Ashenden, and the espionage story

[Amor de Cosmos]

I can’t say we were a literary family. Everyone read a fair bit, but I don’t remember books being discussed over dinner. One name that did come up on the parental side of the table, however was Somerset Maugham. These days he seems to have dropped off the map somewhat, but back in the fifties it still carried major heft, in our family at least, but I’d never read him until I picked up Ashenden.

I had the impression that Maugham’s collection of stories, based on his experiences in the British secret service in WW1, were an essential part of the espionage-lit canon. Before LeCarré, Fleming, Greene, and Ambler. Before them all in fact, except Childers and Buchan, there was Ashenden. And of them all it’s by far the most restrained stylistically. A first-person collection of partially linked stories centred around a debonaire, but shy, protagonist. Bond he ain’t. There’s little action here, instead there are superb character sketches. Secret service work consists of the trivial and banal, punctuated by the tragic. Making sure someone gets on a train, finding a secluded hotel for an unidentified visitor, or deciding whether a factory will be bombed on the toss of a coin. Good and evil are remote concepts, Ashenden has his job because he’s a good conversationalist in several languages, and is well organised. Frequently the enemy are caught on the other side by circumstance, rather than ideology. Wonderfully well-written, almost too well, it sometimes has the feel of a classroom text on how to write a short story. For example the allegory of the American businessman dying in the October Uprising because he wouldn’t leave his dirty laundry behind, is brilliantly executed but a just a touch obvious. Overall though, if you’re into literary espionage it’s essential reading.

[trimster]

Ashenden, and the espionage story

I remember when I was a kid, my dad had a copy of Ashenden on his bookshelves. On the front cover was a picture of Maugham himself, with a face looking like a dried up old prune- put me off reading it for a while. But I eventually did read it and enjoyed it. Great little descriptions of characters- "the hairless Mexican general" etc.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Ashenden, and the espionage story

Several months back I attended a lecture by Priya Satia, on the strength of which I bought a copy of Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East I can’t recommend it highly enough, for several reasons. Her identification of Britain’s policy of “Air Control” over civilian populations in the Middle East in the immediate post WW1 period has obvious ramifications today, and is probably the book’s most relevant theme.

For us articultural types however, she also has a lot to say about the motives and ideals of the original “spies” in the region. These include well known names such as T. E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell and John Philby (Kim’s Dad, obviously espionage was a family business,) but there were dozens more. Most began as travelers/tourists, archaelogists or geographers. All had, or gained, a fascination with the region. Superficially this could be written of as European romantic orientalism, and that certainly played a part but, according to Satia, it was deeper than that.

According to her these early spies were escaping the Enlightenment or, more accurately, it’s Edwardian consequences. Most fell into information gathering, it wasn’t a goal, their fascination was with the landscape and it’s people. The former, featureless, mutable, was impossible to map using conventional methods. Landmarks were both few and obscure. The Arabs too were in constant motion, they knew where they were going but how? Pure reason didn’t seem much use here, intuition and heightened senses were far more valuable. Consequently the spies went native. Not, as their employers believed, to “pass” as Arabs, as Lawrence said that would have been both impossible and stupid, but so that they could learn how to interpret the world as the Arabs did.

Many of the spies also had literary agendas. This particularly interests me (see the OP.) From the start Lawrence, for instance, saw his Arabian experience as the framework for a novel or memoir. He even said, possibly in jest, “If there’s a lull in the plot, I’ll just instigate a raid or something.” From the beginning of the War the Foreign Office published the gleanings of their agents in something called the Arab Bulletin. Unlike most government reports these were gripping reads and were passed around the FO like the latest Boys Own Paper. In fact they became so popular their confidentiality was compromised, and from a security POV, became utterly useless.

If there’s a flaw in Spies in Arabia it’s that it’s totally Brit focussed. I’d like to know what the other imperial powers were doing. Did they employ a similar collection of aesthetic adventurers? If not, why was this a uniquely British activity?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Ashenden, and the espionage story

I've just finished Charles McCarry 's The Mulberry Bush and thought it was worth reviving this thread to enthuse about it.

The spy genre seems as particularly British as noir is American. The big names are all Brits, Maugham, Buchan, Ambler, Greene, LeCarré, Fleming and so on. The transatlantic equivalent seem to be thrillers like Robert Ludlum's, it's rare to find a US author who writes about espionage from the inside, as process. McCarrry does that. Like Maugham he worked in the business, as a CIA operations operator in Europe, Asia and Africa and it shows in The Mulberry Bush. Most of book takes place in Argentina, and deals with the long term consequences of the eighties for those involved. As fascinating as those are, the first half of the book is even better. It deals with the background and recruitment of the (nameless) protagonist. There's a chilling moral, or perhaps amoral, pragmatism to the practice that's exuded by everyone involved. Thoroughly recommended, I'll certainly be reading more of his work.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I thought there was another espionage writing thread, but couldn't find it so revived this short lived one.

One of our local book bins had an original (1968) hard-back copy of Great True Spy Stories edited by Allen Dulles. Given the editor I'm not expecting "true" and I'll settle for "OK" rather than great. At worst it might teach me how to organise a coup in a small country.