Book: Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith, 2008, Grand Central, New York.  450 pages.

A thriller! Unconventional.  Unpredictable.  I didn’t know how it could possibly end.

The plot of this story and the carefully crafted setting in the former Soviet Union is so good that you will race to the finish. 

Everything works backward in the Soviet Union.  Good is bad.  Bad is good.  And to add nuance, Stalin dies in the middle of the book so you don’t even know to what degree good or bad.  At times you are lost in a house of mirrors, not knowing what will happen when the characters move right or left.

Now add a brilliant plot, worthy of John Le Carre at his very best.  And I mean at his very best.  For when it comes to logic and plots, even John Le Carre isn’t John Le Carre anymore.    The Panama Tailor, with its story of the Japanese takeover of the Panama Canal, representing his weakest entry.  But Child 44 has a couple of twists that invoke the sort of chills that came with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

 Of course, Tom Rob Smith is no John Le Carre, at least when it comes to language.  I mean he has a few lines… “To stand up for someone was to stitch your fate into the lining of theirs.”  Or “the wallpaper was bubbled like adolescent skin.”  But it is the unpredictable plot, not language, that rules this story.

Now, there are times when I really wondered.  I have visited all of these places in Russia many times, from Rostov to Moscow and points east.  And I am going back this year, from St. Petersburg to Volgograd to Yekaterinburg to Vladivostok.  I kept telling myself that I have to pack this book along and ask my old Russian friends about the validity of some of the author’s ideas.  Let’s face it the Wall not only kept them in, it kept us out.  Yet still, some of them are as ignorant as we are about real life in the former Soviet Union.   

The book has a couple of distractions.  There are some odd, James Bond moments, probably thrown in for the movie version to come, but hey, good luck happens.   

From the looks of his picture on the jacket, this author is young.  So his language will develop sophistication.  And his experience will bring more realism to his works.  But his ability to plot is so profound and his character development so complex that we will surely be reading many of his new stories for years to come.  Those are gifts of a brilliant, unconventional, easily bored mind.  They cannot be developed.  You got em or you don’t.  And Tom Rob Smith has got em.

Está es de esas novelas que te dejan pensativo sobre el gran poder que tienen las multinacionales sean de la clase que sean y lo que pueden hacer en el continente africano o en naciones en desarrollo, en este caso la corporación está dedicada a la industria farmacéutica.

John LeCarre es uno de los mejores narradores existentes que le imprimen a las historias una autenticidad increíble.

El Jardinero fiel, de John Le Carré, es la historia del asesinato de Tessa Quayle, en Kenia y la posterior investigación que emprende su marido, un diplomático británico y, como casi todos los ingleses muy buen jardinero, que es lo que da nombre a la novela.

Novela que leeremos de principio a fin sin interrupción ya que Le Carre hace que la historia no decaiga en ningún momento, y nos hace ver la gran corrupción, la pobreza y el manejo de las grandes sociedades anónimas en el continente africano todo ello manteniéndonos continuamente en suspense como todas las obras de Le Carre.

Ficha:

Lengua: Castellano

Editorial: Plaza & Janes

Colección: Arete

Encuadernación: Tapa dura

ISBN 9788401341564

Edición: 1ª

Año: 2001

Otras obras que poseo del mismo autor:

El espía que surgió del frio.

El infiltrado.

El sastre de Panamá.

El topo.

La casa Rusia.

La chica del Tambor.

La gente de Smiley.

Nuestro juego.

Single & Single.

Un espía perfecto.

E como se trata de gostos, cada um tem o seu. Então, a Dani pode amar a Anne Rice - o que é muito natural - e eu não gostar. E, neste caso, não gostar não se prende ao tipo de livro, em si, ou ao fato de ser um best-seller, livros que são "fabricados" para o sucesso.

Não tenho preconceito contra eles, não. E para comprovar, vou listar alguns autores que li e que gosto: Michael Crichton - que não é nenhuma maravilha no texto -, Robert Ludlum, o do Bourne, Frederick Forsyth, que tem um livro antológico, O Chacal, John Le Carré, o elegante inglês que cunhou o termo Guerra Fria, Noah Gordon e O Físico, Jack Higgins, com divertidas aventuras - inverossimeis, sim, como Azriel -, e por fim o polêmico Dan Brown com o seu Código Da Vinci. De qualquer forma, acho que eles escrevem melhor do que a Anne Rice.

Olhando-se a questão do lado da literatura, o livro de Anne Rice nãp e diferente de muitos outros, mas vende, e vende muito. E se isso ocorre é porque tem público, gente que gosta, e que se envolve com a história contada. Neste caso, entendo que os livros não são feitos para reflexão, mas para diversão. E se conseguem este intento, então sua leitura é válida.

Podemos criticar o livro, deixando claro que não gostamos, aliás, o que já fiz. Isso, no entanto, não desmerece sua indicação e sua esclha. Ao listar os livros, a Dani colocou a responsabilidade pela escolha nos integrantes do clube. E fomos nós que escolhemos O Servo dos Ossos. Havia, acho eu, uma expectativa diferente

Um dos aspectos, que já ressaltei, é o conflito entre ciência e religião. Mas há, também, um outro aspecto a se considerar, que é a própria religião. Nós, humanos, sempre buscamos uma explicação. E quando não a achamos colocamô-la nas mãos de uma entidade superior, dizendo que ela rege nossas vidas. Foi assim desde que descemos das árvores e não é diferente agora.

Ao longo dos tempos, os deuses foram se transformando em deuses pessoais, como Marduc, e nós os encarregamos de resolver nossos problemas, pelo menos aqueles que, por meios humanos, não conseguimos resolver. Neste diapasão, nada melhor do que um espírito poderoso ao nosso serviço. Comandando-o, seremos capazes de resolver as coisas que, de outra forma, não conseguriíamos, seja pela impossibilidade física, seja pelo constrangimeno ético e moral.

Acho que o que atrai no livro é exatamente esse envolvimento com o misterioso, com o sobrenatural, com a possibilidade de, ao invés de se curvar ao divino, colocá-lo ao seu serviço. Se não diretamente com Marduc, pelo menos com um espírito que, nascido com uma intenção malévola, não é nem moral, nem ético, já que realiza ações que, por estas óticas, são condenáveis, mas atende aos humanos, permitindo-lhes que tenham - pelo menos de forma aparente - um controle maior do sobrenatural.

A lição, no meu entender, é bastante clara: impotentes diante do mundo, recorremos ao alto, vendo nos deuses a solução dos nossos problemas. E por os termos tornado pessoais, queremos que eles resolvam questões específicas. E não importa, no final, se são verdadeiramente deuses ou espíritos, desde que estejam a nosso serviço.

For a historical novel to work, it needs to focus on the individuals or on how something came to be. If it relies on a well-known event to generate tension without focusing on how that event touches the people involved, we know the fundamental outcome and that it cannot be changed. The Spies of Warsaw doesn't transcend its focus on the pre-war atmosphere, and we know the efforts of Mercier to raise the alarm in France have to fail. Sure, a perfunctory romance blooms from nowhere and everywhere between Mercier and Anna, and it happens with as little surprise as the invasion of Poland, but nonetheless tries to generate authentic feeling from too small a base; I'd take the James Bond, anti-Romantic mode of spy romance, in which the characters reflect the cold of international politics instead of acting as counterpoints. I could imagine a great novel with love as that alternative, but The Spies of Warsaw isn't it.

That isn't to say The Spies of Warsaw is unredeemed: the beginning and end move with swiftness the middle lacks, and bits of description are wonderful in their accuracy: "From some distant century, an ancient waiter in a swallowtail coat moved toward them, parchment face lit by a beatific smile, parchment hands holding a silver tray, which trembled slightly, bearing two glasses of champagne" (50). The word "ancient" might be overkill, but otherwise the subtle resonance between the elegant but decrepit waiter and the horror of Europe being overtaken by the barbaric young who don't understand the lessons of past wars is strong, and the theme is well-developed. Others aren't so carefully done, and when Mercier says, "You work for people, madame, and I work for people. Maybe they're not so different, the people we work for" (165), the long shadow of John le Carré falls across another spy thriller that could be improved by dropping the now-obvious implication that the methods of the free West are similar to those employed by its authoritarian enemies—a subject that could make a great paper for college sophomores but is by now a standard trope of the spy novel. Whether the equivalent between Western and authoritarian regimes is an intentional or subconscious allusion to current events in Abu Ghraib and other black sites I don't know, but the point has been made so many times elsewhere that to have it so bluntly reiterated is mere repetition, both from other books to The Spies of Warsaw and within it: "None of us are saints, my friends; we all watch each other, sooner or later" (181).

Elsewhere, the quiet dread and pathos of a letter from Jews elicits this: "Mercier read it more than once, thought about answering the letter, then realized, a sadder thing than the letter itself, that there was nothing to be said" (117). The alliteration of the "t" sound doesn't give the sentence the musicality it could otherwise have, but the sentiment of a futile desire for decency is nonetheless powerful. Boring parties are well-described, especially given the stultifying rules so often governing them. The spying machinations are clever enough to be worth following but not so clever as to be cartoonish. Somewhere in Alan Furst there is, I think, a better novel gestating, and I hope one day to see it. Night Soldiers showed potential, but I fear that potential has yet to be fulfilled, and I can only hope it will be even as I suspect it won't.

I'd been meaning to read this novel for some time and finally got around to it.  I'm glad I did.  I was a little skeptical going in after reading The Honourable Schoolboy by le Carre (not his real name by the way) which I didn't particularly enjoy.  But this was a completely different experience.

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is about Alec Leamas, the lead agent for the East German operation for MI6 (the British equivalent of the CIA).  After every agent Leamas has placed in East Germany is killed, Alec returns to England thinking he will be put on the shelf.  However, he is offered a chance to lead an operation against Mundt, the East German agent who destroyed Leamas' network.  What follows is an intricately plotted mission to take down England's most feared opponent in the intelligence world.

This is a very good entry in the spy genre, some have called it the best.  John le Carre knows a little about what he's written having served in the British secret service.  The book is excellently paced coming in at just over 200 pages and keeps the reader on edge.  I for one had no idea how things would turn out until the last page.  There are times when the plot is a bit difficult to follow, le Carre is not one for holding the reader's hand, but The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is definitely recommended, particularly if you have any interest in spy novels.

Rating: 8.25

Atmospheric and Meandering

Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier, a military attache and French spy living in Poland, begins an affair with a lovely Polish lawyer named Anna while trying to obtain inside information on Germany's planned invasion of France in Alan Furst's atmospheric and meandering The Spies of Warsaw.

Meticulously researched, Furst overloads the novel with historical details, and the dizzying onslaught of backwoods locales, small town visits, city districts, street names, aristocrats, military personnel and working-class spies makes it sometimes hard to keep track of where all the characters are and what they are doing. Furst spends just as much time on the private lives and social interactions of the spies who populate this novel as he does on their clandestine wheeling and dealing. There are many entertaining and atmospheric scenes that take place at swanky parties or night clubs where characters scope out their next lover while simultaneously seducing their next contact or target.

The Spies of Warsaw is the first novel I have read by Furst. I was drawn to him by the frequent comparisons to John Le Carre and Graham Greene (my favorite writer). Furst certainly scores in the atmosphere and details department. He puts the reader firmly and comfortably in place on the streets and in the bedrooms of Warsaw while capturing the malaise that covered much of Europe during the years leading up to World War II where many people carried on with their lives and affairs while knowing that "something" was about to happen and feeling there wasn't much that could be done to stop it. However, Furst doesn't deliver the character development or story arcs that Le Carre so often does. Furst's writing also lacks the deep psychological and spiritual complexities that made Graham Greene's spy novels so richly rewarding. Though peppered with intimate and exact details, Furst's The Spies of Warsaw never gets deep inside the minds or hearts of the people he writes about.

Though an entertaining read thanks in large part to Furst's sometimes conversational and dryly humorous narrative voice, The Spies of Warsaw exists mostly at the surface level. The larger events surrounding the content of the novel were certainly building towards a world altering period of history, but Furst's characters continue to meander and seem to go nowhere, while the plot builds to an anticlimactic finish. Fans of popular spy novels and historical fiction should be pleased, but those wanting something a bit more might be disappointed.

_____________________________________________________________

Recommendations for further reading:

Absolute Friends by John Le Carre

Our Man in Havana and The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene

Zunächst bin ich ganz allein unterwegs, dann überholt mich eine junge Amerikanerin Mitte zwanzig, die in Villamayor übernachtet hat. Sie ist sehr groß, trägt sehr leichte Schuhe und geht unglaublich schnell. Mit meinen Ferseneinlagen kann ich heute auch schmerzfrei auftreten und mehr als eine Stunde lang kann ich mithalten.

Wir sprechen über Literatur, denn sie liest sehr viel, liebt Literatur über alles, und ich habe in den letzten Jahren auch sehr viel englischsprachige Literatur verschlungen. Sie meint, durch Filme und Bücher könne man kein wirkliches Bild eines Landes gewinnen. Die USA würden durch Hollywood den Ausländern nur als Zerrbild dargestellt, und andererseits hätten die US-Amerikaner auch kein realistisches Bild anderer Länder, weil nur acht Prozent ins Ausland reisen würden.

Sie kommt aus einer kleinen Stadt bei Boston und ist glücklich, dort zu leben. Wie bei E. aus Irland ist John Le Carré auch ein Lieblingsautor ihres Vaters, merkwürdig, da scheine ich der gleichen literarischen Generation anzugehören. Dann sprechen wir über Tom Wolfe und seinen Roman "I am Charlotte Simpson" und seine Fähigkeit, nicht nur die Lebensphilosofie, sondern auch den Slang von jungen Studenten verschiedener sozialer Schichten an amerikanischen Hochschulen wiederzugeben - er hat sich dafür übrigens bei Soziolinguisten wissenschaftliche Unterstützung geholt. 

El. meint, auch für sie sei das Verstehen anderer junger Leute aus Amerika ganz schwierig. Am Tag zuvor habe sie mit einer jungen Kalifornierin gesprochen und das Gefühl gehabt, mit ihr weniger gemeinsam zu haben als mit jemandem aus einem anderen Land. Die Kalifornierin sei aus einem anderen Staat, mit einem ganz anderem Klima, habe einen ganz anderen Akzent. Außerdem komme sie auch aus einer Millionenstadt wie LA und von einer riesigen Universität, ganz im Gegensatz zu ihr. Und eigentlich hätten sie sich fast nichts zu sagen gehabt.

Wir sprechen dann auch über Douglas Kennedy und seine Beschreibungen amerikanischer Kleinstädte, mit der öffentlichen Bibliothek als sozialem Zentrum, durch das die Fäden der sozialen Beziehungen im Ort verknüpft werden.

Ich empfehle ihr die neueren Romane "Winter in Madrid" und "Moths", weil sie Geschichte unterrichtet.

Später fragt sie mich, warum ich in Spanien lebe, und ich erzähle ihr von meinen Plänen aus der Zeit um 1970, später einmal nach Chile oder Argentinien zu gehen, weil mein Spanischlehrer in der Schulzeit in den sechziger Jahren so von diesen Ländern schwärmte, wo er früher eimal gelebt hatte. Deshalb sei ich nach Spanien gekommen, um mein Spanisch zu verbessern. Aber aus den Plänen mit Südamerika sei dann nichts geworden, weil Diktatoren wie Pinochet oder Videla dort die Macht übernommen hätten. Daraufhin erzählt sie, ihr Großvater habe Pinochet persönlich gekannt, da er Botschafter der Vereinigten Staaten gewesen sei. Ich reagiere darauf nur, indem ich kommentiere, das sei sicher eine schwierige Aufgabe gewesen. Ich habe Lust, sie zu fragen, ob sie den Film "Missing" gesehen habe, tue es abe nicht. Ich verkneife es mir auch, über den französischen  Freund aus der Studienzeit zu sprechen, der damals bei der französischen Botschaft in einem Nachbarland von Chile arbeitete und kurz nach dem Putsch einigen Verfolgten helfen konnte. Aber El. wird nach diesem Thema einsilbiger.

Wir gehen immer noch sehr schnell, ich wundere mich über die Leichtigkeit, mit der sie auch die steinigsten Strecken bewältigt und sie meint, das läge an ihrem Beruf. Sie unterrichtet auch Tanz und habe daher harte Fußsohlen, deshalb brauche sie nur ganz leichte Schuhe. Ja, sie scheint wirklich zu tänzeln, selbst über die Schlammzonen hinweg. Außerdem sei sie Läuferin: "I am a runner" und auch darum gut trainiert.  Ja, das Buch "Moths", das ich ihr empfohlen habe, dürfte ihr wirklich gut gefallen, da die Hauptperson ein "Runner" ist. 

Es geht jetzt bergauf und bergab, wir werden aber nicht langsamer. Wir überholen Dutzende von anderen Wanderern, die auch früh aufgestanden sind, von denen sie einige vom Vortag kennt und kurz begrüßt. Andere fragt sie mit amerikanischer Unbekümmertheit nach dem Heimatland und ist davon fasziniert, aus wie viel verschiedenen Gegenden der Welt die Wanderer - oder sind es Pilger? - heute kommen. 

Wir hasten an einer Kirche vorbei, die auf einem Hügel liegt, aber sie möchte keine Pause machen, um sie zu besichtigen. Im nächsten Ort ist aber eine Kirche nach Art der Templerkirchen wie in Eunate, die bei meinem ersten Jakobsweg auf dieser Route verschlossen war. Und dieses Mal ist sie geöffnet. Da kann ich wirklich nicht vorbeigehen. Doch El. will auch hier keine Pause machen.

Ich bleibe stehen, verabschiede mich mit "Buen Camino!" und sehe die Kirche an, es lohnt sich. Aber es tut mir sehr Leid, nicht weiter mit El. reden zu können, sie war einer der interessantesten Gesprächspartner bei diesem Jakobsweg.

El. erinnert mich durch ihren raschen Verstand an Elizabeth Best, eine junge Australierin, mit der ich beim letzten Jakobsweg einige Stunden zusammen gewandert war. Sie hatte schon ein Buch geschrieben und es mit erst 24 Jahren mit einigem Erfolg in ihrem Heimatland und dann in anderen Ländern veröffentlicht. Es beschreibt ihren Weg aus der Magersucht, der Anorexie:  Eli's Wings

Eli's Wings is an autobiographical account that will at once break your heart and fill it with hope.

At just twenty-four, Eli writes about her life with an insight far beyond her years, and in a way that will reach inside the hearts of people everywhere.

A dramatic, triumphant and ultimately uplifting story of one young woman's unbreakable passion for life.

http://www.theyearweseizedtheday.net/eli.html

Elizabeth Best wollte damals das nächste Buch schreiben, zusammen mit einem anderen Autor, und machte deshalb den Jakobsweg. Aber zwei Autoren wandern anscheinend besser getrennt, wenn sie über die Wanderung ein Buch schreiben wollen, und so waren sie getrennt unterwegs, wie an dem Tag, als ich Elisabeth kennen lernte.

Das gemeinsame Buch über den Jakobsweg ist übrigens auch schon erschienen, wie ich gerade im Internet herausgefunden habe: The Year We Seized The Day

http://www.theyearweseizedtheday.net/theauthors.html

Nach der Besichtigung der Templerkirche bin ich immer noch durchgeschwitzt, trotz der Kühle. Doch ich versuche, den Rhytmus von vorher beizubehalten. Doch bald wird der Weg steiniger, führt an der Landstraße vorbei immer wieder talabwärts und talaufwärts, während die Landstraße ungefähr auf gleicher Höhe bleibt. Daher entscheide ich mich für die Landstraße, denn nur ungefähr alle zehn Minuten kommt ein Auto vorbei. Liegt es an der parallelen Autobahn oder immer noch am Lastwagenstreik? In diesem Fall sei er gesegnet!

Auf der Landstraße gehe ich allein, sehe die anderen Wanderer nur von weitem. Aber nach einiger Zeit holt mich ein ein Mann in kurzer Radlerhose, ärmellosem weißem Turnhemd und Sandalen ein. A. ist Italiener, in Florenz geboren. Er arbeitet als Sportlehrer, ist Spezialist für asiatische Gymnastik und Kampfsportarten. Sein Sohn wird im Sommer einen dreimonatigen Sprachkurs in Berlin besuchen, er selbst  spricht nur Italienisch. Wieder ist Berlusconi ein Thema und auch andere Politiker, die eher Staatsschauspieler sind oder waren. A. ist sehr humorvoll, wir sprechen Spanisch und Italienisch durcheinander, schwieriger wird es mit der Verständigung aber bei der politischen Philosofie.

Die politische Idealfigur für A. ist Rosa Luxemburg, die Pazifistin. "Ich liebe Rosa Luxemburg", wiederholt er auf Italienisch. Die Gegenfigur ist für ihn Lenin,  der Agent der Deutschen, wie A. sagt. Er nennt die Namen anderer politischer Vorbilder, die ich nicht kenne, spricht über Chiapas in Mexiko. Er äußert, die Linke solle sich nicht an der Macht beteiligen, sondern nur die "Rechte des Volkes" verteidigen.

Ich widerspreche ihm nicht, die Verständigung ist zu schwierig. Meint er wirklich, man solle einem Mann wie Berlusconi einfach kampflos die Macht überlassen? Das kann wohl mit einem bösen Erwachen enden, denke ich. Aber ich beginne zu verstehen, warum so viele italienische  Linke anscheinend nicht zu den Wahlurnen gegangen sind.

A. möchte dann doch weiter auf dem Wanderweg gehen und ich weiter auf der Landstraße, unsere Wege trennen sich.

Einige Zeit später überhole ich drei ältere Deutsche, einen Mann und zwei Frauen, aus Plauen im Vogtland, "aus dem Osten", wie sie sagen. Das schlechte Wetter der letzten Tage hat ihnen zugesetzt. Sie sind ganz froh, am nächsten Tag von Logroño aus die Heimreise anzutreten, der Jakobsweg im Schlamm war doch sehr anstrengend für sie.

Am Mittag im Restaurant sitzen sie am Tisch hinter mir. Sie folgen dem Programm, das tonlos im Fernsehen läuft und bei dem ein Fernsehkoch neue Gerichte vorführt. Sie kommentieren die Zubereitung, die sie interessant zu finden scheinen, auch ohne Ton. Als ich mich umdrehe und sage: "Hallo, ich glaube, ich kenne Sie. Sind Sie nicht aus Plauen?" erschrickt der Mann. Ich wundere mich und denke spontan an alte Ängste vor der Stasi als Grund für diese Reaktion. Könnte es wirklich daran gelegen haben?

Wir unterhalten uns  dann einen Moment lang. Sie wohnen in einer Pension über dem Restaurant. Aber auch später grüßen wir uns am Nachmittag immer nur flüchtig.

Ich selbst habe in Viana das erste Hotel genommen, das in Sicht kam. Es hatte  kostenloses Internet am Eingang. Der Zimmerpreis ist höher als in den vorigen, aber ich bin zu erschöpft, um weiter zu suchen und meine Füße schmerzen sehr.

Im Zimmer bin ich dann ein wenig verärgert, dieses Hotel gewählt zu haben. Ich schaffe es nämlich nicht, die laute Klimaanlage abzustellen. Die Dame an der Rezeption kann mir auch nicht weiterhelfen.

Als ich dusche, stelle ich fest, dass bei dem Auf und Ab heute je einer von meinen blauen Fußnägeln pro Fuß begonnen haben, sich abzulösen und zu bluten, was mir beim ersten Jakobsweg erst nach der Rückkehr nach Haus passiert war. Die Wunde der offenen Blase unter einer großen Zehe hat sich auch noch nicht geschlossen, die Fersen schmerzen trotz der Fersenkissen, die ich gestern erworben habe. Wahrscheinlich haben die auch dazu beigetragen, dass der Druck auf den Zehen beim Bergabgehen zugenommen hat und deshalb die Nägel in Gefahr kamen. ich bedaure es wieder, bei der Abreise zu Haus die Einlagen mit der Erhöhung in der Mitte des Fußes vergessen zu haben, die den Fuß vorne und hinten entlasten. Das passiert mir nicht noch einmal!

Resüme: Ich kann also wirklich nicht mehr all zu weit laufen.

Dann  gehe ich aus dem Hotel, um eine Apotheke zu suchen. Auf dem Vorplatz der großen Kirche sehe ich die drei Frauen aus Ponferrada wieder, die mich fragen, warum ich etwas unsicher gehe. Sie sind Krankenschwestern von Beruf, wie sie dann sagen und sie schenken mir einen Verbandstyp, der die Zehen schützt und mehrere Tage auf offenen Wunden verbleiben kann. Damit werde ich  am nächsten Tag problemlos nach Logroño gelangen.

Nun versuche ich Siesta zu halten, gebe es aber bald auf, weil mich der Krach der Klimaanlage nicht einschlafen lässt. Mit zwei Tageszeitungen setze ich mich dann an die Hauptfußgängerstraße von Viana, und der Ort beginnt, mir wieder besser zu gefallen. Ich beobachte die Mütter mit ihren Kindern auf dem Weg nach Haus. Einmal kommt eine vorbei, die ein Baby im Wagen hat, und drei der an den Tischen sitzenden Männer stehen auf, um in den Wagen hineinzusehen. Zuerst denke ich, was für nicht-machistische Männer, die haben ja derart viel Interesse an Babys wie sonst nur Frauen. Später frage ich mich dann, ob sie vielleicht auf diese Weise feststellen wollten, wer von ihnen der Vater ist. Das könnte ja auch ein guter Grund gewesen sein!

Dann esse ich im gleichen Lokal wie am Mittag. An einem Tisch sitzen die drei Frauen aus Ponferrada, die mich erwartungsvoll ansehen und fragen, wie es jetzt um meine Füße steht. Ich bedanke mich noch einmal und sage ihnen, dass es mir viel besser geht, obwohl ich die neuen Pflaster erst morgen auflegen will. Dann setze ich mich aber nicht zu ihnen, sondern zu zwei älteren Damen aus Frankreich.

Am Nachmittag hatte ich sie auf der Straße getroffen und sie hatten mir erzählt, dass sie morgen mit dem Zug nach Frankreich fahren wollten. Vor dem Abendessen hatte ich dann noch für sie - und auch für mich nach Madrid -  im Internet Zugverbindungen gesucht und will sie ihnen jetzt zeigen.

Eine von ihnen ist die Frau, die ich am Vortag aus dem Schlamm gezogen habe.

Ich erzähle, dass ich am Mittag im Hotel einen Bericht im lokalen Fernsehen "Tierra de Estella" gesehen habe, der die Folgen des Unwetters in Villamayor zeigte. Interessant daran war, dass von den Bauern über dem Wanderweg in der Zone des Erdrutsches ein großer künstlicher Teich angelegt worden war, gesichert nur mit einer Plastikplane über Erddämmen, und dass die Bauern die ganze Zeit befürchtet hatten, dass der kleine Stausee schlagartig überlaufen würde und die Seitendämme einbrechen könnten. Das hätte die Pilger auf dem Weg unterhalb in Gefahr gebracht und vielleicht sogar die Autofahrer auf der Autobahn auf der anderen Talseite, wie ein Bauer meint.

Wirklich bemerkenswert, dass dennoch im Moment der Gefahr niemand uns Wanderer davor gewarnt hat!

A.-M., . scherzt, sie werde mich als ihren "Retter" für die Medaille der französischen Jakobsweggesellschaft vorschlagen. Ich bitte sie, nicht zu übertreiben und wir reden über die neue Lebensqualität in Paris, seitdem es das Fahrradverleihsystem gibt, das sie oft nutzen. 

Die beiden sind Frührentnerinnen wider eigenen Willen. Sie waren früher bei einer Fluggesellschaft beschäftigt, die sie zur Aufgabe ihrer Stellen mehr oder weniger gezwungen hat.

Sie empfehlen mir den französischen Jakobsweg. Als ich vorsichtig frage, ob es da auch Pensionen oder ähnliche Unterkünfte gebe, versprechen sie, mir eine Liste von getesteten Privatunterkünften zu senden, die die französische Vereinigung zusammen gestellt habe. Ich harre der Dinge!

Wir verabschieden uns und ich gehe ziemlich früh ins Bett. Die Dame vom Spätdienst an der Hotelrezeption hat es jetzt auch geschafft, die Klimaanlage auszuschalten und ich kann ruhig schlafen.

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IMHO een vlijmscherpe analyse van onze tijd; drie willekeurige citaten:

'We leven in een heel rare tijd. We zijn een oorlog begonnen tegen een land dat ons niet bedreigde, op grond van leugens. Dat is vreemd, dat onze premier of de Amerikaanse president zoiets doet. En het is ongehoord hoe passief we eronder blijven. Ons grondwettelijke systeem werkt niet. Waar is het verzet gebleven, waar zijn de miljoenen demonstranten? Waar is de consensus? Nergens. Het begon met kleine leugentjes. De redenen voor de inval waren verzonnen. Het waren geen echte leugens maar een selectieve keuze uit nooit bevestigde beweringen. Ze werden uitvergroot door Colin Powell bij de VN tot een volledig onjuist beeld. Dat beeld moest worden ondersteund door steeds grotere leugens. Bush stelt nu: De democratie is bijna bereikt in Irak. Nog even geduld. Vanuit die kern verspreidt de democratie zich dan over het hele Midden-Oosten. Blair betoogt nog steeds dat we door onze aanwezigheid in Irak onszelf beschermen. De geheime diensten en alle anderen zeggen dat onze daden in Irak de radicalen hebben gestimuleerd en verenigd. Het is hier nu veel gevaarlijker en het Midden-Oosten is een puinhoop. Ik denk dat dat één element is van de rekening die ik wilde vereffenen. Wat daar ook bij hoort is de mate waarin we onze eigen burgerrechten hebben uitgekleed; rechten die nog dateren van de Magna Carta. Een ander aspect is wat ik maar even de 'dualiteit' noem. Enerzijds de grote woorden over het redden van Afrika, de Geldof-acties, het geld dat is toegezegd, maar nooit verschijnt...'

'Een van de absurde kanten van de situatie in het Midden-Oosten is dat de VS niet met Iran kan praten, en niet met Hezbollah. Ook niet met Hamas, hoewel die democratisch is gekozen. Ze hebben geen gesprekspartners, geen bemiddelaars. We moeten naar de meest extremistische en onaangename standpunten luisteren om te weten hoe ze zijn ontstaan en hoe we er nu mee moeten omgaan. Als we geen onderscheid maken tussen groepen met verschillende mentaliteiten en ze allemaal op één hoop gooien en terroristen noemen dan graven we ons eigen graf.'

'Neem nu de gruwelijke gebeurtenissenvan de afgelopen eeuw. De holocaust bijvoorbeeld. Die werd niet uitgevoerd door een handjevol gekken. Die is uitgevoerd door de grijze muizen, de mensen die geen beslissing namen en met de stroom meegingen. We worden niet vernietigd door de rebellen of de gekken maar in veel gevallen door het conformisme.'

It's more about suggestion in this moment captured from The Constant Gardener, a fine adaptation of the John Le Carré novel.

British diplomat Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) is brought to a Kenyan mortuary to identify the body of his murdered wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz), but it is his colleague Sandy Woodrow (Danny Huston), who cannot control himself.

Paranoikerpåvarna vid U.S homeland security kan om dom vill, kopiera din hårddisk.

Det om det finns skälig misstanke.  Det finns inte så mycket att tilllägga till Aftonbladets artikel.  Och det är dags att skaffa sig ett krypteringsprogram.  Var är alla nyttiga idioter?  Tystnaden är talande.

Ho Ho Thomas Rymmaren Bodström varför är du så tyst? Håller du på och skriver en uppföljare.  Kanske får den titeln. Min egen white wash! Det var Jag som tvättade Vita Husets byk!

Bäst att sätta på sig foliehatten med dubbla lager koppar .

Se upp. Ett färskt domstolsbelut ger den amerikanska tullen rätt att utan skälig misstanke inte bara söka igenom, utan även kopiera innehållet på dina prylar.

Microsoft hjälper till

Nu har dock den amerikanska säkerhetsivern nått nya höjder. En amerikansk domstol fastslog den 21 april att den data eller de bilder som du har lagrat på hårddisken eller på minneskortet är att likställa med ditt bagage. Därför kan det också genomsökas

Tinker tailor soldier spy: John le carré finns mer på jo tuben

My business meeting in London finished early yesterday. This came as a relief because I was concerned that I would, otherwise, have spent most of the night trying to get my car unclamped.

You see, in order to save money my company insists that we book train tickets in advance. An open first class return ticket from Crewe to Euston costs nearly £300 but if you book in advance and are prepared to travel off peak you can get tickets for a half decent price.

Yesterday I was travelling both ways for a total of £90 but only if I travelled out on the 09.53 and returned on the 19.46. But, when I got to the car park at Crewe station it was full. Damn. Parking is rare at Crewe and I didn't want to take the chance that other regular commuters seem to do and park at B&Q. I suppose I could have parked near Crewe Alexander's stadium but was a) not sure there wasn't a game on that night and b) was not sure I had time to get there, park and walk back to the station in time to catch my train.

My only option was to use one of the pay and displays around the corner. I had no option. Imagine my concern when I noticed that my maximum stay was 10 hours with a fine of £70 to be paid for infringing this. But, if I was to continue with my planned schedule I would be parked there for at least 12 hours. But, I had no option.

So it was a huge relief when we finished two hours ahead of schedule and my boss agreed that I could buy a new ticket to get home. £147!!!! How on earth can they justify these prices?

£147 bought me a seat in first class, complimentary cups of tea, a couple of red wines, a hot meal, cheese and biscuits and the Evening Standard. And, I found myself sat next to the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith and her entourage. If you see red tickets where the normal reserved labels go it must mean reserved for VIPs.

I was sat next to the window in the single seating. Jacqui sat next to me with a vacant seat between us at the group of four, together with a couple of aids. Her minders (three) sat behind her and surprisingly paid little attention to me. I was amazed at the seeming lack of security. Now, I know I don't look like your average Taliban fighter or shoe bomber but I could  have been, well anyone. The rest of the carriage was surprisingly empty, so, they could even have asked me to move.

I am sure that most peoiple would have walked past Jacqui and her gang without a second glance. She was discreet and certainly wasn't trying to draw any attention to herself. She was quietly spoken, polite and jovial with the Virgin staff and her colleagues, and not showing any of that cleavage which got her into so much trouble at the beginning of her stint as Home Secretary. Indeed, she was a bit drab and close up she looked a little plumper than I had thought and her double chin is definitely giving birth to a third.

So, the journey was great for people watching and listening in to private conversations. Jacqui ate the trout and skipped dessert in favour of a chocolate cluster; she drank two G&Ts (full fat tonic, ice and lemon) but refused a third; and, spent the whole journey as far as Crewe (apparently she was en route to Blackpool) working on a speech in PowerPoint on her laptop.

She had a battered old mobile with a cracked screen which she used only twice - once to phone her dad to remind him to watch the Party Election Broadcast on the BBC at 18.55 (he had to take his hearing aid out to hear her properly) and once when she seemed to be chatting to a child and confirming that the choice of broccoli and courgettes was very good indeed.

There was very little interaction with her colleagues. She sat opposite an older woman who did nothing but read newspapers. At one point they exchanged a joke over the story in the Evening Standard of Kate Hoey joining Boris' team in the event of him becoming Mayor of London. There was a young twenty something (but looked about twelve) lad who was smartly and trendily dressed. He helped her with her cables and saving her presentation but otherwise played on his PSP (PlayStation Portable) and read his book - The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John Le Carre. I thought that was kind of fitting for the department responsible for anti-terrorism and home security.

Not quite up there with Pete Waterman and my sexual encounter with Sarah Lancashire but still a pleasant way of passing the time.

And, my car wasn't clamped after all and I was home in time to see Paul Scholes' goal against Barca!!

After the whole hog "literature" of the Marquez book, I thought I would do something a little bit, well, "best-sellery". At this time, I was at one of my many visits to the parents, and staring at me from my father's bookshelf was this Le Carre piece. Of course, I remembered a movie which I had not seen of the same name, but some sort of free association led me to say "What the hell" and pick it up. After something seemingly inaccessible like Marquez, I was expecting something breezier -- you know, like The Da Vinci Code. But alas, The Constant Gardener is in its own way, every bit as intense. While I had never read Le Carre, I knew of his spy novels and his Cold War rise to fame. What might be lacking in "prose", Le Carre certainly makes up for with pure storytelling.

The murder of Tessa Quayle, wife of a British diplomat, who is an activist in Kenya famously rabblerousing the pharma industry opens the novel. From there, Le Carre starts with the British diplomats who find out, and starts just throwing characters, roles, plot points at the wall. In fact, for the first 100 pages or so, it is hard to keep track of all of the moving parts. There is Justin, who simply wants to be left alone, there is the many bureaucrats for whom we half hear fractured details of the incident, and there are the local authorities, who may or may not be useful in handling actual crimes. It requires patience to slog through much of this, but at the same time, Le Carre keeps it engaging and challenging. His prose seems to dart in and out of dialogue, simple exposition, character's inner thoughts. The method is not uninteresting, but occasionally it is frustrating, especially when one is not used to it. A good for instance occurs as Woodrow recalls Tessa, whom he lusted after.

Woodrow sidled swiftly along the last shelves, flipping open books at random, opening trinket boxes, acknowledging defeat. Take a grip of yourself, man, he urged, as he fought to turn the bad news into good. All right: no letter. Why should there be a letter? Tessa? After twelve months? Probably chucked it in the waste-paper basket the day she got it. A woman like that, compulsive flirt, husband a wimp, she gets a pass made at her twice a month. Three times! Daily! He was sweating. In Africa, sweat broke out on him in a greasy shower, then dried up. He stood head forward, letting the torrent fall, listening.

Much of Le Carre's storytelling is in this maddening, staccato tone. It creates a disquiet that permeates the novel. But it does take time to get there. Once the players are established, we see the investigation of the murder, and it is dismissed as a random gang killing. Justin, however, starts to get evidence of something more, and then his inertia, much to his dismay, gets awakened. We then learn of the story of their marriage, and Justin leaves his post with the Foreign Service to start independently looking for more clues to this mystery.

It is at this point, that the confusion of Le Carre's storytelling starts to kick in as a strength instead of a weakness. The bureaucracy, the facts unearthed by Justin, his discovery of what his wife really was doing, the injustices she unearthed and how far up government and corporate channels it went, just start piling up on each other. Yes, the reader is confused, but so is Justin. None of it makes sense, but the implications are frightening. This where the novel is as its best, but it does take almost 200 pages to get going. Le Carre's fury is apparent at the Big Pharma machine, and his sentiments seem to just spill out in the type of disorganization that is reflected in the writing. As to the accuracy of his conclusions and claims, and the resulting very bleak closing scene -- let me say that it is pretty compelling, compelling enough to pull a thriller through for sure.

Even the Equality and Human Rights Commission, led by the ever-inconsistent Trevor Phillips, has said that if Parliament passes 42 days it will launch a legal challenge under the Race Relations Act and Human Rights Act. So much for Brown's government looking for consensus like it promised then. These people are really the lowest of the low, and are again prepared to act against the most vulnerable in order to safeguard the majority (I won't bore you with the Franklin's old favourite about trading freedom for security...). Surely if they really wanted to improve security they'd get their arses out of Iraq, but I guess geopolitical strategy is more important than innocent people's lives. Jacqui Smith had better lose, and lose her job with it - every policy she abuses brings more worldwide shame to this country.

Yes, I know this all happened in 2005, but how is it that we still aren’t pissed-off.

The pharmaceutical industry is bracing itself for criticism when the film 'The Constant Gardener' opens next month. But Jeremy Laurance reports that away from the Hollywood script is a true story of how multinational drug companies took liberties with African lives with devastating consequences.

In a dusty schoolyard in Kano, northern Nigeria, a group of children are kicking a football. One of them, a solemn-faced boy called Anas, sits watching quietly. He cannot play because he has pains in his knees that prevent him from running.

Nobody knows what caused Anas' pain but suspicion has fallen on Big Pharma. Six years earlier, Anas was a patient in a trial of a new drug run by one of the world's biggest companies. A known side effect of the drug, called Trovan, was joint pain. The issues raised by Anas' story have become the subject of a major British film.

The multinational pharmaceutical industry is bracing itself for an uncomfortable autumn. Next month, The Constant Gardener, the film based on the novel of the same name by John Le Carré, opens in London.

Directed by Fernando Meirelles, of City of God fame, it is a thriller, a love story and a blistering attack on the drugs industry and the way it carelessly expends the lives of innocent citizens in the Third World in the quest for billion-dollar medicines to sell to the first world.

As with dramas of this kind - such as the 1999 film, The Insider, which detailed the perfidious dealings of the tobacco industry - it raises the question of how far fiction resembles fact. So it is worth examining the background to The Constant Gardener. The film opens in a remote area of northern Kenya where Tessa Quayle (played by Rachel Weisz), the wife of a British diplomat, has been murdered. Her travelling companion, a local doctor, has disappeared, and the evidence points to a crime of passion.

At the time of her death, Tessa, an activist and passionate campaigner, was on the verge of uncovering a conspiracy involving the testing of a new drug. In personality she was the opposite of her husband, the mild-mannered Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), whose chief passion is his plants - he is the gardener of the title.

But in his grief, and goaded by whispers of her infidelity, he sets out to complete what she started, embarking on a quest to expose the truth about the pharmaceutical industry.

What he uncovers, as the film's blurb puts it, is "a vast conspiracy, at once deadly and commonplace, one that has claimed innocent lives - and is about to put his own at risk". At the center of this conspiracy is the idea that pharmaceutical companies use African people to test drugs which are destined to become huge profit-earners in the West.

It is not the first time such allegations have been made, but they have rarely been leveled with such dramatic effect. Some will find The Constant Gardener's thesis overblown, but it is a gripping thriller, ravishingly shot by César Charlone, that conveys the chaos, grandeur and darkness of Africa with unequaled authenticity. After the credits roll, a note from John Le Carré appears on screen that reads: "Nobody in this story, and no outfit or corporation, thank God, is based upon an actual person or outfit in the real world. But I can tell you this; as my journey through the pharmaceutical jungle progressed, I came to realize that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard." This is hard to credit. The film features two brutal killings, a savage beating, a campaign of harassment, intimidation and threats involving two governments and their security services - all to protect the interests of a pharmaceutical company that is testing a drug on mothers and children and quietly burying its failures.

Maybe there are pharmaceutical companies that have engaged in such crimes and enlisted the support of corrupt governments. Who can say? But it is not necessary to posit such a gargantuan conspiracy, where paranoia is the only rational response. The crimes of the pharmaceutical industry - from the price protection of Aids drugs which have denied life-saving medicines to millions, to the cover up of lethal side effects to protect profits - are well documented.

But there are two cases in which named companies have been accused of wrongdoing that partly inspired The Constant Gardener and which give resonance to the allegations about the secret testing of drugs on the unsuspecting and the suppression of any negative findings.

In 1996, Kano was suffering from outbreaks of cholera and measles when a third, even more deadly, disease arrived: meningitis. The infection spread quickly through the cramped slums of the city and within weeks thousands of children were ill.

The outbreak was not reported in the West but it did not go unnoticed. An internet message alerted scientists at the research headquarters in Connecticut, of one of the world's biggest drug companies: Pfizer.

The company reacted swiftly. It chartered a plane to Kano with a new drug called Trovan that was a potential life-saver and a potential billion-dollar profit earner. But Trovan had never been tested on children.

The Infectious Diseases Hospital in Kano was under siege from desperate parents who brought their dying children begging for help. One of these was Anas, then aged six. His father, Mohammed, said his son was given a drug by "a doctor from overseas" and put to bed. Mohammed assumed the doctors who treated his son were from Médecins Sans Frontièrs, an independent medical organization, who had arrived several weeks before the Pfizer team.

Only later when he examined a card he was given did he realize that Anas had been included in a trial of the new drug Trovan. The card was numbered 0001 - Anas was the first.

His story was told in the documentary "Dying for Drugs", broadcast in 2003, which alleged that Pfizer had failed to obtain informed consent from the parents of the children tested, and had back-dated a letter granting ethical approval for the trial from the ethics committee of the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital. Pfizer said it remained satisfied the Kano experiment was conducted properly.

Since the trial, Anas has had a pain in his knee which X-rays showed was inflamed and which prevents him from running. Trovan was not used in the US because it caused side effects including joint pain. It is impossible to tell whether Anas's knee problem was caused by the drug or was a consequence of the meningitis. Trovan was later withdrawn from the market for unrelated reasons, after it was linked with a number of deaths of patients from liver damage.

But the case against Pfizer did not end there. Lawyers seeking damages for the children involved in the Trovan trial obtained a letter sent by Pfizer's childhood diseases specialist, Dr. Juan Walterspiel, protesting strongly about it. Dr. Walterspiel set out eight grounds for opposing the trial including the fact that Trovan had "not been tested for its sensitivity before the first child was exposed to a live-or-die experiment." His contract with the company was terminated soon after.

Brian Woods, who made Dying for Drugs, met Meirelles and Le Carré, during the development of The Constant Gardener. "We had an entertaining lunch in which we were all frothing about the pharmaceutical industry," said Woods, who last week won a commission from Channel 4 to make a follow-up film.

Meirelles, whose Brazilian background gave him a strong interest in the issue of first world/Third World exploitation, distributed copies of Dying for Drugs to cast members, and it had the desired effect. After watching it and reading other background material that Meirelles had given him, Ralph Fiennes said: "There are huge questions about Big Pharma. The companies are not obliged to disclose a lot of information about how they test or make their drugs. There's big, big money involved." Rachel Weisz concurred. "It's David and Goliath; the little people taking on the big corporations. They [the pharmaceutical companies] make all this money, yet people in developing countries can't afford the drugs that could save their lives."

A second case of dubious practice by the pharmaceutical industry also has echoes in The Constant Gardener. A Canadian specialist, Dr Nancy Olivieri of Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, was among the world's leading experts in the blood disorder thalassaemia when she agreed to take part in the trial of a new drug, Deferiprone, made by the US company Apotex.

Deferiprone helps clear iron from the blood which builds up in patients with thalassaemia and can be fatal. At first the trial went well and Dr Olivieri published promising results in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Then she noticed worrying liver changes in some of her patients. She raised her concerns with the company and tried to find a way of adapting the trial. But she was unprepared for the response of the company, whose potential million-dollar drug she was now questioning.

Mike Spino, the vice-president of Apotex, informed her that the trial had been terminated, and warned her that she would face legal action if she spoke about it to anybody, in breach of her duty of confidentiality.

That triggered a dispute between Dr Olivieri and Apotex that has dragged on for more than five years, during which she has not published new research. Sir David Weatherall, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University and a supporter of Dr Olivieri, said the case raised a "fundamental issue of academic freedom". Nor was it an isolated case. Sir David added that editors of medical journals including The Lancet and The Journal of the American Medical Association had come under pressure not to publish data or to change it.

This story is also told in Dying for Drugs. Deferiprone is now licensed in more than 24 countries, including the UK, and Apotex insist it is safe and effective. The company also accused Dr Olivieri of making errors in the trial that made her results worthless.

Wherever the truth in the cases of Pfizer and Apotex, the behaviour of Big Pharma will come under renewed scrutiny thanks to The Constant Gardener. Even if its picture of multinational corporations engaged in global conspiracies with corrupt governments seems excessively paranoid, there are real issues to confront. The bigger scandal lies not in the forging of consent forms to clinical trials, nor even in the intimidation of recalcitrant researchers. It lies in the rapacious pricing of the pharmaceutical industry that puts life-saving drugs out of reach of individuals, hospitals and even nations. The words used to justify these prices are "research and development". But in truth, the industry's biggest cost is marketing. Extraordinary sums are spent persuading doctors to prescribe new drugs only fractionally different from older, cheaper ones, which ramp up prices.

Great as this conspiracy is, unfortunately it does not provide for a blockbuster thriller.

Michael Sims gives us a head's-up on a new book coming out during the next year from Penguin, tentatively titled, The Penguin Book of Gaslight Thieves: Confidence Tricksters, Burglars, Rogues, and Scoundrels from the Time of Sherlock Holmes, edited with critical introduction by Michael Sims.

Thieves will include “Arsene Lupin in Prison,” by Maurice Leblanc, starring con man and burglar Arsene Lupin, from Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar. Arsene Lupin will the subject of Sims' presentation during the Living on the Edge: Cons and Characters panel on Fri. March 28th, 2:00 PM at the Virginia Festival of the Book.

Also, a couple of gleanings from yesterday's Publishers Lunch:

John le Carre's A MOST WANTED MAN, set in Germany, a contemporary story delivering readers deep inside the intelligence agencies operating in the "war on terror," returning to Nan Graham at Scribner (with Pocket publishing the paperback), for publication in October 2008, by attorney Michael Rudell (US).

JRR Tolkien's grandson Simon Tolkien's THE INHERITANCE, in which an aging police inspector decides to travel from England to France to delve into a possible World War II theft and crime hoping to save an upper-class student set to hang for murdering his father, an Oxford historian with a questionable military record, to Peter Wolverton and Thomas Dunne at Thomas Dunne Books, in a two-book deal, by Marly Rusoff of Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).

Plus one of special interest to me:

Teacher of organization behavior, personality and individual differences, and human resources at the University of Calgary, Dr. Piers Steel's THE PROCRASTINATION EQUATION, the culmination of ten years of research on the topic, addressing both the ailment and its treatment, to Nancy Miller at Collins, at auction, for publication in winter 2010, by Sally Harding at The Cooke Agency (US).

Ten years in the making, huh? Two more years until publication? Sounds like Dr. Steel knows a thing or two about procrastination.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

The UK appears to have woken up (one eye half-open, the hand ready for the snooze function) to the fact that our intelligence services do things without our knowing about them. An MP was eavesdropped on while talking to a constituent. By law, conversations between a constituent and MP should be free from the prying ears of UK spooks. The same right applies to lawyers and clients. Fair enough. It's called the Wilson Convention, after Harold Wilson believed he was being listened to when he was Prime Minister and protected MPs from "our friends on the river" (M15). He wasn't paranoid: we later learned that M15 and the CIA thought he was a Soviet spy.

The Tricky Little Imp has had quite a few real spies in her life. For why, that's just the odd way of the world. It wasn't professional. But she knows that spooks, just like journalists, MPs, doctors, bin men, shop assistants and engineers, can be strange people. A security clearance does not a man of integrity make (nor a woman). As in all walks of life, there be nutters.

So while we may docilely accept living in the country with the biggest amount of surveillance in the world, all in the name of safety and security, it's worth remembering that not only do mistakes happen, but that not everyone shares the same idea of what is right or justifiable as you do.

If you're white and middle-class, don't make the mistake of assuming all this is being done for your benefit. If you're not white or middle class, you probably knew that anyway. Ask questions, speak out. Ask for a decent explanation of why ID cards should be introduced - check out who your MP is and contact them at www.theyworkforyou.com. Ask them to write to the Home Secretary on your behalf. If you do that, they have to do it and let you know the response.

When The Guardian and the Daily Mail are saying the same thing on this, you may well check under your chair to see whether hell is bubbling over. But they are: rare and worth taking note of. Go on, click here and send that email.

And so I chose The Other Boleyn Girl and came to a novel I dread writing about because it is awfully, unabashedly bad, filled with adverbs as egregious as the two I just used, and I was stuck with it for too many hours on a plane. Normally I would've stopped after a few chapters. Trapped as though in the Tower of London, I had nowhere to go but on with the story, reading endlessly of the narrator, Mary Boleyn, reminding herself of how she is a Howard, and having other characters constantly tell her that as well. Most of the characters speak in platitudes, as though aware of history's spotlight on them, and yet the characters are simultaneously self-absorbed to a degree tiresome in anyone, including monarchs and their playthings.

Then there is the writing: on page six a "moment of pure envy swept through me," and on 90 a horse is coiled like a spring. Adverbs proliferate like the plague and, worse for me, I just finished The Name of the Rose, a novel with a powerful, inflammatory inquisition scene that lights up like an inferno, while Gregory offers a brief, sputtering description on page 716 of my mass-market paperback. The theological discussions are similarly opposite, with The Name of the Rose like a gorgeous Ph.D. thesis and The Other Boleyn Girl like the musings of a pupil. There is much discussion of wit and little evidence of it, just as there is much discussion of what it means to be part of the family and little evidence of it meaning anything more than being part of a band of nitwit navel gazers.

There are bizarre anachronisms in the novel, as when characters use the term slut, which, as Geoffrey Pullum's quote from the Oxford English Dictionary in this post on contemporary usage shows, slut has meant that "bad housekeeping, loose sexuality, general uppitiness and terms of endearment have been all mixed together since the middle of the 17th century." The Other Boleyn Girl is set towards the beginning of the sixteenth century. Likewise, despite repeated references to skill in French and Latin, no characters display any knowledge of either language or its literatures; Anne's linguistic ability extends to saying "Bien sur!" once. Indeed, the characters seem caught purely in their own times, as if history was absent and the future as well. No culture exists outside of mentions about Thomas More and jousting. If not for the device of the king and the mention of horses, this novel could be set in a frat house, or any number of contemporary settings.

All this is frustrating because The Other Boleyn Girl shows rare moments of genuine feeling, as when Mary acknowledges to her brother that she cannot wed the man she wants. These few evoking moments come amid the tedious descriptions of royal maneuverings that read like the post-season situation in basketball. By the end of the flight I wanted to take back all those snide thoughts about le Carré, who is by comparison a writer of tremendous greatness.

The title of this post may startle you, but there is a slim connection between a novel about sex and power in the sixteenth century and one about militarism and politics in the distant future.

I haven't yet commented on The Name of the Rose, mentioned here, but that's only because it's so good that I both want to save the best for last and struggle to formulate something to say, as the novel is so vast that it's hard merely to decide which aspects of it to discuss.

* For a fascinating essay on le Carré, see—as usual—B.R. Myers' essay in The Atlantic.

i think my interest in spy thrillers - where horror, crime, and science fiction don't much interest me - is to do with the prevalent atmosphere. In a spy thriller, the true order of things is hidden; apparent surfaces and explanations are usually hoaxes of some sort, though often so deviously arranged that one cannot blithely assume the opposite is true, Chomsky-style. The protagonist is a single man, a man with unusual skills and expertise and experience, but himself extremely vulnerable in a world of huge and often malevolent forces. He must constantly apply his interpretative skills to make sense of the data; he is always on his guard, always seeking the hidden. A good spy thriller is, if you like, existential. Here are some quotations from Charles McCarry's Tears of Autumn:

Christopher was Patchen's only friend. They met in a naval hospital in the last days of the war and played chess together. While Patchen was still in a wheelchair, they were mustered with a handful of other wounded men to be decorated by a visiting admiral. Afterward, as Christopher pushed Patchen along a path planted with oleanders, Patchen unpinned the Silver Star from his bathrobe and threw it into the bushes. Both men were younger sons who had grown up in families in which an older brother was the preferred child. They were contemptuous of human beings who needed admiration.

Later, they had been roommates at Harvard. Another Harvard man, a few years older, took them to dinner at Locke-Ober's in the spring of their senior year. He ordered Pouilly-Fumé with the oysters and Médoc with the roast lamb, and afterward, in his room at the Parker House, recruited them for intelligence work. Neither man hesitated; they understood that what the recruiter was offering them was a lifetime of inviolable privacy.

[...]

Patchen and Christopher saw changes in one another, but the changes were physical. Their minds were as they had always been. They believed in intellect as a force in the world and understood that it could be used only in secret. They knew, because they  had spent their lives doing it, that it was possible to break open the human experience and find the dry truth hidden at its centre. Their work had taught them that the truth, once discovered, was usually of little use: men denied what they had done, forgot what they had believed, and made the same mistakes over and over again. Patchen and Christopher were valuable because they had learned how to predict and use the mistakes of others.

And, later, a nice snatch of dialogue between the two officers:

'Don't you think it's funny, the way the Times is always reporting on you, and it doesn't know you exist?'

'That's what newspapers are for.'

'Yes, to explain the real world.'

'There is no real world, David.'

The Jorgmund Pipe - what it is, who created it, what it transports and why it exists at all - is the whole raison d'être of The Gone-Away World, the debut novel from Nick Harkaway.

Part science-fiction, part war story, part love story, part mystery-thriller and - perhaps more surprisingly - part comic novel - it weighs in at an impressive 544 pages and I suspect that most people will either love it or hate it. There won't be much in the way of middle ground.

Nick Harkaway is plainly a man in love with the English language. He's also a master of off-centre, deadpan humour and the owner of a beguilingly unhinged brain. The end result is something like 'P G Wodehouse Does Mad Max'.

Initially, he seems to be almost incapable of telling a straight story and you wish he'd just get on with it and stop enjoying himself so much. The early chapters are strewn with wildly eccentric minor characters and apparently irrelevant plot diversions all hedged around with verbal riffs and show-stopping one liners. A personal favourite - of many - is:

Captain Carsville is a fantasist who lives war as movies. He's something between a running joke and a sucking chest wound.

Gradually however the disparate threads and characters begin to converge, and Harkaway proceeds to weave them deftly into a narrative that is by turns moving, terrifying and hilarious. Along the way we meet the Matahuxee Mime Combine, the Found Thousand, the Voiceless Dragon and Old Man Lubitsch's giant killer bees.

It's almost impossible to try to explain what the book is about without giving away far too much of the plot. Suffice it to say that the world as we know it has ended, but mankind has been rescued by Jorgmund and its Pipe. Gonzo and his motley assortment of friends run their business from The Nameless Bar, which is where we first find them - about to go out and tackle the blaze which is threatening mankind's tenuous hold on 'the Livable Zone'. Before they can do so, however, we have to find out how they fetched up there in the first place . . .

Harkaway's characters - even the bit part players - are strongly drawn, with a deft hand. He's particularly good with the women, who while not quite as eccentric as the men, are infinitely more practical (which is, of course, exactly how it should be). His descriptions of the chaos of warfare are both vivid and disconcertingly matter-of-fact, and he possesses that very rare gift - the ability to make the small hairs on the back of your neck rise up.

He is in fact that old fashioned creature, a natural story-teller, and The Gone-Away World is - for all its linguistic pyrotechnics and modern allusions - a stonkingly well-told adventure story. It has, refreshingly, a beginning, a middle and an end. Granted, the middle is at the beginning and the beginning is in the middle, but the end is firmly in the right place, and by the time you get to it you realize that most of those extraneous characters and irrelevant plot diversions were neither extraneous nor irrelevant. Everything fits.

It's a tour de force which will either infuriate the living hell out of you or hold you spellbound.

Mark me down as 'Spellbound'. Eventually.

The Gone-Away World is published by William Heinemann Ltd. 2008. 544pp. ISBN 10: 0434018422. ISBN 13: 978-0434018420.