tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5764631039755560338.post5191472385283173557..comments2024-03-08T20:21:22.820+00:00Comments on The Deighton Dossier: Happy 90th Birthday, Len Deighton, from your readersDeighton Dossierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01764108300942425651noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5764631039755560338.post-65238686609115035772019-04-29T19:00:25.557+01:002019-04-29T19:00:25.557+01:00Agreed in all aspects...... must confess never act...Agreed in all aspects...... must confess never actually been to Berlin, though. The SAMSON series ........ from the first to the trilogy Faith hope and Charity, are superb.BSA Police RHODESIAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04956736328163167656noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5764631039755560338.post-33632138315862283802019-02-19T22:06:35.611+00:002019-02-19T22:06:35.611+00:00Funeral in Berlin and The Billion Dollar Brain wer...Funeral in Berlin and The Billion Dollar Brain were my two favorite spy novels of all time. And his SS-GB opened my eyes to a new way of writing alternative history - fearless and frighteningly accurate. Blessings to you, Mr. Deighton, and thanks for all the wonderful work!Eve Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03015761600962360110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5764631039755560338.post-21724449636546911372019-02-18T18:37:01.777+00:002019-02-18T18:37:01.777+00:00Have all your Books, Len. Except the French Cooker...Have all your Books, Len. Except the French Cookery pages. Read them time and time again. First class - all of them. My very best for your 90th Birthday. BSA Police RHODESIAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04956736328163167656noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5764631039755560338.post-44874049642812840432019-02-18T17:26:42.323+00:002019-02-18T17:26:42.323+00:00I just discovered this blogpost yesterday. My late...I just discovered this blogpost yesterday. My late mother was an avid reader of fiction and, fortunately for me, owned all 10 books in the American first editions and passed them to me as she finished them. <br />For that I’ll be forever grateful to her. <br />In one way I can especially identify with Bernard Samson. It’s an aspect of the series no one has mentioned yet, and I’ll try to explain with some background, if you’ll please indulge me. <br />I served as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in northern Germany from 1968 to 1970, and after my mission I married a Berlinerin. My first assignment was in Spandau. When I was transferred to Hamburg six months later, I was shocked to hear how different the language sounded. I soon learned that what I’d picked up in Berlin was the distinctive dialect spoken in informal conversation all day, every day. <br />Like Bernard, I’ve been proud of my mastery of Berlinerisch lo these past 50 years, and I’ve been told by Berliners, including my wife, that my pronunciation is almost native. <br />It somehow hurt my feelings too when Werner told his friend in Charity that his dialect wasn’t as good as he’d thought all along! <br />Bernard’s intimacy with Berlin, its language, its Stadtplan, its weather, the feeling of unease but also of adventure living in the divided city - an island of freedom in a sea of dictatorship - still resonates in my soul half a century later. <br />So for me, the magic of the books - beyond the wonderful characters, the intrigue, the almost prescient way the author weaves in a supposed MI-6 involvement in the eventual fall of the Wall - the thing that keeps me coming back to the series again and again is Bernard’s affection for Berlin and its brash, stubborn but deeply lovable people. I share with him a rich nostalgia for pre-Wende, post-war West Berlin.<br />It makes me rank the final page of Charity right up there with the last sentence of The Great Gatsby as one of noveldom’s supreme closings: that “perfect day long ago” when “the sky was blue and Berlin was heaven.”<br />Perhaps Fiona and Bernard are right - that happiness does come more often from memories than the experiences that create them. <br />Thank you, Mr. Deighton, for memorializing the Berlin of my late adolescence in a way that I can return to any time simply by taking a book down from a shelf. You have my gratitude forever. <br />Jim Adams<br />Utah<br />Happy 90th! Jim Adamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06454309360301856493noreply@blogger.com