Spycraft and spy writers

I recently found online this interesting essay on Len Deighton's spy craft, which reflects on Deighton's position within the canon of UK spy fiction. While he's often placed alongside John Le Carre and Ian Fleming as part of the 'big three' of UK spy fiction - perhaps soon to be joined in a big four by Mick Herron, of Slough House fame, but that's another story altogether - the author of this essay foregrounds the point that in his portrayal of spy craft in his fiction, the fact that of the three Deighton was the only one who was not a spy makes its presence felt in his storytelling, and so marks him out as something different.

As does, of course, the fact that unlike the other two authors in this triumvirate, he didn't attend public school and was assuredly working class in his upbringing. None of this is really new, but this essay I think encapsulates well how these social and career differences manifest themselves in Deighton's writing, particularly in his two most famous creations, the unnamed spy who became Harry Palmer, and Bernard Samson. Both, for example, are recognised as unreliable narrators for the reader, which creates tension and ambiguity when reading the books, given that everything being said my turn out not to be one hundred per cent accurate.

"Deighton’s hero is an unreliable narrator whose commentaries should be sifted, not readily accepted. It isn’t that he deliberately sets out to hoodwink or misdirect us, rather that his outlook is hampered by blind spots. His entirely subjective account prevents him from presenting the whole picture or conveying the exact truth. Anomalies and distortions arise. As Deighton once explained: ‘What happens in The IPCRESS File (and in all my other first-person stories) is found somewhere in the uncertainty of contradiction.’ This makes for stimulating reading."

Not a new insight, but this essay explores well how the author makes the most of this.

With Len Deighton rather having fallen out of public consciousness since the turn of the century - not surprising, perhaps, given his advanced age and non-release of any new fiction during this period - essays and evaluations of his writing are now seen sparingly in the UK media and online generally, so when something like this essay does crop up, it's interesting to see if the author has any new perspectives to offer on often familiar traits.

Duck confit, anyone?

To paraphrase Franz Zappa (who's often credited with the original quote), writing about food is like dancing about architecture. 

Food is to be savoured, tasted, smelled, talked over. 

But, in the right hands, food writing can certainly be entertaining and offer up new insights into something we all do, and enjoy.

Len Deighton - primary subject of this blog and website - as well as being a spy fiction author and historian is, famously, a long-standing writer on the epicurian arts.

A pioneer, indeed, in some respects - his 'cookstrips' were regarded as something of a revolution in the somewhat staid world of food writing in the 'sixties, but seemed to set the tone for the decade and, with the Action Cook Book, it's often said that he helped give men permission to enter the kitchen, and have fun.

In this new book I've just found - file it under books I didn't know were out there, but when I found out about it, I felt compelled to collected - there's a short but fun contribution from the author recounting his experiences with food, from cooking with his mother (who was herself a domestic cook), to eating in Paris' finest restaurants when he hit the big time as an author.

The book is a first edition of Great Dishes from the British Gastronomic Academy, edited by Allan Hall and with a foreword by the famous food critic Egon Ronay, published in the UK in 1988.

As chronicled on this blog, over half a lifetime of collecting Mr Deighton's books, I've got copies of all of his food-related books - the famous, and the more obscure.

This book came out of left-field - as ephemera and rare books by authors often do, from time to time - and I snapped it up for a very reasonable price (courtesy of the ever reliable Adrian Harrington Rare Books). Since purchasing it, I have seen that a paperback edition seems subsequently to have been produced.

For a 120 page book, there are only three pages of contributions by Deighton. Two pages - with a charming duck illustration - and a recipe for pressed duck, with attendant wine notes.

The autobiographical details shared in this book don't add a lot more granularity to tales that the author has recounted in his other cookbooks, or in magazine and news articles, but they are nonetheless interesting and well written.

He writes about being a teenager in Paris after the War and staying in a garret room at the top of a very small hotel near the station, his base from which to discover the city's food.

"Now I was in Paris", he writes, "I knew I had to go to the most famous restaurant in the world: La Tour d'Argent. (I don't know Paris' restaurants, but it sounds suitably grand for the 'sixties!). There, he ordered pressed duck, and was greeted by a sad look from the waiter. 

He writes: "He whispered, as if saving me from the humiliating consequences of my ignorance, that the pressed duck I wanted was only served to two people. To cut the duck in half for one person was not possible... I understood. I was devastated but decided that desperate situations call for desperate measures. 'I'll have two portions', I said".

And, he did, and the author goes on to recount his tale of that first dish in Paris, which arguably influenced his later passion for French Food, which he then wrote about in numerous successful cookbook. And, he writes in the book, he still has the numbered card given by the restaurant to patrons who eat this magnificent dish.

For readers who wanted to recreate that dish, like other contributors to the book Deighton enlisted the help of young London chef Prue Leith (now of Bakeoff fame, of course) to share the full recipe ingredients and cooking instructions.

A great little find and, like some of my best finds as a book collector, a smashing surprise which I shall shelve with great pleasure alongside my other Deighton cookbooks.