Thelma Adams: Novelist, Critic, Oscar Expert

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Book Review: ‘Midnight in Europe’ by Alan Furst

June 21, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Midnight in Europe: A NovelMidnight in Europe: A Novel by Alan Furst
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Has Alan Furst spoiled me for Alan Furst? He remains one of my favorite authors of historical espionage. I pre-buy every new volume, although his last book, “Mission to Paris,” about a Hollywood actor spying in Europe was the least satisfying. In “Midnight in Europe,” the research is impeccable. The prose pristine. The psychological insight astute. The women characters intrigue; the protagonist wise and complicated.

Again we have a chapter from the WWII playbook, a slice that evokes the whole: a sophisticated Spanish-born lawyer living in Paris moonlights in the arms trade in service of the Spanish Republic in 1938. While we know that Franco’s fascists won this battle, and that the Nazi’s will rise even further in the coming years, Furst builds suspense in the way that small acts of courage build to impact large strategic movements — or fall by the wayside in futility.

Still, the romantic underpinnings of this particular volume — between the lawyer and a mysterious Marquesa, and a Manhattan library worker — seems particularly forced, as if even Furst had tired of creating these couplings. And that could be because I know Furst too well, and found this book a less compelling read than “The Polish Officer,” “Red Gold,” or “Night Soldiers.” Maybe I am ready for Furst to reach back to his Eric Ambler roots and go darker, quirkier, even as his elegant novels gain wider recognition within the literary mainstream.

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Filed Under: Books, Criticism Tagged With: Alan Furst, books, Espionage Thriller, Midnight in Europe, Nazis, WWII

Book Review: David Downing’s ‘Jack of Spies’

June 7, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Jack of SpiesJack of Spies by David Downing
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Sometimes I worry that all my reviews are positive and that will seem phony. The truth of the matter is that I’m very picky about what I read, and tend not to write about those things that I do not like. But two things drew me to Downing’s latest novel: that Soho Press published it, and that the Washington Post said of his work: “In the elite company of literary spy masters Alan Furst and Philip Kerr.”

The problem with that review is overpraise. Furst is absolutely one of my favorite authors, not only because he teaches me, through his own extensive research, about the activities in the shadows during WWII, but also because his characters are so psychologically rich. He truly carries on the tradition of Eric Ambler and “A Coffin for Dimitrios.” If anything, Furst can sometimes be a little too romantic. And his female characters are complex and complicated.

But it’s not fair to spend this space over-talking about Furst (and I could go on about Kerr, too). Downing’s book — set before WW1 and hooked to a Scottish-born British spy — is well-researched but unmoving. There are times when the dialog is just an information infusion — these are not people talking but exposition donkeys.

The central romantic relationship between the ambiguous hero, Jack McColl, and an insufferably modern Irish-American journalist suffragette, left me cold. They had sex, and sex again, in hotels and on board trains and ships, but never seem to use protection — and talk the most nonsense politics.

Furst and Kerr drew me to try this author, with a nod from the Washington Post, but the comparison only reinforces how much more brilliant those authors are, weaving historical details into rich, psychologically complex and ultimately satisfying fiction. (Furst even more than Kerr.) I am always looking for authors of their caliber — and often, I must go back in time to Ambler and those still undiscovered writers, rather than contemporary authors like the tepid Downing.

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Filed Under: Books, Criticism Tagged With: Alan Furst, Book Review, David Downing, Eric Ambler, Espionage Thriller, Jack of Spies, Philip Kerr, Soho Press

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Oscar

October 4, 2011 By Thelma 1 Comment

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,John LeCarre,Gary Oldman,Sir Alec Guinmess, Colin Firth,Tom Hardy,Benedict Cumberpatch

Oldman runs silent, deadly

Since I’m still under embargo on  a review after seeing Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (out December 9th), based on the serpentine John LeCarre espionage thriller, I’m going to treat its Oscar chances in the actor category. Why only actors? Well, in part, because this is a movie crammed with actors, and it’s almost as good a collection of British male thespians clamoring for screen time as the Harry Potter saga.

Gary Oldman takes on the deceptively owlish old-school British Secret Service agent, John Smiley, played in the 1979 six-part BBC series by Sir Alec Guinness. There seemed to be no need to top Guinness, the subtlest Smiley. And then along comes Oldman, after years of hamming it up as one villain or another in The Book of Eli, for example, opposite Denzel Washington, or as the menacing voice on countless video games. And he gets to play a hero, to the extent that Smiley is one. Deep behind Smiley’s heavy black glasses, there is a romantic man and a pragmatic spook. He is both player and played in a master chess game within “The Circus,” the upper echelons of British intelligence; and a monkey in the middle where England is tossed between the Soviets and the Americans. (Readers of LeCarre know the author doesn’t think much of the Yanks.)

This is a best actor worthy performance. No doubt. Add Oldman to the list.

Who will come out in the supporting category is unknowable, although I’d throw my weight behind Tom Hardy, as the sexy seventies spy who comes in front the cold, with a big bit of treasure and a secret so large that every body around him keeps dying.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, John LeCarre,Best Supporting Actor, Oscars2012

Hardy comes in from the cold

Hardy’s role couldn’t be more different than his barely articulate fighter in Warrior, yet he retains the kind of screen gravity that draws eyes to him in whatever scene he’s in.

Other notable supporting players? There’s the relatively unknown Benedict Cumberbatch who plays Smiley’s right-hand. A rising English star who played Sherlock Holmes in the recent BBC reboot, Cumberbatch breaks down beautifully in a restrained scene where he “tidies up his life” in anticipation of a spy shit-storm. Then there’s Colin Firth — but he just won best. And the wily John Hurt. The nearly campy Jones.  And playing a broken and betrayed British agent, Mark Strong makes a dark horse candidate even within his own movie; happily, the strong-jawed actor is no cardboard villain here.

The chief impediment to the movie’s overall chances, at the box office in December and as an Oscar contender, is how damn smart it is. LeCarre’s genius is in twisting a plot that’s so complicated even the players can’t figure it out, much less the readers/viewers. That’s the pleasure of the piece: not knowing, not being able to figure it out, struggling in the dark like the spies themselves. I’ve read the book. I’ve seen the mini-series — available from Acorn Online — just last month. And the movie still challenges. That leads to a question that would make Smiley and LeCarre scoff: can American audiences focus long enough to follow the thread? Can they enjoy the intellectual game even if they can’t solve it in advance like a big wooden children’s puzzle, rather than the challenging double-sided jigsaw that it actually is?

 

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: best actor, Best Supporting Actor, Colin Firth, Espionage Thriller, Gary Oldman, John LeCarre, Sir Alec Guinness, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

BBC Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Espied

September 16, 2011 By Thelma 1 Comment

tinker tailor soldier spy, John LeCarre,Oscar,Gary Oldman,BBC

Guinness in a bowler hat nod to Magritte

The movie version of John Le Carre’s deeply twisted spy novel, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy will premiere in the U.S. on December 9th. It’s already garnering early Oscar buzz for Gary Oldman in the Alec Guinness role of George Smiley, and Colin Firth stepping into Ian Richardson‘s polished brogues as Bill Haydon.

Last night, I intended to watch the first installment of the 1979 seven-part BBC series with my husband — starting with “Flushing out the Mole.”  It was like eating Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. We couldn’t consume just one, but we stopped at two so that tonight we could return and hopefully make it last at least until Saturday.

My husband and I are part of a small but proud minority who are addicted to BBC mysteries. Give us Inspector Lewis, Poirot, Miss Marple, the new Sherlock Holmes, Midsomer Murders, Rebus, and we are at peace, sheltered from our earthly cares. The three cats cluster around us on the couch, purring. My hand snakes out to find my husband’s. We do not get up, and down, and answer the phone, or attend to the children’s interruptions, because we’re both riveted to the sofa: ah, BBC mysteries.

We have both read LeCarre’s novel — my husband rereading it recently. And, still, it takes an act of faith to watch the mini-series and trust in Le Carre, aware that we will be baffled anew by the complicated, Cold War intrigue of internal politics within the British secret service and the existence of a mole at the highest echelons of MI6.

And, so, the early response to the Hollywood movie from Focus Feature that it is confusing confounds me. Isn’t that the point? To be sucked into a world where nothing is at it seems, where men in proper ties and overcoats are ultimately as unknowable and surreal as figures in a Magritte landscape? I will see the film at an early press screening the week after next, and report back. But the misdirection and perplexity is precisely the point: this is not James Bond,  flamboyant actions at a casino and flashy blonds with funny names. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is the antithesis of the children’s nursery rhyme from which it derives its name: this is an intellectual puzzle. Le Carrre is the chessmaster. You may work out bits, you will surely be delighted in the moment, but the ending should come as a kick in the head.

(the entire series is available from Acorn, $49.99; the sequel, Smiley’s People, is also available.)

Filed Under: Books, Criticism, Movies & TV Tagged With: Acorn, Alec Guinness, BBC seven-part TV series, Cold War, Colin Firth, Espionage Thriller, Gary Oldman, Ian Richardson, MI6, Movie, mystery, Oscars, Soldier, Spy, Tailor, Tinker

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