Mister 8

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

I first saw this item in a photograph advertising the Geppi’s Entertainment Museum of Baltimore and have been curious about it since. This week, I found one online in an ebay auction. I’ve contacted the seller, Joe, and he has kindly consented to let us use pictures of the board and game pieces here for our Harry Palmer discussion.

Joe’s auction for the complete game ends on July 7, and bidding currently rests at the low price of $25.00. Joe describes the game as follows:

“The IPCRESS File,” a board game issued in 1966 by Milton Bradley. Game No. 4643. A suspense / espionage game modeled after the popular 1965 British espionage film starring Michael Caine as “Harry Palmer, the cool
British agent,” and Len Deighton’s 1962 novel, “The IPCRESS File.”

• For 2 to 4 players
• For ages 10 to adult
• Object: Get the “Double Agent” before he gets you
• Average play time 25 minutes

The game is 100 percent complete. It includes board, 24 cards, four agent pieces, four stands (one for each agent piece), two red-and-gold dice and original box.

IPCRESS File game box

IPCRESS File game board

IPCRESS File game pieces

Another view of IPCRESS File game box

Again, if you’re interested, don’t forget to bid!

The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

Today I intend to start reading Len Deighton’s The IPCRESS File, and you should too! If you don’t have a copy, you should order one. And to hold you over while that one arrives, I’ve included the prologue and first chapter of the book below.

***

PROLOGUE

Copy to: no. 1. Copies 2
Action: W.O.O.C.(P).
Origin: Cabinet.
Authority: PH6.
Memoranda:
Please prepare summary of Dossier M/1993 /GH 222223
for Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Defence.

THEY came through on the hot [permanently open] line at about half past two in the afternoon. The Minister didn’t quite understand a couple of points in the summary. Perhaps I could see the Minister.

Perhaps.

The Minister’s flat overlooked Trafalgar Square and was furnished like Oliver Messel did it for Oscar Wilde. He sat in the Sheraton, I sat in the Hepplewhite and we peeped at each other through the aspidistra plant.

‘Just tell me the whole story in your own words, old chap. Smoke?’

I was wondering whose words I might otherwise have used as he skimmed the aspidistra with his slim gold cigarette case. I beat him to the draw with a crumpled packet of Gauloises; I didn’t know where to begin.

‘I don’t know where to begin,’ I said. ‘The first document in the dossier…’

The Minister waved me down. ‘Never mind the dossier, my dear chap, just tell me your personal version. Begin with your first meeting with this fellow…’ he looked down to his small morocco bound notebook, ‘Jay. Tell me about him.’

‘Jay. His code-name is changed to Box Four,’ I said.

‘That’s very confusing,’ said the Minister, and wrote it down in his book.

‘It’s a confusing story,’ I told him. ‘I’m in a very confusing business.’

The Minister said, ‘Quite,’ a couple of times, and I let a quarter inch of ash away towards the blue Kashan rug.

‘I was in Lederers about 12.55 on a Tuesday morning the first time I saw Jay,’ I continued.

‘Lederers?’ said the Minister. ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s going to be very difficult for me if I have to answer questions as I go along,’ I said. ‘If it’s all the same to you, Minister, I’d prefer you to make a note of the questions, and ask me afterwards.’

‘My dear chap, not another word, I promise.’

And throughout the entire explanation he never again interrupted.

(more…)

Playwright John Osborne

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

A busy day today, so I’m only a couple of chapters into The IPCRESS File. How’s your progress coming at home? I wish it had occurred to me before yesterday that this series of posts could probably benefit from a “book club” style conversation. I hope that those of you who haven’t read The IPCRESS File will give it a chance, if you’re not already, and that those of you who have already read it are inspired to give the novel at least a refresher skim.

Today, I want to briefly touch upon a…I hesitate to call it a literary movement — perhaps more of a phenomenon or environment…that might help explain the anonymous character who would later be filmed as “Harry Palmer.” I won’t assume that the group of creators, sometimes dubbed “angry young men,” by the critics and press, or their works were a direct influence on Deighton, but that they were at least writing about the same social conditions. I had originally intended with this post to explore a number of different authors and works that would inform a reading of The IPCRESS File, but in researching and writing have found that an extended look at one work should do the trick:

John Osborne -- Look Back in Anger (1956)

Osborne is often hailed as the prototypical example of the “angry young man” writer. Indeed, the phrase was said to be coined by press officer George Fearon in response to Osborne’s 1956 play. Though there are earlier examples (Kingsley Amis’ titular character in Lucky Jim, for instance, or even in Graham Greene’s short story “The Destructors”), the lead character in Osborne’s play, Jimmy Porter, personifies the anger, as he spits acidic diatribes that stem from his hope for a better society and the cynical view that such hopes are futile.

These writers, and their characters, were of a generation of young British men who fought in the war, were treated somewhat equally in social status and class to that of their peers during their service time, received an education, and then promptly found that, post-war, nothing had really changed for them. Amidst the rubble of the bombings, England was rebuilding, and in that rebuilding, was changing. This wave of literature, which gave rise to so-called “kitchen sink” realist films, was part of that change. So, it might be argued, was the rise in popularity of the Liverpudlian Beatles.

The “heroes” of the “angry young man” are discontented with their place outside of the establishment, but are also sort-of in-betweeners, often having to reconcile their lower and middle-class upbringings and their upper-class educations. They struggle to find a place to be happy, without constantly feeling the pressure of those above them. Often, the characters were not so much angry as disillusioned and alienated. As Jimmy’s wife, Allison, tells her father in act two of Look Back in Anger: “You’re hurt because everything’s changed, and Jimmy’s hurt because everything’s stayed the same.”

The play opens with Jimmy, Allison, and their supportive lodger Cliff, and takes place entirely in their shared flat. Allison’s background is, if not upper-class then nearly so, and Jimmy comes from a working-class family. He, ironically, works in a sweets shop, a job for which his college education over-prepared him, and spends much of his time acrimoniously deriding post-war England and accosting his flatmates. Tensions arise from two developments: Helena, an equally upper-crust friend of Allison’s, arrives and creates a rift, and Allison slowly lets everyone know that she’s pregnant with Jimmy’s child, with Jimmy finding out last of all. In the end of the second act, Allison’s father arrives to take her home, after Helena places a rescue call, and by the beginning of the third act, the situation has seemingly changed completely though some things look familiar….

Here’s a clip with Kenneth Branagh as Porter, in a well-made “filmed play” version from 1989 (directed by Dame Judi Dench, also with Emma Thompson, Siobhan Redmond and Gerard Horan):

The play was made into a film in 1958, and in this case there is a direct connection to the later Palmer movies: Look Back In Anger, made by influential director Tony Richardson with Richard Burton and Claire Bloom, was one of the first achievements by producer Harry Saltzman, who would go on to produce the Caine films. Along with another Saltzman production, 1960’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (based on the novel by another “angry young” author, Alan Sillitoe), this adaptation of Osborne’s play would play a role kicking off the British New Wave film movement. And so, in a way, The IPCRESS File, coming in 1965, is a combination of Saltzman’s greatest successes to that point — the “kitchen sink” representation of the day-to-day life of a working class bloke, with the high tech gadgets and codenamed villains of the James Bond films.

(Another spy film connection that’s probably obvious — Burton and Bloom were, of course, the stars of Martin Ritt’s 1965 adaptation of LeCarre’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. There’s more to just the casting, however. I can see Alec Leamas as an “angry middle-aged man” dealing with the same feelings of disillusionment.)

Look Back in Anger movie poster

In Deighton’s work, and later through the interpretation by Michael Caine, the “Palmer” character faces the same issues of class and not belonging. He responds not with anger, but with sarcasm and sass. As Andrew Spicer writes in his, Typical Men: The Representation of Masculinity in Popular British Cinema: “In the novels, [the Palmer character] is identified as a displaced ’scholarship boy’, a figure from a provincal university, resentful about the privileges conferred by birth, class, a public-school education and the Old Boy network, who dissociates himself from the Establishment by his cyncial humour” (77). Deighton himself was born in a workhouse (as you’ll recall from the documentary, because the hospital was full up), to a chauffeur and a part-time cook.

“Palmer” exists in that in-between — not upper-class, but not really lower-class anymore either — a state perhaps most acknowledged through his love of gourmet food. My favorite scene in the movie adaptation, which we’ll revisit later, is the grocery store scene in which Ross implies that Palmer is attempting to purchase status by favoring the champignons over the button mushrooms. Caine proves his upper-class tastes through his methodical food preparation, but betrays his roots every time he speaks in that Cockney accent.

I’m sure we’ll be talking more about these issues later, but I wanted to explore some of these thoughts as a basis for my reading of the novel. I’m eager to hear your thoughts on the subject as well (please comment!).

One last note of interest. Osborne, the angry young man who wrote Look Back in Anger wound up playing opposite Caine as one of the most laid-back, but dangerous villains ever to grace the screen in Mike Hodges’ 1971 film Get Carter.  In his auto-biography, What’s It All About?, Caine describes Osborne as a personal hero, and says, “[He] was cast as the chief villain and he was marvelous. He had not acted much since his success as a writer and he really seemed to enjoy his role of the ruthless gang boss, even though he was not typical casting.”

Jean (Fenella Woolgar) and The Agent (Ian Hart)

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

Since I didn’t warn you all with enough advance time that we’d be reading The IPCRESS File this week, I think I’ve found a sort of alternative. Following this, we’ll at least be reading Horse Under Water (1963), Funeral in Berlin (1964), and the Billion Dollar Brain (1965). I’m not sure yet, but we may also read An Expensive Place to Die (1967), Spy Story (1974) and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Spy (1976), which are sometimes referred to as “Harry Palmer” novels, though the jury is still out on whether that distinction is true.

So…find these books now! Reserve them at your library! Seek them out at used book stores! Failing that, follow the links above and purchase them from Amazon (full disclosure: I’ll get a little kickback from such purchases. I think somewhere around 4%, which means that if you buy the one-cent used paperback, I’ll make roughly $0.0004).

In the meantime: The audio file that is playable below is the first of three that make up a 2004 BBC radio production of The IPCRESS File. I’ve only listened to the first few minutes, but so far the radio play seems to be a fairly faithful, if condensed, version of the novel, and Ian Hart does a good job as a coolly disinterested secret agent. If it veers completely from the book later, it will at least provide another counterpoint for our discussion.

Here’s what the BBC said about the production when they released it (original airdate — January 17):

The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton has become one of the great popular icons of the post-war era, through both the book itself and the film starring Sir Michael Caine. This brilliant thriller is as exciting today as the day it was published. And this new radio dramatisation remains faithful to the book, most noticeably in the character of the narrator. In the film, Michael Caine played Londoner Harry Palmer but, in the book, the narrator has no name and is from Burnley. Not a lot of people know that!

The narrator is a grammar school boy who transfers from Army Intelligence to a new agency which operates out of London’s Charlotte Street. He finds himself looking for a man named Jay, who runs an organisation that gets scientists, willing or not, into the communist block. His speciality is brain-washing.

The narrator begins to discover that all is not as clear-cut as it seemed when he and his boss are present at US Atomic bomb tests in the Pacific. In a world of espionage, who do you trust – and what happens if  suspicion falls on you? The narrator finds out as old friends turn into new enemies and he is arrested by the CIA, who return him to his “communist” employers in Hungary.

Can the narrator trust anyone at all – even himself – or will he be destroyed by the very system that he is there to defend?

The IPCRESS File is dramatised by Mike Walker, one of radio’s leading writers with over 40 original plays to his credit, including the Sony Award-winners Different States and Alpha. Ian Hart plays The Agent and Fenella Woolgar plays Jean.

Producer/Toby Swift

Here’s the full cast:

• The Agent….Ian Hart
• Ross….James Laurenson
• Dalby….Jonathan Coy
• Jean….Fenella Woolgar
• Jay….Peter Marinker
• Chico….Jamie Bamber
• Skip….Kerry Shale
• Keightley….Adam Tedder
• Alice….Rachel Atkins
• Battersby….John Sharian
• Adem….Raad Rawi
• Embassy Official….Declan Wilson.

The music is, of course, adapted from John Barry’s film score. I’m going to take these audio files down after a week and a half, so you’d better listen while the listening is good!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

This is the second part of the BBC adaptation of the IPCRESS File from 2004, dramatized by Mike Walker, and starring Ian Hart as “The Agent.” For more details, see yesterday’s post. I’ll be taking this file down in 1.5 weeks, so listen now!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

This is the final portion of the BBC adaptation of the IPCRESS File from 2004, dramatized by Mike Walker, and starring Ian Hart as “The Agent.” For more details, see Wednesday’s post. I’ll be taking this file down in a week and a half, so listen now!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton

I’m horrible at writing reviews, and I generally dislike reading them. Perhaps it is the English major in me that resents summing up works of literature and film into six paragraphs, or the ability of the reviewer to discredit and dismiss the work of a creator in a few sentences. Of critics working today, I prefer the writings of Roger Ebert, who uses the art he’s discussing as a touchstone to make art of his own. I am no Roger Ebert, however, and so instead of a by-the-books review, I want to make a series of points that I hope will start conversation amongst those of you who have read The IPCRESS File (and perhaps even those who haven’t).

For those who haven’t, please note that you should assume a general spoiler warning for the next week’s worth of posts. And, really, the book has been out for 37 years. Why haven’t you read it yet?

A brief summary: Our narrator, an anonymous agent of British intelligence organization W.O.O.C. (P) is called in to explain details of a recent affair to the Minister of Defense, and in doing so, shares the story with the reader as well. He’s leaving the intelligence wing of the war office, where he workedunder a stifling bureaucrat named Ross, for the civilian W.O.O.C. (P) where he finds himself under the command of a no-nonsense boss, Dalby. Dalby holds weekly screening sessions in which the agents under him (including the priveleged Chico and the austere Alice) view film of their quarry.

One of these quarry is codenamed Jay, an opportunist, who it turns out is trafficking scientists to the Soviet Union. The narrator is sent to buy back one such scientist, and when his efforts fail, he accompanies Dalby to Lebanon to take himi back by force. Shortly after, Dalby takes leave and puts our narrator in charge of operations. As new head of the department, he authorizes himself an attractive young assistant, Jean, and works on the missing scientists until Dalby returns with news of an American nuclear test. The narrator, Jean and Dalby head out to the Tokwe Atoll for the test, it turns out that Dalby is a traitor who frames the narrator as one, and our hero winds up in Hungary…or really London, and finds himself at the heart of a massive brainwashing conspiracy.

That’s pretty much the long and short of it.

It may come as a surprise, because, after all, I run this website, I’m often underwhelmed by the thriller novels I attempt to read, because they all read as knock-offs, formulas in which the main character can be substituted for “x.” Reading The IPCRESS File was a refreshing change from that feeling, as Deighton has constructed a highly effective novel. I believe the strength of the book lies in its narrator, who, as many have said, is the opposite of the James Bond character. He has the patina of realism, an often helpless agent choked by the bureaucracy that inevitably comes in government work. He also does not possess, as noted in the post on the Angry Young Men movement, the privilege by birth of Bond. Though we hear little of his parents (we only see mention of a letter from his aunt), we might easily assume that they were not the types to die in mountain climbing accidents in the alps. The narrator’s response to these issues is not to lash out angrily, like Jimmy Porter, but to stay cool and sardonic, working within the system to benefit himself.

The view on bureaucracy is seen best in the pairing of Ross (”…a quiet Intellect happy to work within the strict departmental limitations imposed upon him. Ross didn’t mind; hitting platform five at Waterloo with rosebud in the buttonhole and umbrella at the high port was Ross’s beginning to a day of rubber stamp and carbon paper action…”) and Dalby (I find him best described, not physically, but by this bit:  “Dalby made his wishes known by peremptory unequivocal orders; all his staff preferred them to the complex polite chat of most Departments as especially did I as a refugee from the War Office.”). Though Ross wins out in the end, as it turns out that his polite, quiet rubber stampings were masking extensive machinations and schemes, the direct style of Dalby is still somewhat seen as preferred. Even after he’s revealed as a traitor, a comparison to Dalby is, “as near Alice ever came to admiration.”

Still, even in this department there’s carbon copying to be done, and what is amazing is that Deighton utilizes these scenes of the narrator in his office surrounded by paperwork to increase our understanding and appreciation of the character. While other heroes of espionage thrillers, or really, thrillers in general, set forth from the first chapter of the book, calvinistically clinging to the path that will take them to the last chapter, leads and progress come for our narrator only occasionally; the rest of his time is spent reading weekly intel round-ups, attending dreaded conferences and filing expense reports. In addition, this case is only one of many. While this book necessarily focuses on the IPCRESS file, the narrator points out in a conversation with Ross that, “We’ve got 600 open files in my office, that’s no secret, and my only interest at the moment is making it five hundred and ninety-nine even if I don’t get the Minister’s certificate of Good Housekeeping doing it.” In the end of the novel, closing the file on Jay and the IPCRESS operation only means opening another on his superiors.

Which is not to say that the novel doesn’t contain action and adventure. It does, and the action comes in short, surprising outbursts — the raid to recapture Raven in Lebanon, the chase across the Atoll and the interrogation after, and the extended torture in the London house — where the narrator demonstrates his unease at dealing with such situations (”Dalby had gone to look at the Nash while I vomited as inconspicuously as possible”).  While ostensibly the protagonist, our nameless agent narrator is most often a reactor, and not an instigator. This leads to one of the novel’s (some might say necessary) weak points, the final chapter, in which large gaps in the story are filled in via expository dialogue. It is in this final chapter, we find out that Jay’s punishment for his traitorous crimes is to head his own intelligence section, and Dalby’s recompense for playing outside of the system is death in a “car accident.”

The novel is populated by other interesting characters, each of them defined by a few rich details — Adem and his tiger-hunting uncle, Carswell and his rebellious choice to go into the statistics division, Cavendish and his book collection — some of whom we only see briefly, or in some cases (Grenade!) not at all.  I was struck most by the two female characters in the novel: Jean, who was hired, essentially, to be a sexual object but proves herself to be shrewd and more than capable of working for intelligence, and Alice, the bedrock foundation of the W.O.O.C.(P) who in many ways remains the only mystery at the novel’s conclusion. Though Jean does wind up in the narrator’s bed, these female characters are more often refreshingly portrayed as indispensable equals (in everything but pay) to the hero.

All in all, this was a grand start to a series of novels, and I’m already looking forward to reading the next in Deighton’s series. The novel definitely has its rough spots, but I, for one, prefer a tasty chunky cookie to one carved by a factory cutter.

This is, of course, only a starting point in discussing this novel. I hope you’ll respond in the comments section with your thoughts on both the book, and my thoughts on the book. Stay tuned for the rest of this week, where I’ll be looking at specific aspects of the novel. Also, mark your calendars for next Monday, when we’ll be watching the movie adaptation of the book at our first Harry Palmer party (you can watch “along” at home, but if you live near Albany, NY, shoot me an email!).

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

Snobby Wiltons lobster

We’ll hopefully have a more in-depth post on The IPCRESS File tomorrow, but tonight, I need sleep as soon as possible. So let’s zoom out a level and look at our author Len Deighton again, and his interactions with another famed thriller, Ian Fleming. This will be the first in a series of pieces where we compare the two franchises of Palmer & Bond, and examine instances where they “cross over.” Sort of.

To start, I want to cite sections of LeRoy Panek’s The Special Branch; the British Spy Novel, 1890-1980, where Panek discusses what he believes to be the key difference between Deighton and Fleming, their literary heritage:

Both these writers rely, to a large extent, on reproducing mechanical, external elements of the hard-boiled hero without understanding the deeper significance of the figure. Deighton is different. For one thing he does not derive his inspiration from degenerate heirs of the hard-boiled story, like Spillane, as Fleming does. Instead he was lucky enough to start writing late enough to take in Raymond Chandler–a later-comer to the form, writing well into the fifties. Deighton learned much from Chandler. He alludes to him–through Philip Marlowe–in Spy Story, and it is evident that some of Deighton’s habits of description were learned from Chandler, as a passage from An Expensive Place to Die can illustrate:

“Summer rain is cleaner than winter rain. Winter rain strikes hard upon the granite, but summer rain is sibilant soft upon the leaves. The rainstorm pounced hastily like an inexperienced lover, and then as suddenly was gone. The leaves drooped wistfully and the air gleamed with green reflections. It’s easy to forgive a summer rain; like first love, white lies or blarney, there’s no malignity in it.”

Short sentences, similes, personifications, alliterations: this is figurative prose like so many passages in Chandler. In An Expensive Place to Die Deighton also makes a pretty clear comment on the other side of the hard-boiled tradition. Here a windy English writer holds forth in a bar on the subject of James Bond:

“‘But I have always immensely adored violence. His [Bond's] violence is his humanity. Unless you understand that, you understand nothing.’”

Whereupon someone punches the speaker into insensibility with great technique and precision. Only an imbecile or an anthropoid would, this incident says, love violence. Sam Spade does not love it; Marlowe does not love it. Even if deviants like Mike Hammer love violence, Deighton’s hero does not. What counts in the original hard-boiled writers is style, and here Deighton understands Hammett and Chandler better than shoals of smaller fish have. The essence of the hard-boiled story lies in placing a man in a perverse relationship with authority and circumstances. That man’s responses in word, thought and deed mark him off as a hero–as someone from whom readers can learn important things.

I hadn’t yet made the connection to Chandler myself until yesterday, when thriller novelist Jeremy Duns commented that, “Deighton wrote like an angel, and there are single lines in IPCRESS that are more exciting and evocative than whole novels by other writers.” This is also how I feel about Chandler, and I also feel that the shortcomings of The IPCRESS File — the reactionary, sometimes passive narrator who has to explain the holes in the plot at the end — mirror the shortcomings of much of Chandler’s work. But like Duns, I find it easy to overlook these elements in favor of the quality sentence-to-sentence writing.

Scholars of Fleming, including Kinglsey Amis and O.F. Snelling, cite other influences, most frequently Bulldog Drummond, but the difference in influences is still notable.

* * *

In my review of The IPCRESS File, I called the narrator character the opposite of James Bond.  Duns took me to task for this, noting that, “There are as many Bondish elements to the books as there are counters: he loves his food and appreciates other cultures, exotic locations, beautiful women throw themselves at him, gadgets in cars, technical expertise, a feeling of getting the inside scoop on espionage, etc.” With the caveat that I’ve only read one of the Deighton novels so far, I would agree with Jeremy to a point. The Deighton character, I feel, treats these elements more…I hesitate to use the term, but at this hour, I can’t think of another…realistically.

Bond is, for all intents and purposes, a fantasy hero (one critic, I can’t remember who, posited that writing the 007 novels prevented Fleming from going out and attempting to live the fantastic Bond lifestyle himself), and thus cannot veer from the course of the adventure. For instance, while it is clear that Bond appreciates the places he visits during his missions, his appreciation seems to come in the form of a dossier with bullet points — here’s the local history, the relevant landmarks, a handful of observations about the local folk — before he has to go off and shoot someone. The narrator’s enjoyment of, for instance, Adem’s house in Lebanon seems to go deeper. He is taken aback by Adem’s visits to see the animals don’t involve shooting — with either guns or cameras — but later, after a sort of sublime moment staring out at the landscape and listening to the opening bars of Mozart’s Symphony 21, he thinks to donate to Adem’s preservation fund. I’m not sure if the Fleming character, detached and often cruel, is capable of having a sublime moment.

There was a particular passage in IPCRESS that I thought interestingly mirrored a passage from Fleming, when Dalby takes the narrator to lunch:

Dalby didn’t fool about with expenses; we went into Wiltons and settled for the best of everything. The iced Israeli melon was sweet, tender and cold like the blonde waitress. Corrugated iron manufacturers and chinless advertising men shared the joys of our expense-account society with zombi-like debs with Eton-tied uncles. It was a nice change from the sandwich bar in Charlotte Street, where I played a sort of Rugby scrum each lunch-time with only two Ph.D.’s, three physicists and a medical research specialist for company, standing up to toasted bacon sandwich and a cup of stuff that resembles coffee in no aspect but price.

Over the lobster Dalby asked me how things were going in the work on Jay. I told him that it was going just great and I hope someone will tell me what I’m doing some day. I wouldn’t have remembered Thursday at all, apart from the fine lobster salad and carefully-made mayonnaise, if it hadn’t been for what Dalby then said. He poured me a little more champagne and crunching it back into the ice bucket, said, ‘You’re working with the same information that I am. Unless I’m wrong we are moving in from opposite ends to the same conclusion.’ Then he changed the subject.

…Which might be compared to the early chapter in Moonraker where M takes Bond to dinner at the private Blades club. Bond jumps at the opportunity, and is treated to an exquisite meal:

The head steward was already behind Bond’s chair. He placed a broad menu card beside his plate and handed another to M. ‘Blades’ was written in fine gold script across the top. Below there was a forest of print.

“Don’t bother to read through all that,” said M., “unless you’ve got no ideas. One of the first rules of the club, and one of the best, was that any member may speak for any dish, cheap or dear, but he must pay for it. The same’s true today, only the odds are one doesn’t have to pay for it. Just order what you feel like.” He looked up at the steward. “Any of that Beluga caviar left, Porterfield?”

“Yes, sir. There was a new delivery last week.”

“Well,” said M. “Caviar for me. Devilled kidney and a slice of your excellent bacon. Peas and new potatoes. Strawberries in kirsch. What about you, James?”

“I’ve got a mania for really good smoked salmon,” said Bond. Then he pointed down the menu. “Lamb cutlets. The same vegetables as you, as it’s May. Asparagus with Bearnaise sauce sounds wonderful. And perhaps a slice of pineapple.” He sat back and pushed the menu away.

“Thank heaven for a man who makes up his mind,” said M. He looked up at the steward. “Have you got all that, Porterfield?”

“Yes, sir.” The steward smiled. “You wouldn’t care for a marrow bone after the strawberries, sir? We got half a dozen in today from the country, and I’d specially kept one in case you came in.”

“Of course. You know I can’t resist them. Bad for me but it can’t be helped. God knows what I’m celebrating this evening. But it doesn’t often happen. Ask Grimley to come over, would you.”

“He’s here now, sir,” said the steward, making way for the wine-waiter.

“Ah, Grimley, some vodka, please.” He turned to Bond. “Not the stuff you had in your cocktail. This is real pre-war Wolfschmidt from Riga. Like some with your smoked salmon?”

‘Very much,” said Bond.’

“Then what?” asked M. “Champagne? Personally I’m going to have a half-bottle of claret. The Mouton Rothschild ‘34, please, Grimley. But don’t pay any attention to me, James. I’m an old man. Champagne’s no good for me. We’ve got some good champagnes, haven’t we, Grimley? None of that stuff you’re always telling me about, I’m afraid, James. Don’t often see it in England. Taittinger, wasn’t it?”

Bond smiled at M.’s memory. “Yes,” he said, “but it’s only a fad of mine. As a matter of fact, for various reasons I believe I would like to drink champagne this evening. Perhaps I could leave it to Grimley.”

The wine-waiter was pleased. “If I may suggest it, sir, the Dom Perignon ‘46. I understand that France only sells it for dollars, sir, so you don’t often see it in London. I believe it was a gift from the Regency Club in New York, sir. I have some on ice at the moment. It’s the Chairman’s favourite and he’s told me to have it ready every evening in case he needs it.”

Bond smiled his agreement.

“So be it, Grimley,” said M. “The Dom Perignon. Bring it straight away, would you?”

Even here, in the area of gourmet cooking where Deighton and his character are famous, I feel there’s a recognizable difference in the authors’ treatment of the menu. In Fleming’s novel, the food is near-unattainable, and much is made of rarity and ages and dates. In Deighton’s, the narrator recognizes his good fortune and is thankful he’s not eating a bacon sandwich (I also feel that, in addition to utilizing Deighton’s knowledge of cooking, the gourmet tendencies of the narrator are a form of over-compensation stemming from his class issues, but more on that in a later post).

In a way, these areas that Deighton’s character and 007 seemingly have in common actually do more to clearly delineate the differences between the two. But, as I said before, I make these observations with the admission that I’ve only read one book in the Deighton series.

Next time around, we’ll reprint a tongue-in-cheek account of the first meeting between Deighton and Fleming, written by journalist Peter Evans for The Guardian, later reprinted in the book For Bond Lovers Only, and examine reports that Fleming and Deighton discussed establishing their agents as part of the same narrative world.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

John Tomlin, of the no-longer-updated-but-still-useful Unofficial Len Deighton Page, shared scans of this interesting article from Playboy, March 1966, with The Len Deighton Discussion Group on Yahoo! (where you can find the original PDFs in the file section). Written by Len Deighton, it’s an interesting look at the “spy boom,” which Deighton calls phony, the circumstances created by the Bond phenomenon, a brief bit on the creation of The IPCRESS File, and a lamentation of the wave of spy shows that Deighton feels are devoid of talent.

It’s an interesting article, and it seems to me that Deighton is working through his feelings on what role Fleming and Bond may have played in his own success, and attempting to absolve himself of guilt for inspiring (through his own spy successes) other works in the “spy boom” that he feels aren’t up to snuff.  It also may be interesting to note that in May of 1966, The Avengers was just hitting its stride in the Emma Peel years, and The Prisoner had yet to debut, although The Man From UNCLE had gone downhill in its second season. The sequel to 1965’s IPCRESS File was, I believe, currently filming, debuting in December of ‘66.

Playboy May 1966

WHY DOES MY ART GO BOOM?
as the spy craze continues to spiral skyward, the author of “the ipcress file” files a personal report on the phenomenon

article By LEN DEIGHTON

What is a spy-book boom? I don’t think I like the sound of it. Does it mean that a lot of people are using the same subject matter? Then when the hell is the boy-meets-girl boom going to end?

Does it mean that books on this boom kick get sold whether they are good, bad or indifferent? Don’t expect me to get enthusiastic about that one.

Does it mean that readers are instructed to buy books that are booming? Getting warmer. Land booms are the harmonious conjunction of sucker and speculator, so why not book booms? I’ll tell you why not: Book buyers are book readers and book readers are no suckers. I’m a book reader.

There is nothing new about spying. There is nothing new about writing of it. Xenophon and Caesar wrote of it. The Bible perhaps owes a large part of its high sales to its spy stories. Other writers have tried their hand from time to time. Conrad, Le Queux and E. Phillips Oppenheim all had a deft touch. John Buchan showed how spies could serve imperialism when the going grew too shallow for a gunboat. Eric Ambler threw an idealistic left at the fascists of the Thirties and Graham Greene wrote some of the best of all between fulfilling his contract with God.

It was Maugham’s agent Ashenden, in the opening paragraphs of The Hairless Mexican, who set a portentous note, however, when he reported back to his intelligence chief R.;

“‘Do you like macaroni?’ said R.

“‘What do you mean by macaroni?’ answered Ashenden. ‘It is like asking me if I like poetry. I like Keats and Wordsworth and Verlaine and Goethe. When you say macaroni, do you mean spaghetti, tagliatelli, rigatoni, vermicelli, fettucini, tufali, farfalli, or just macaroni?’

“‘Macaroni,’ replied R., a man of few words.

“‘I like all simple things, boiled eggs, oysters and caviare, truite au blue, grilled salmon, roast lamb (the saddle by preference), cold grouse, treacle tart and rice pudding. But of all simple things the only one I can eat day in and day out, not only without disgust but with the eagerness of an appetite unimpaired by excess, is macaroni.’

“‘I am glad of that because I want you to go down to Italy.’”

R. Was a character who came before M, but apart from superficial appeal, is there much resemblance between Ambler, Buchan, Conrad, Fleming and Greene? There is a certain pre-Nuremberg-trial readiness to shrug off irresponsible behavior on the plea of orders. Indeed, Bond’s unswerving loyalty earned him an accolade from America’s extreme political right. But did Fleming do anything that could detonate a boom?

He exploited kinky sex and doll-like women. He enthroned the WASP when the WASP’s role in the world was a little shaky. But Fleming’s importance to the business world was the way he wrote always about what he called the serial character–James Bond–pursued a tested format and made a great deal of money. Fleming boomed.

It’s a well-known fact that people don’t make money because they are clever, highly trained or brave. They make it either because they are lucky or because they have a secret.

The secret-hunters pawed through Fleming’s writings, as intent as cryptologists. They are still doing it. “Spies,” they pronounced, “that’s Fleming’s secret. Spies make money. Spies boom.” In Fleming’s case they were right, but before the first Bond film, who had Fleming earmarked for boomsville?

In the spring of 1950 I was working on my first book–IPCRESS File. I was earning enough money as an artist to write anything I chose. I chose a spy novel, as I still do. I liked to have a problem or enigma that could follow the action of the book, but I wanted the book to be ragged and untidy, as life is. I wanted the characterizations and the dialog to control the enigma, rather than the other way round as had been the case with the detective novels of the Thirties, which had become puzzles rather than stories. Above all, I was interested in the permutations of deceit and mistake.

Too many people in the fiction I had read told the whole truth all the time and never seemed to make a mistake of judgment. I decided to write a first-person narrative in which the narrator would lie to anyone if it suited his purpose. This narrator would finally make such an error of judgment that his life would be saved by a man (Ross) who he had continually told readers was a fool. I dismissed the detective story because I didn’t know enough about the regular police force, and chose a secret-agent format so that I could use the political background that interested me. My hero was bespectacled, low-salaried and slightly overweight. There was no sex interest to speak of. It owed a debt to Chandler, but was inspired by Beat the Devil, an old Bogart-Lorre film which, prodding at greed, fakery and the English class system, had produced terror and belly laughs. At the box office, it boomed.

Autumn 1962 was the publication date of IPCRESS File and the opening of the Dr. No film. The critics were generous to me and, although it sounds unbelievable today, somewhat hostile to the Bond film. The income from IPCRESS was adequate by my standards, but Dr. No buried the box office in gold. It was an attractive sound that caught the ear of a goodly number of otherwise unmusical people.

Harry Saltzman bought the IPCRESS film rights. He said, “A lot of people are going to be after your book because of the success of Dr. No,” adding, “and I’m the only producer who, you can be certain, won’t make an imitation Bond film from your book.” Saltzman, of course, had options on the other Fleming properties and so didn’t need to. The news of the film-rights sale brought more Fleming comparisons, and when I changed publishers, so that Fleming and I both had the same one, some people–not including Fleming–were enraged. Donald McLachlan, editor of the Sunday Telegraph, went into print to say that he deplored the way I had been “…brought into the select stable of Jonathan Cape where Mr. Fleming was the first thriller writer to be trained for the big circulation stakes.” I was, it seems, “…being coached by Mr. Fleming for the succession.”

In the autumn of 1963, my second book, Horse Under Water, was published and Saltzman bought the film rights of that, too. There was more conjecture in the press. “Out-Bonds Bond” and “Anti-Bond,” they said. Out of curiosity, I read Fleming for the first time. I could see no connection whatoever, but no one was asking me.

Fleming’s Bond was a proved success, the industry read the entrails. Famous ex-novelists began to write literary critiques about Fleming’s meaning. But the big word on the book jacket was going to be Bond.

Publishers reshuffled their lists, old reviews were scanned to find comparisons with Bond. Sci-fi was out and spy-fi was in. If Fleming was going to be deified, then Buchan could be anthologized. Reprints were artfully retitled to include words like, “spy,” “secret agent” and “espionage.”

In the autumn of 1963 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold appeared, its film rights sold even before publication. It climbed onto the best-seller list and stayed there a history-making period of time. The last stragglers were converted. People who had found Fleming’s work rubbish began to see it as fun. Publications that had ignored Le Carré limped belatedly into print with reviews that saw his promise.

It was settled, then: Add up Le Carré, Fleming and Deighton, divide by three and the answer is spies. There was no time for long-term tests and, like Thalidomide, the spy formula was stirred hastily and a long-suffering public told to open its throat. But the public didn’t. The most interesting thing about the spy boom is to what extent it hasn’t been accepted.

Spy scent, spy trousers, film rights and series contracts. The book ads in the Times grew larger and larger, booksellers were faced with bewildering lists of books, all of them guaranteed to home in to the best-seller list. The flacks were inserting the zeros and omitting the options so that the entertainment industry seemed to have found what it had always been looking for–a substitute for talent. But of this wave of spy-boomery that hit the beaches complete with local money and pay-war units, how many reached the finish line? One would expect the best-seller list to be riddled with spy books by now. If they are there, they are hiding behind strange titles. The assault, however, continues despite heavy casualties. When Funeral in Berlin went onto the list, the combat troops were given new heart. Mr. Conrad Knickerbocker, writing in Life magazine, said, “…the Great American Washed at last have a folk hero of their very own.” He felt that all the “new-style thrillers” needed was a bitter hero and Berlin as a locale. Mr. Knickerbocker felt that they were appearing at “the rate of one per day.”

From the other side of the counter it didn’t seem so easy. Coward-McCann (Le Carré’s publisher) growled, “If it was as simple as that we’d all be retired to our yachts months ago.”

Considering the very high percentage of spy novels being published, it is remarkable how few ever do anything. Perhaps there is no magic way. Perhaps publishers, like mushroom pickers, just have to know enough to make their own choices. Perhaps the public is doing just that–boom, phony boom or no boom at all.

But if the best-seller list has been the scene of a fine defensive actoin, the small screen has long since been overwhelmed. It’s no coincidence that the American TV industry was chosen as ground zero for the spy-boom blast. Its programs ranged from A to D, and here was a chance to narrow the choice. The ad agencies–masters of the wishful think–relished the thought of a “spy trend.” A trend made the agency role important, a trend had changed often enough to keep the cash jingling, trends meant that some agencies could be trendsetters. And trendsetters could soften up teh ground way before the next trend was announced. “Spes,” the sibilants splashed across the polished-mahogany board rooms. “Give me a child of five and tomorrow we will have eliminated those troublesome writers altogether.”

The sands of the great writerless desert that is U.S. TV stirred.

Was it to be “Secret Gunn” or “77 Sunset Spy”? What’s the difference, the same gay rogues that outwitted the guttural villains of yesterday against back-projection Bermuda, two flats and a practical door, are there still, but now they are part of the spy boom.

The phony spy boom is another attempt to relegate humans to the role of cogs. Writers are not cogs. They are not even, although some reviewers see it otherwise, mutations and subdivisions of other writers. Nor is a book a refrigerator. A house that contains a Bellow can still use a Mailer. Plenting of room for Kipling as well as Eliot. Time for Bach and time for Beatle. If the industry succeeds in selling fashionable trends instead of using and paying writers, it will do so. The skilled painstaking publishers will go to the wall and hordes of mediocrity will eliminate writers in favor of packaging. If you think I am a vested interest, you’re right. If you think it wouldn’t be so bad, switch on your TV.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

‘I’m letting you take over this whole department,’ [Dalby] said at last. ‘Now don’t get all excited, it’s only going to be for about three months, in fact less if I’m lucky. You are a bit stupid, and you haven’t had the advantage of a classical education.’

Dalby was having a little genteel fun with me. ‘But I am sure you will be able to overcome your disadvantages.’

‘Why think so? You never overcame your advantages.’

The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton

One of the things I like best about British literature, film, television, and general media, is the constant presence of class issues, whether on the surface, or bubbling underneath. I grew up a working class American — when I was a kid, my dad supported our family of four on a factory salary (and this was during the Reagan years!) — and, until I started expanding my reading horizons, I felt fairly alone in the world. Admittedly, our class situation is a little different: our accents don’t betray us, and for the most part, we’re all piled into the same schools regardless of class. But still, we definitely have class issues in America, though most of our socially conscious art focuses on multi-culturalism.

As touched upon in the post about the Angry Young Men, class issues also permeate The IPCRESS File. The narrator character and his cinematic counterpart are often noted for their working class roots, compared to the globe-trotting playboy image set forth by other spy franchises. And, again, it’s noteworthy to point out that author Len Deighton was also from a working class background himself.

One of the interesting ways in which class issues are presented in The IPCRESS File is in the narrator’s description of the other characters and their backgrounds. For each of them, their class or financial background is addressed, usually as part of the narrator’s judgment of their character. During his time as head of department, he would have likely had access to personnel reports, and so we can’t ever be sure if these judgments are from the official documents, or casual observations.

CHICO:

Chico always looked glad to see me, it made my day; it was his training, I suppose. He’d been to one of those very good schools where you meet kids with influential uncles. I imagine that’s how he got into the Horse Guards and now into w.o.o.c.(p) too, it must have been like being at school again. His profusion of long lank yellow hair hung heavily across his head like a Shrove Tuesday mishap. He stood 5 ft. 11 in. in his Argyll socks, and had an irritating physical stance, in which his thumbs rested high behind his red braces while he rocked on his hand-lasted Oxfords. He had the advantage of both a good brain and a family rich enough to save him using it.

Chico seems to be the character for whom our narrator has the least respect, and it seems directly related to the fact that he didn’t really earn his job, but had it handed to him by virtue of his background. This is probably the reason that he’s not very good at the job (though it may be worth noting that our narrator may not give a reliable account of Chico’s abilities), and might also explain why he goes missing for half of the book and no one seems to give a damn.

DALBY:

Dalby was an elegant languid public school Englishman of a type that can usually reconcile his duty with comfort and luxury. He was a little taller than I am: probably 6 ft. i in. or 6 ft. 2 in. He had long fine fair hair, and every now and then would grow a little wispy blond moustache. At present he didn’t have it. He had a clear complexion that sunburnt easily and very small puncture-type scar tissue high on the left cheek to prove he had been to a German University in ‘38. It had been useful experience, and in 1941 enabled him to gain a D.S.O. and bar. A rare event in any Intelligence group but especially in the one he was with. No citations of course.

Public school in the UK, it should be noted, means pretty much the opposite of the US connotation. The Heidelberg duelling scar has always been one of the more interesting demarcations of class — a hideous disfigurement so posh that people often stabbed themselves in the face to get one. Dalby often seems to go against his class, and the societal niceties that come with it, but seems to still carry some superficial prejudices. Dalby’s interactions with the narrator, as seen in the excerpt that opens this post, often involve his pointing out the narrator’s education shortcomings and, occasionally, his surprise at his ability to transcend them.

CARSWELL:

On Tuesday I had Carswell in for a drink in the office. He seemed a bit depressed. He had three beers in quick succession and then began to tell me of his childhood in India. His father had insisted upon Carswell going into the regiment. The polo, the pig-sticking, the punitive actions against the tribesmen who enjoyed the fighting as much as the young English aristocrats did, the sun, horses galloping in the open hill country, drinks and mess dinners, the other young subalterns wrecking the mess in horseplay. All these things were things of his father’s life, and when his father died he immediately asked for a posting to another unit. He chose a unit as diametrically opposed to his father’s as he could think of; Indian Army Statistical Office,
Calcutta. He had no interest or aptitude for the work. He did it as a quiet rebellion against his life until then.

…Carswell must have been the only officer in the entire British army who had deliberately thrown away a commission in a crack cavalry regiment in exchange for a dreary office job that had left him nudging sixty, a substantive captain, with little or no prospect of a move past substantive major, if that.

Before this chat, the narrator had been frustrated with overseeing Carswell’s dead-end statistical work, but I feel that afterwards, there’s a bit more respect from one class anomaly to another.

MURRAY:

I talked to Murray about everything except the job. Murray was a tall and large-muscled man who, had he been a few years younger would have made a John Osborne hero. His face was large, square and bony, and it would be equally easy to imagine him as an R.S.M. or the leader of a wildcat strike.

He was efficient and responsive to orders in a way that more than faintly criticized his superiors by its very efficacy. It reminded me of those N.C.O.’s who drilled officer cadets. His hair was tightly arranged across his lumpy skull. His eyes, thin slits, as though he constantly peered into a brightness, would wrinkle and smile without provocation. Unlike Chico, Murray’s smile wasn’t motivated by a desire to join other men – it separated him quite deliberately from them. We talked about Bertold Brecht and the 1937 Firearms Act, and it amused Murray that I was probing around amongst his acquisition of knowledge. He’d not liked the peacetime army and it was understandable, there was no place in it for a man with a paperback edition of Kierkegaard in his pocket. The sergeants tried to talk like officers and the officers like gentlemen, he said. The mess was full of men who’d sit in a cinema all the weekend and come back with stories about house-parties on the river.

‘Georgian houses,’ Murray said, and he had a great love for beautiful buildings. ‘The only Georgian houses they’d ever been to were George the Fifth ones along the by-pass.’

Note the mention of John Osborne, whom we discussed before. Note also that in Murray and the narrator’s view, there’s seemingly a checklist for class pretension (”Attend party at Georgian house? Check Yes or No.”) that both misses the point, and breeds rebels like the two of them.

JEAN:

Even though Led’s wasn’t the place, she passed me a pale-green filing card, It was about six by ten inches. It was a personnel-type card, such as any large commercial firm might employ, but in the space for name and address there was only an irregularly spaced series of rectangular holes. Under this in panels was information. Born twenty-six years ago in Cairo. Norwegian father, Scottish mother, probably not short of the stuff since she went to school in Zurich between ‘51 and ‘52, and decided to live there. Perhaps working for British Diplomatic Service in Switzerland – it wouldn’t be the first time an Embassy typist came into the department. Her brother holds Norwegian citizenship, works for a shipping firm in Yokohama – hence presumably H.K. then Macao – where she worked part-time for the tourist bureau there – a Portuguese set-up. The panel marked T was bursting with entries. She spoke Norwegian, English, Portuguese, German, French, ‘FSW, that is, ‘fluent in speech and writing’, and Mandarin, Japanese and Cantonese ‘SS some speaking’. Her security clearance was GH7 ‘non stopped’ which means that nothing had been found to prevent her having a higher clearance if the department wanted to classify her higher.

In reading over Jean’s file, the narrator seems to comment in passing on Jean’s class background, mostly because he’s preoccupied with other things (”she was still my very first beautiful spy”).

The character on whom we get the least background info is Alice, the department secretary. We also get brief nuggets on our hero — he’s from Burnley, an industrial town in Lancashire, worked briefly with the CIA, and is described as, “a dark-haired, round-faced character; deep sunk eyes with bags under horn-rim glasses, chin jutting and cleft. On the back of the photos was written ‘5ft. 11 in.; muscular inclined to overweight. No visible scar tissue; hair dark brown, eyes blue’.”

I don’t want to be too presumptuous, but the working class narrator seems to be a fictional manifestation of Deighton himself. In addition to a similar physical build, they also share a knowledge of fine foods. This, along with the narrator’s appreciation of culture and history, might at first seem pretensions themselves, but the narrator uses them in his class rebellion, using his wit and knowledge as weapons against those who underestimate him. The intelligence community is populated by elitists (still smarting from the well-educated upper class Cambridge graduates who’d been working for the Soviets — Burgess, Philby, McLean, Blunt & Cairncross — actually, they were still hunting Cairncross, I think) and in some ways, the narrator is able to succeed because of his background and his ability to recognize and function outside of class niceties.

For what it’s worth, Deighton didn’t see himself as a class warrior, but a mere chronicler of the class situation. Discussing the situation in a BBC interview (transcribed here), Deighton said: “I think at the time someone said, ʻyouʼre against the class system,ʼ and I said, ʻWell, Iʼm not against the class system, itʼs just Iʼm recording the fact thereʼs a class system, and I think I might be more against it if I noticed around me anyone who was against it.ʼ”