Love is whatever you can still betray... Betrayal can only happen if you love."...more
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