For the love of language (and politics), plus comments on a few of the latest books I've read

I find myself compelled to point out that Sarah Palin is suffering from "Aleutians of grandeur."

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I just finished a few books sent to me by my brother, lent by friends, and some that I even purchased (that should make the authors happy, though if they only knew how many books I have, they might forgive my current quasi-moratorium on buying more). These recently-read books include Hitler's Peace by Philip Kerr, which was not as engaging as his most engaging books, and at times seemed awkward or forced, but was compelling, nonetheless, and ultimately both illuminating and intriguing. OK, that doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement, but remember that this is a favorite author of mine who reaches the highest standards in most of his books, if not quite in every case. However, I encourage you to read Hitler's Peace, both for the excitement and for the window on a fascinating time in history.

Prior to that, a selection of what I read includes Vicious Circle by Robert Littell, The Mayor of Lexington Avenue by James Shehan, much of Collapse by Jared Diamond (still reading it), and the single volume containing the novels Fatherland and Enigma by Robert Harris.

Here are a few additional recent reads: Water Touching Stone by Eliot Pattison (excellent), Spook Country by William Gibson (judged by the highest standards, very good), and The Painter of Battles: A Novel by Arturo Perez-Reverte (see below).

Collapse is a fascinating book that can be read in bits and pieces, or straight through. I'm still filling in the parts I skipped over, aided in my journey by never using a bookmark and continually starting up in random places (a Dadaist approach, perhaps, but don't you feel the Dadaists need a little more attention now and then?). Collapse offers a lot of hope while also documenting many monumental failures of societies throughout history; it comes from the author of the highly touted Guns, Germs and Steel, also touted (and toted) by my high school age son. I haven't read Guns, Germs ... yet.

The other books I listed are all very good or better, though The Mayor of Lexington Avenue is excellent for 95% of the book, and just OK for the other 5% (don't hold me to the numbers, these are impressionistic statistics, if there are such a thing). Still, The Mayor of... is quite an amazing first novel, with outstanding characters, plot and setting that stretch over two generations, from the poor to the rich and powerful, and from New York to a Florida backwater. I think that if the author had grappled with one less issue or subplot, the book would have remained uniformly outstanding. Nevertheless, it is highly recommended.

Although I've read all of Littell's other books except one, I had made a conscious decision not to read Vicious Circle. I felt the same way when The Little Drummer Girl by le Carre' came out- at the time that I just couldn't handle the subject matter (the Middle East conflict) as "entertainment," though, of course, the book is far deeper than that comment implies. I know this because, after about ten years, I broke down and read John le Carre's take on a part of the Middle East conflict, and was glad I did, and, after my brother sent me Vicious Circle I broke down again and read it as well.

Littell writes so well that I found myself laughing out loud in the middle of very tense scenes. As always, his wonderful language and characters are brilliantly crafted. Still, Israeli and Palestinian people and their many issues are not an easy thing to read about, especially when they are kidnapping, murdering, torturing and negotiating for peace (simultaneously, if not all by the same individuals). I felt that Littell was extremely balanced in his treatment of all sides, and the book is gripping from start to end. Unfortunately, I cried a lot more than I laughed, but that comes with the territory in this case.

The novels by Robert Harris left me a bit flat, Enigma more so than Fatherland. I have to say that the premise of Fatherland is very clever and brilliantly executed, and was used to build up a remarkable, alternative universe, though one where the truth will out. The premise is that Germany won WW2 and, among many other consequences, no GI's liberated any concentration camps. The storyline itself isn't quite as strong as other aspects of the book, though it serves as a good thriller with chilling revelations. Enigma perhaps simply wasn't the book I was expecting- I kept looking for that book on each page and coming up empty. It is definitely worth reading, however, and is another WW2 thriller, with an associated murder mystery.

The Painter of Battles by Perez-Reverte is an unusual book. It is by far the shortest book by the author, as far as I know, but it took me an unusually long time to read. There are a lot of pithy sentences and analyses of paintings and warfare, from ancient to modern. Not that this is a textbook by any means; it is a psychological thriller, and the tension can reach high levels, but it's also a no-holds-barred examination of modern morality, warfare and societies. The language demands an attention to detail that I could not always provide (say at the end of a long day) and I wasn't always alert enough to grasp the point, though I rarely have this problem with books (or with the books I choose to read, in any event). I'm not sure I'm erudite enough to grasp all of this novel, either. My knowledge of art history is fairly spotty- I've seen a lot but haven't studied it, so I tend to forget the details. Nevertheless, the stories within the novel are well worth reading since they are based on real events, more or less, events that were highly significant to the participants and some of their observers, but were probably given little thought by most other people. As with quantum physics, we see here that the observer changes the "experiment" or experience, and here the consequences can be tragic. I'd label this short novel a "must read"!

That's it for my capsule summaries and other comments of the day.

© 2008 James K. Bashkin

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The Amateur by Robert Littell: Thriller about the CIA being blackmailed by one of its own!

I must say that I have a great fondness for Robert Littell's books. This doesn't mean that these books are warm and fuzzy, far from it: they demand attention like the great and often complex thrillers that they are, while maintaining exceptional originality and the ability to surprise the reader, even this reader who has devoured seemingly the entire world of spy thrillers. Littell's outstanding writing, wry humor and unvarnished cynicism add a lot to the appeal. There is even more, however. Littell creates characters that are unique, but in wholly organic ways, with nothing forced or added just for show.

Some of the appealing subjects that recur in Littell's novels may be linked to his love of chess. In any event, they include cryptography and chaos theory, both of which appear as central parts of some novels. The books are never pedantic, however, and Littell shows us a lot about human nature and the way that the underworld of espionage often uses human nature as its currency.

I first heard the phrase, "Any thing worth doing is worth doing badly" rather incongruously in a research lab at England's Oxford University, in the late 1970s. At the very start of The Amateur, Littell uses this statement as an epigram that defines the amateur vs. the professional (the latter being one who is compelled to do everything well, at least everything that is worthwhile). The Amateur definitely delivers what it promises, a spy thriller from the amateur perspective, and woe betide any professionals who make the mistake of getting in this particular amateur's way.

The story begins with a terrorist invasion of a US embassy in Germany and the tragic shooting of one of the hostages. The young hostage was Sarah Diamond, the fiancee of one Charlie Heller, whose day job is devising unique codes and decoding messages for the CIA. Heller's night passion, other than Sarah, is searching for ciphers in Shakespeare's writing.

Heller is understandably crushed, and wants to know when the CIA is going after the terrorists to exact revenge. The answer is less than satisfactory: the CIA isn't going to take any action.

After trying normal channels, Heller reaches the limit of his patience, and literally takes matters into his own hands, which requires the dangerous scheme of blackmailing the CIA to turn him into a field agent. All of those secret messages he decoded turn out to be great blackmail material, compromising the highest CIA officials.

So, the race is on. While Heller is being trained and then sent behind the Iron Curtain to find the terrorists, the CIA rips apart his apartment, car and everything else they can find, looking for the stolen messages. Heller's mission is revenge. The CIA's mission is self-preservation: they want to destroy the incriminating information and then kill Heller on foreign soil, or, better yet, have a foreign intelligence agency do the job for them.

All along, Littell employs his trademark mix of humor, wit, action, word play and cynicism to great effect. Near the start, Heller is occupied with decoding messages from a dyslexic spy in Prague who can't use the codes properly. There is a stunning scene where Sarah's elderly father, a concentration camp survivor, watches CIA agents storm into his house, tear it apart and interrogate him: Mr. Diamond remarks that he isn't afraid because he has been through this kind of treatment before, when the Nazi's took his family to the camps. The American agents go blithely about their business, asserting that "this is different because it is a case of National Security," precisely echoing the very rationale used by the Nazi thugs 50 years earlier.

Littell really pumps up the volume once Heller crosses into Czechoslovakia. Multiple story lines emerge, they begin to intersect with violent results, and finally the stories converge in a stunningly deceitful and deadly manner. The collisions involve Heller, a Czech spymaster-Shakespearean scholar, the dyslexic Czech spy, the CIA and its agents, and, of course, the targeted terrorists. Revenge is a theme that unites several of the characters, from old Mr. Diamond to young Mr. Heller, and even the Eastern Block spymaster. Will their revenge be served hot, served cold, or not served at all?

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Reading list- upcoming reviews

Here are a few excellent books I've read recently that are in the process of being reviewed:

Blonde Faith by Walter Mosley
The Ultimate Good Luck by Richard Ford
The Amateur by Robert Littell

Robert Littell has been reviewed previously on this site (see here for three book reviews and also see a great interview by Karim Ali).

If you have any questions or recommendations, please leave a comment. Thanks!

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The Interview that Must be Read: Karim Ali with Robert Littell

Karim Ali wrote an interview with Robert Littell for Januarymagazine.com and you can find it by clicking o on the highlighted word "it". I knew nothing about Littell except that I loved his writing. Ali's interview provides extremely rare and quite detailed insight into the author, helped by their shared love of chess. The interview is almost a brief biography of the world for the past 60 years- they cover a lot of ground without needing a lot of words. Highly recommended. Ali is also a novelist and a chemist! My thanks to the interviewer for his kind correspondence.

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Robert Littell and the CIA

The recent TV miniseries and (before that) bestselling book The Company have catapulted the author into the spotlight. Or have they? I have been a fan for years, but it seems that the public has been fickle with this author. The Company (The Co.) is historical fiction about the CIA, from its start to recent times.The Co. reads like a thriller, albeit a very well-written thriller, yet the story seems to be mostly history rather than fiction. Believe me, that does not detract from the drama- many of the most nerve wracking and tragic geopolitical events from about 1948-1990 are described (including the Bay of Pigs, failed Castro assassinations, Hungarian Revolt, the Fall of the Iron Curtain). At the same time, it was amusing (and perhaps a welcome relief) to see a fleeting homage to Littell's own earlier book, The Visiting Professor (TVP), embedded in The Company, but TVP is a terrific book in its own right and should have sold well, though it might be a bit esoteric for some.

The Company is a large and ambitious book if you think about it, or look at it, but if you read the book it never seems ambitious. It is too absorbing to "seem" anything at all, too balanced to feel wrong, and simply impossible to put down.

The Visiting Professor (TVP) is about chaos theory, the USSR, academia, spies, codes, sex, and grocery stores, and it is so funny that I was constantly reading it out loud to my wife. A Russian chaos theory expert applies every year for a visa to the USA, where he has a standing offer of a visiting professorship at a college in upstate New York, in an Institute for Chaos-Related Studies (maybe slightly different name, was long time ago I read this). He is denied the Visa every year because he is Jewish. However, one year, because of the utter chaos of the Soviet system, he is accidentally granted the visa, so he immediately flies/flees to NY before the mistake can be corrected. He is fascinated by America and American things, like grocery stores and all the items they contain. He studies one store just by wandering around looking for food, he meets its manager, offers remarkably helpful suggestions about reorganizing the store, and meets a girl. By the end of the wild ride, he has tamed the NSA and KGB and re-written the book(s) on free love and grocery management, single handed and with a funny accent.

The Defection of A.J. Lewinter is a book with a harder edge than TVP, lying in between TVP and The Company in tone: it reeks of late cold-war cynicism, is very funny at times, and then not funny at all, as the consequences of American intelligence agency jurisdictional battles and their internal power politics are severe for any pawns caught in the game. The swing in tone made me uncomfortable, which was undoubtedly the intent. So what is the issue? I found myself falling for the spy's treatment of a female companion as entirely genuine. Naive of course, but spies have families, and she wasn't implicated in any wrong-doing, so maybe this was the human side to him. Not on your life. The entire affair was premeditated and coldly calculated to use and discard the life of a "civilian" for a "greater good", the greater good being simply the corporate political survival of one vicious SOB in the U.S. intelligence community. I paraphrase the sentiment here, "Those roses I sent, the days we wandered in the park, the night we lingered in the hall, all go to show that I love you, not, but instead consider you a sub-human weapon in my arsenal, dear. But don't take the fall-out personally. Yes, you did kill someone, and the wrong person at that, but consciences do not fit realpolitik, and anyway I'm sure you'll recover and leave the mental hospital within 30 or 40 years. Have a pleasant convalescence."

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