'It's all in the planning'... Deighton in the WSJ

Len's popped up this week in the Wall Street Journal, in its Word Craft section to be exact, writing about his approach to planning a book and the extensive work that goes into it before the pen touches the paper, or a finger stokes the keyboard.

The article, Facing the hard questions before chapter one, is by-lined by Len. In it he sets out his approach which has long been recognised as being among the most thorough of modern fiction and thriller writers. Understanding the era about which you're writing is his first point; and be clear about the time context for the story. His books has ranged from covering 24 hours - in the case of Bomber - to fifty years, as the reader experiences with Winter.

It's a wide-ranging exposition, written as much for the aspiring writer as the interested reader. So, he recommends that writers follow his example and write out a sentence on a blank sheet of paper for the main theme of each chapter, allowing the writer to add and subtract ideas and see how the structure of a book develops before the main text is written. Clearly, this approach will have come in handy when writing a major triple trilogy such as the Bernard Samson series, where short and long-term narratives intertwined.

He also writes about his aborted novel on Vietnam, a subject of much curiosity among readers of his books. While the story never made it beyond the planning stage, the work wasn't wasted, as he recounts:

'For a book I planned to do about the American air war in Vietnam, I flew in Phantom fighters and spent many weeks with a U.S. fighter squadron, but my timing was wrong. By the time I had all the necessary paperwork, the war was winding down. But the experience of living with those fighter pilots sowed the seeds for another book. "Goodbye, Mickey Mouse" was set in World War II but benefited greatly from my earlier research. So never throw anything away.'

An intriguing insight into the mechanics of story-telling.

Lunch with Len .....

I was pleased to have the opportunity today to have lunch with Len Deighton, his wife, and Edward Milward-Oliver, author of the indispensable Len Deighton Companion and currently working on a biography of Len.

Much interesting chit-chat over lunch about film production, the Game Set and Match TV adaptation, the narrative arc of Bernard Samson in the Game Set and Match series, Len's books on fountain pens and the history of the aero engine, and the progress on plans for a film adaptation of Bomber, which was first recorded last year on this blog.

Len was happy enough to answer questions from blog readers and those on the forum, the discussion of which I recorded on my iPhone, which ...... has subsequently failed to yield up a second of the conversation recorded. So for the moment I will just say that Len is on good form and, I'm pleased to say, appreciative of the Deighton Dossier blog and website.

The lesson of all this, however: don't rely on technology!

Update: Len has agreed to do a question & answer interview for this blog, which I'll edit and post up when I get his responses to the questions I sent him, which were drawn from suggestions from readers of this blog. Keep visiting the blog to check out his answers when this is up, as this will be one of the first interview's Len's given in a long time.

None shall win prizes ....

(c) Jonathan Player/Rex

Interesting story in The Guardian this week concerning John Le Carré.

He has been nominated for the Man Booker International Prize for contribution for fiction (as distinct from the Man Booker Prize for an individual work of fiction). But ... to the disguised consternation of the organisers, he has turned down the nomination.

On declining it, the author's quoted as saying:

"I am enormously flattered to be named as a finalist of the 2011 Man Booker International prize. However, I do not compete for literary prizes and have therefore asked for my name to be withdrawn."

Le Carré, a resolutely private man, is not a great exploiter of the media (aside from what one would expect as a minimum to support the marketing of his latest titles) and not a over-regular visitor to our screens and newspaper pages; his renown as an author and the sales of his books clearly are tribute enough to his talent as a leading light of UK spy and popular fiction since the sixties.

One does have to admire, in a way, his steadfast refusal to be swayed by the baubles which the publishing industry particularly enjoys hosting (but then, is it any different from any other industry?) As readers of this blog and the Deighton Dossier website will know, Len Deighton too is apparently bereft of literary awards .... and also happy for things to remain that way.

However, is there another author in the spy fiction and thriller genre - who may be more willing to stand up on stage in London's West End in front of the world's media - who has yet, unjustifiably, to pick up a major literary award. Any nominations in the posts below.....

The Spywriter & The Godfather

Small snippet I noticed this morning, clearly as part of the PR around the re-release by Harper Collins of Len Deighton's French Cooking for Men - though I struggle to see the connection. Deighton gives his opinion on Francis Ford Coppola in this month's GQ magazine online and outlines what he think are the issues a modern re-interpretation of this film should address.

Catch the (brief) commentary here.

Anything to contribute?....

A number of blog posts on the Deighton Dossier seem to attract a lot of traffic, with the numbers of readers posting comments increasing, albeit slowly. The most recent post, highlighting an excellent article which asked if spy fiction can be considered contemporary art, being a case in point.

However, I'm conscious that there may be readers of spy fiction and fans of Deighton who visit this blog, who have interesting things to say. About contemporary spy fiction; about the inevitable comparisons between the great writers ... and great characters; about the links between fiction and contemporary history; about collecting rare items to do with Deighton or any author from this genre.

This is a short post to say that if you've anything you want to contribute to this blog - a short news blog, a long article, a critique, a piece of research, do get in touch with me and I'll happily consider it. Email me through the website.

Question: can the spy novel be art?

Lawrence Durrell

At the suggestion of blog reader and writer Craig Arthur from New Zealand, and with due credit to his friend and Lawrence Durrell fan Daria Novikova, I thought I should re-link to an interesting online debate from 2009's Open Salon blog, in which the editor, writer Steven Axelrod, asks the question:

Can genre fiction aspire to literature? Can a police procedural or a spy novel be written so well that becomes a work of art?

To answer this question, Axelrod adopts the tactics of WWE and hosts a fiction 'smackdown' between two masters of the spy novel and the police procedural (something to which Deighton has often ascribed as an influence on his writing), to see if a head-to-head comparison of these two related, but subtly different genres, offers up some interesting insights.

Axelrod therefore pits Len Deighton against Lawrence Durrell, author of The Alexandria Quartet. First off, aside from considering the normal factors in any literary criticism - style, tone, language, technique, setting etc - he considers ambition: to what extent does the ambition of the writer to delve deeper into a subject and chew it thoroughly before spitting out the words onto a page drive a book from a mere story to the levels of art?

"We can begin to break this monolith of ambition down into its component parts: iconic characters; a deep understanding of the social and political worlds and the way they penetrate the private lives of ordinary people; poetic language; fascination with the form of the novel itself; a resonant sense of place; and finally, a pervasive curiosity about human relationships, the negotiations and passions, the flaws of perception, the delusions and desires that pull people together and drive them apart."

It is an interesting question, and Axelrod - in painstaking detail, it has to be says - takes this starting place to explore and judge the qualities of Durrell and Deighton, in this case through the Game, Set & Match trilogies based around spy-turned desk jockey-turned-spy Bernard Samson. As Axelrod writes:

"These are two massive projects, built with a strikingly similar blue-print: a story narrated for most of its length by a narrator whose basic grasp of events is tenuous at best; a revelatory volume in the third person that reveals the extent of the narrator’s misunderstanding, followed by a return to the first person."

Check out part one and part two of this long, but fascinating blog posting for the full exposition. In part two, for example, Axelrod comes to these serial novels from the perspective of character, highlighting this as potentially the key factor shaping the stories and the ultimate outcomes facing all the protagonists.

"Character is the prime number, the irreducible element in literature, and the effective creation of character is the ultimate standard by which all fiction must be judged."

So, for instance, Axelrod posits that Deighton's claim to a position in the pantheon of literature stands or falls on the values and sensibility of the middle-aged, betrayed and sometimes out-thought character of Bernard Samson. Samson's development and role is contrasted with that of L.G. Darley, the lead character in Durrell's novels. And it is the interaction of these main characters with the other characters in the novels which determines how the reader ultimately judges them. Take this interesting section from the posting, on Samson's relationship with the other (main) characters in the trilogies:

"With the densely populated world of friends, colleagues and family that Bernard inhabits, a whole thesis could be devoted to the way Deighton delineates their personalities and relationships: Werner Volkmann, the old school friend who pines for a job with the SIS, shrewd and nostalgic, tough and hen-pecked; his conning wife Zena; Frank Harrington, the fatherly Berlin Resident and old friend of Bernard’s father who lives like a lazy king, playing Duke Ellington records and having affairs with younger women (including Zena); Bernard’s imperious father-in-law David Kimber-Hutchinson, who despises Bernard and schemes to take custody of his children; David’s other daughter Tessa, a free spirit sacrificed brutally during the rescue effort that brings her sister out of East Berlin; Tessa’s husband George Kosinki, a used car salesman with the knack for making money who squanders it all in the search for answers about his wife’s death; Dicky Cruyer, the lazy, coffee sipping dandy of the Secret Intelligence Service, fearlessly dodging responsibility and taking credit; his hapless wife Daphne … and on and on. Like any great book many of the characters exist on their own without direct effect on the plot.

Tante Lisl Hennig, for instance, who owns the little hotel where Bernard grew up after the war, who hid Werner Volkmann’s family from the Nazis, who now lives for her afternoon bridge games her ‘naps’ that consist of her favorite schnappes and the obsessive reading of the newspapers. We see Lisl in her heyday in Winter, married to Erich Henning, Hitler’s pet musician, but her life is just part of the rich background of Bernard Samson’s, the little room at the top of his hotel, his ultimate refuge."

On this last point, is Tante Lisl's role so peripheral to the thinking and character which drives Samson's approach to his wife's defection? I would question this assessment of what we learn in Winter, the prequel to the trilogies, about Lisl's role in shaping Samson's character growing up in Berlin. Lisl's role as confessor and 'mother' in many ways to Berlin, and her role as proxy for the Berlin of Samson's childhood, which left an indelible mark on how he saw his role within London Central, surely are more than just ephemera. Her role in shaping the main character is subtle, but I'm sure intended. Nevertheless, it's an interesting question to ask of some of the supporting characters.

Axelrod's to be congratulated for the writer's perspective he brings to this analysis of Durrell and Deighton's works, and it's a pity I didn't pick this posting up when it first came up. I (shamefully) haven't read any of Durrell's fiction works before, so that's all the more reason to pick up a copy and see how comparing the two major novels offers up a new perspective on Deighton's work.

The FT on The Ipcress File cover ...

Funeral in Berlin (with the rare
wrap-around showing Deighton with
Michael Caine and Ian Fleming

Very interesting article in today's FT  - a review by Edwin Heathcote of the famous front cover of Funeral in Berlin by Len Deighton. This is one of a regular series of reviews of outstanding front covers in the newspaper's book section.

The cover, of course, was by Ray Hawkey, Deighton's friend and design school contemporary, who went on to produce the famous Pan paperback covers for the Bond novels.

Heathcote's review is well-written, capturing just why Hawkey's design, in the 'sixties, was revolutionary but, more importantly, illustrative of the new type of espionage character Deighton had introduced ('Harry Palmer' as he would be dubbed) - cocky, a bit chaotic, plagued by his superiors, living off his wits:

"The background is loosely scattered with bullets and paperclips, representing Deighton's particular mix of casual violence and dreary bureaucracy. The cover's ingenuity lies in the way messy details of the everyday appear both mundane and sinister."

The full article is well worth reading.

I'd also encourage blog readers, if they haven't done so, to check out the latest edition of 007 Magazine, which has a special feature on Hawkey's design contribution to the Bond legend, as well as his substantial work embellishing Len Deighton's books with some of the most eye-grabbing covers.

The reissues (12) - Spy Line

After a hiatus, I'm returning to covering the 2010/2011 reissues by Harper Collins of all of Len Deighton's major novels - running my eye in particular over the new designs and determining if there's much new for readers to enjoy.

Having so far covered all the four 'un-named spy' novels and the first four novels of the Bernard Samson triple trilogy, we're up to Spy Line, the book which provides the anchor for the whole story arc right starting with the first novel, Berlin Game. It sets up the denouement of the central narrative - Bernard's wife Fiona's defection to the Communist and her subsequent operations to de-stable London Central, often with much success. With that, the reader thinks, all the threads in the story are neatly brought together. That is, of course, until the story takes a whole new twist in the subsequent books and the trilogy that does bring the story to an end. So Spy Line is not an ending, more of a gear change.

In Spy Line, for Bernard Samson life has turned upside down. His wife has defected, but his new relationship with the much younger Gloria seems to be going well ... for now. He has survived the initial internal investigations concerning his role in his wife's defection, but is still under suspicion and begins the novel on the run in Berlin, where - after debriefing an undercover agent - he discovers that  his KGB nemesis - Eric Stinnes - has been smuggling drugs into East Germany.

The story moves from Berlin to London and then on to Vienna, where posing as a philatelist Bernard is asked to pick up a package from a stamp auction. As various threads of his investigations into Fiona's disappearance come together, Bernard draws his own conclusions and meets Fiona who reveals she has been a double agent all this time and has, effectively, betrayed Bernard's trust. What follows is a dramatic attempt to bring Fiona back to the west during which a number of major characters are killed and the story is fantastically set up for the final three novels as Bernard starts to ask: what really happened?

The new design
The holistic approach adopted by Arnold Schwartzman continues, with the cover image of Bernard Samson's photo on his fake Russian passport - which has been run through the shredder - illuminates the precarious balance Samson finds himself in, in which one false move could find him snatched by the Russians before he can get Fiona back.

What Schwartzman wants to symbolise here is how Samson's character, his life, is in tatters, it is ripped apart by forces beyond his control and yet he survives. However, this is perhaps the least challenging of the front covers in terms of its visual appeal.

The new introduction
Deighton writes about his approach to structuring all nine books of the three trilogies together. Although - as he points out in the introduction to each original edition - each book can be read as a stand-alone novel, clearly as an author Deighton needed to find ways to thread multiple narratives and character across nine novels (ten if you include Winter), and Spy Hook had a pivotal role.

"In planning this Samson series I knew that Hook would record a change of mood....There was a need to reach a climax, or at least a milestone, in the overall story; a place that would prepare me, and you, for the change in style and method that Spy Sinker, the final book of the second trilogy, would use. [Deighton used a third person narrative to provide a whole new perspective on events]

My wife, and both my sons, have always maintained that my musical taste tends to favour the minor keys. Eventually I yielded to their judgement. I like the minor keys and a whole opera in a minor key is not too much for me. Spy Line is a book written entirely in a minor key. Line depicts Samson at the nadir of his life and career."

That's a great description of this story's mood.

The book also provides Deighton with an opportunity to take a deeper look at Cold War Berlin and the under-belly of the city that allowed it to function as a capitalist enclave within a Communist country. Samson's long discussions with one of his father's former agents, 'Lange' Koby, for example, illustrate the harsh reality of life in Berlin for those on the front line of the Cold War.

"I must admit that I enjoyed investigating Berlin's underworld. Sited in what was virtually the No Man's Land of the Cold War, this milieu was unique in having a national and a political dimension. Perhaps this sad domain was no more violent than Paris, New York or London, but here in Berlin one saw that authority could be more ruthless than the criminals and more indifferent to suffering. Perhaps that was not unique to Berlin; perhaps it was more a measure of my innocence."

Spy Line remains a great book which adds new layers to the characters which the reader is familiar with but also quickens the pace to lead up to the dramatic finish where one thinks the outcome is clear cut. But as the subsequent three novels prove, this is far from the case.

Who can you believe in the world of spy fiction?

Christine Granville

I - and a number of other commentators - have read with interest a story being reported by Guy Walters in this week's Daily Telegraph about a new book on the origins of the James Bond story by Claire Mulley.

This book, cunningly titled The Spy Who Loved (do you see what the publishers did there?) is pitched as a history of espionage during wartime focusing on the life of agent Christine Granville - supposedly, the inspiration for the Vesper Lynd character.  As Walters writes, it has "that link with James Bond, with the implied licence to print money."

But, he writes, it’s all too good to be true. Much of what Mulley has written is as transparently wrong as a badly forged passport - and we owe the discovery of these facts in part to friend of this blog and "heir to Deighton" (c) Jeremy Duns, who has written a very long essay on the murky history of previous attempts to fabricate new wrinkles in the long literary history of Ian Fleming and the character of James Bond, and develop new theories about the origins of key characters, in particular the persistent link of Christine Granville with Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale.

Like an agent after two days of solid interrogation, Mulley's cover story it would appear is starting to unravel, and questions are now being raised about the publication of the book.

A tale about espionage, with duplicity, fabrication and cover-ups? There's a book in there somewhere.

Rest assured, on the Deighton Dossier, you'll only ever find fact about fiction, not fictional facts.

Some light reading for wartime....

An eagle-eyed reader of this blog, Jeff Quest, spotted this interesting photographic essay by photographer David Moore in Wired magazine.

Titled 'Inside London's Secret Crisis-Command Centre', it is part of a series of photographs called The Last Things, documenting the secret MoD command centre in London from which - in times of crisis - the Government and army would run the country and any conflict.

The official line is, this place doesn't exist. Moore's photos show not only that it does, but also what a fascinating place it is, the sort of facility which one associates immediately with the Cold War but which clearly has a modern role to play as governments face up to new and different threats. The suggestion in the article accompanying the photos is that this is in fact the Pindar complex beneath Whitehall, one of many hidden citadels across the city. What do readers think?

The interesting little twist? Look at this picture. Judging by that bookshelf, it looks like Her Majesty's spies and generals sometimes seek inspiration from their fictional counterparts!

Deighton turns 82...

The 18 February was Len Deighton's 82nd birthday - I'm sure readers of his books all over the world will wish to raise a glass.....

Elswhere, readers of the blog are recommended to get hold of the latest edition Double-O-Seven magazine, which contains a special feature on James Bond - Graphic Design by Raymond Hawkey, written by Deighton's biographer Edward Milward-Oliver. As well as being well written, it is beautifully illustrated with examples of Hawkey's work, not least the Pan Bond covers.

Photoplay - a profile of Deighton from 1968

Photoplay

I've just managed to source a rare profile of Len Deighton from a 1968 Australian film magazine called Photoplay Film Monthly.

The article actually profiles two up and coming film directors; Carl Foreman, of Guns of Navarone production fame is one. Deighton is the other. He is interviewed because at the time he was bringing his second - and final - film production to the screen: Oh! What a Lovely War.

As was frequently the case at this time in his career when - with the moulah rolling in from three successful novels  - Deighton was at the height of his early success and a fixture on the London scene, reference is made to Deighton's use of one of the first radio phones in a car, and messaging service. In light of today's ubiquitous mobile phone, it does come across as rather dated, but fun.

Another noteworthy thing about the interview. Deighton indicates that he doesn't enjoy writing; indeed, his lack of enjoyment increases with every book. This is something he frequently refers to in interviews (when the publicity shy Deighton does them, of course). Interesting that his writing comes across as a result very much as a job of work. Perhaps that's no bad thing in a writer; keeps them focused.

Anyone clicking on this link can view the article on Google Docs; also included is a review from the same magazine of Only When I Larf, which had just come out.

Sound of the Cimbalon - on the death of John Barry

The Cimbalon is the twangy, Danubian-sounding harpsichord-type instrument which gave The Ipcress File its characteristic sound, most notably in its main theme 'A Man Alone' (such an apt title, too!).

The man whose cracking idea it was to use it to sum up the tension of Michael Caine's Harry Palmer, an agent out in the field unable to know who to trust and knowing his next move could be his last, was of course composer John Barry, who died yesterday aged 77. Known most famously for his Bond themes and other amazing sound tracks such as that for Born Free, he was clearly an artist who had a knack for crafting a melody that fires the imagination.

As Michael Caine wrote subsequently after the global success of the Ipcress movie:

"If you want to see an example of what music does for a movie, go and see The IPCRESS File. Then you'll understand what John Barry's all about."

Precisely. A very, very talented composer.

A fuller tribute to the man and all his works is found on Armstrong Sabian's ever-excellent Mister 8 blog - go check it out. Also providing thoughts on Barry's influence on the world of Bond is The Double O Section blog.

...Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief?

Fascinating article in today's Guardian newspaper, looking back on the DVD boxset of the seminal BBC spy series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. This adaptation famously starred the late Alec Guinness as spy hunter George Smiley, tracking down the mole at the heart of the 'Circus' (for that, read 'London Central' in Deighton's Game, Set and Match series - the heart of MI6).


It was arguably a defining series in the depiction of the Cold War in popular culture and certainly helped fix author John Le Carré in the canon of spy fiction writers. As reviewer Toby Manning notes, the series is very British and perfectly captures an old school MI:6 before the Internet and Islamic terrorism: "a clutch of pipe-smoking, snobbish, sniggering schoolboys, repressed homosexuality seething through grey strip-lit corridors".

Definitely a series I'd welcome another run at.

As the article points out, the Hollywood remake machine has this cracking drama in its sights: actor Gary Oldman is tasked with taking over the role of the crabby, ageing but ruthless spy-catcher Riley. With Quentin Tarantino's suggestion last year of a remake of Game, Set and Match - not since elaborated on since, of course - perhaps the timing of the Tinker remake points to that fact that sufficient time has lapsed since the Cold War ended for some of the great stories to be revisited and re-imagined for the modern audiences.

Funeral in Berlin? Re-made.

The blood chills.

The classics, I'm afraid, are rarely improved upon.

But, we'll wait and see. What do you think?

Muggeridge & Deighton

Happy New Year to all readers of the Deighton Dossier blog!

With a new year comes a refresh to the content on the main website which accompanies this blog. In the section on Deighton and design I've created a new page with some fascinating designs he produced for Vogue magazine in 1962, when Deighton was working as a designer while starting to write what became The Ipcress File.

In addition, there's a fascinating interview of Deighton by the late Malcolm Muggeridge, journalist and former intelligence agent during the war, in the short-lived - but entertaining - 'men's magazine, King (think a tame UK version of Playboy). Over five pages the two writers talk at length about the Cold War and spy fiction, the comparisons with James Bond, and the character make-up of the modern spy, all over a menu chosen by Deighton.

A very rare article, which you can download from the website by following the links from the front page.