Wednesday, February 13, 2013
I SPY
I just finished Ian McEwan's latest novel
I read all his novels without question so the question really is "how does this stack up?"
I would say that it is middle McEwan.
It is written from the POV of a young woman recruited into Britains M15 spy organization by an older lover, her professor.
She finds herself shuffled around in make work situations and sees the underbelly of the spy service, a giant bureaucracy beyond zealous about their files.
She gets put on a lower level project that sets up a front for writers and other artists funded by the government. This is kept blind to people getting grants.
She meets an author who fits the criteria for funding and falls in bed with him.
She is sort of fucking her way through this somewhat special civil service job which is not a good idea as it is prohibited and government secrets are involved. All that rot.
I became impatient with this woman. She is kind of a literature bore. But then so is McEwan.
Names are dropped, books are mentioned and so on. Erudite.
One nice touch, the author writes some short stories which are summarized in this novel so it is like having a bonus. I am told that some of the stories are early McEwan. Recycling.
The period of this novel is the paranoid 70s. There is not only a lot of tension around the Soviets but also the IRA and other home grown terrorist outfits.
The secrecy of the work falls on the relationships described. Blah blah blah.
You do want him to get on with it and he does eventually. But there is some heavy lifting on the way to what is a nifty ending. A sleight of hand move by the authors, the one in the book and McEwan himself. Surprise!
I liked it. Not as much as the others. I said that.
The 70s are a kind of boring period. Not that there wasn't a lot going on. It is just so, well, old. All that spy stuff and the super power bullshit. It is also draining to be in the middle of yet another British austerity period where everyone has a hunger headache and drinks too much.
Frankly, I don't think you want to read this book. Let me be the one who tried it and found it wanting. Too much tired blood and listless fucking.
A 3 out of 5.
Labels: books
