ley imitating Dickens.nThe good parts of this book are thenscenes of spying: the hero’s recruitment,nhis experiences in mihtary intelligence,nand his wife’s defeat of hisnCzech handler. In fact, somewhereninside this big, fat book there is annamusing little story about a pretentious,nincompetent English spy, recruitednby the Czechs at the outset ofnhis career, who spends 20 increasinglynbewildered years working for themnuntil an American computer enthusiastnfinds him out. The story worksnwhen portraying the grammar-schoolnand minor public-school EnglishmennLe Carre knows and when it takes usninto the wonderfully frumpy, tastelessnEnglish middle-class milieu Le Carrencan describe so well. The kernel storynowes nothing to donnish allegories ofnspies as crooks and crooks as spies nornto portentous analyses of English privilegenby Czech Communists who knowneven less about it than Le Carre. Withnscissors and a blue pencil, it might benpossible to recover from A Perfect Spynthe kind of book Le Carre can write,nand one hopes that next hme, havingnrecovered a degree of humor and selfcriticism,nhe will write it. But this timenaround, self-pity, ambition, andnobsession—and, one suspects, the demandsnof the publishing marketn—have defeated imagination.nBest-selling writers have to keepnwriting, and it may be that the academicnaudience at whom this booknseems to be aimed will read it as anself-reflecting fable of the diflBculties ofna successful writer of modest gifts luredninto pretending to be a major novelist.nIn that case, the confidence-man heronstands for the author, and the tale’snclimax is farce: When the combinednforces of the American and Britishnpublics break into the seaside boardinghousenwhere the hero has gone tonfind his roots and sweat out his greatnnovel, all they find is his dead body,nan empty vodka bottle, and pages ofnoverwritten, unpublishable manuscriptn—dismal mementoes of the fallacynthat literature is self-expression.nReal readers are harder to trick thannprofessors, publishers, and the fictitiousnBritish secret service. They prefernGeorge Smiley any day. His brief appearancenin one tiny scene saved ThenLooking Glass War from disaster. He isnnot infallible and does not alwaysnchoose well the company he keepsn—witness his incredible wife and thenbibulous Connie—but a touch of hisntradecraft in A Perfect Spy would havendone MI 5 and the author a world ofngood. Smiley would not have hadnMarcus Pym in the house, let alonenthe service, with his bogus mannersnand phony literary ambitions. If JohnnLe Carre has the courage of his imaginationnand his English education, henwill bring back Smiley or one of hisnpupils, and leave the writing of thengreat confessional-metaphysical spynnovel to someone of weaker characternand greater pretension.nF.W. Brownlow is professor of Englishnat Mount Holyoke College.nThe Right Kindnof Spynby Robert F. GearynSee You Later AUigatpr and HighnJinx by William F. Buckley Jr., GardennCity, New York: Doubleday;n$16.95.nIn these two recent spy thrillers, WilliamnF. Buckley’s CIA-trained alternego makes his sixth and seventh appearancesnin a decade to play a winningnhand in the high-stakes intriguensurrounding crucial moments in thenCold War. On a secret mission tonCuba (Project Alligator) aimed at exploringnwith Che Guevara possibilitiesnfor easing tensions between the twoncountries, Blackford Oakes discoversnFidel’s newest presents from Moscow,nthe infamous Cuban missiles. Highn]inx returns to the 1950’s as Oakes’snquest for the source of a murderousnintelligence leak leads to English trailersnof the Philby variety and, finally,nto Lavrenti Beria, Stalin’s chief ofnsecret police, plotting to become thennext master of the Kremlin. Writtennwith style and zest, never lacking innaction and suspense, both books arenquality examples of the spy adventure’sncapacity to offer intelligent entertainment.nThat Oakes is the author’s fictionalnprojechon constitutes a minor in-jokenin these books. Like Buckley, the CIAnman is a Yale graduate with someneducation in the English public schoolnsystem. His ripostes to the Guevara’snMarxist verbal thrusts do credit to theneditor of National Review. In HighnJinx, Buckley even makes PresidentnEisenhower’s National Security Advisernpraise McCarthy and His Enemies,nfurther teasing readers with the linknbetween author and character. Suchnauthorial winking at the reader offersnmore than enough invitation to considernwhat happens when a man whonhas spent his adult life attacking andndefending ideas ventures at last intonfiction. Ideas should matter. But willnhe produce doctrinaire tracts in thenguise of novels or will he infuse, evenntranscend, the thriller’s formulationsnby means of an enriching seriousnessnand clarity of vision?nActually, neither is exactly the case.nBuckley’s fictions are interesting spynthrillers, not weighted down with polemicsnor heavy reflections. Plot isnparamount, and the conventions ofnthe subgenre arc deftly executed butnnot transcended. A reader somehownunfamiliar with the author might bensurprised to learn that Buckley has fornthree decades been championingnAmerican conservatism, particularlynanti-Communism. For similar reasons,nsome who cannot abide the author’snpolitical philosophy can benfound confessing in print to havingnenjoyed these novels (and hinting thatnthe author should stick to fiction).nAnd, perhaps, some of his admirersnmmimnm*’nnnm^M^f: •:..•••n•v.–^::-.i^ •••.;,• .:•- .nJANUARY 1987 / 35n
January 1975July 26, 2022By The Archive
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