Aftermath: Foreign Relations and the Postwar British Novel Caroline Zoe

Aftermath: Foreign Relations and the Postwar British Novel Caroline Zoe Krzakowski Department of English McGill University, Montreal August, 2011 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Caroline Zoe Krzakowski August, 2011 Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................ii Résumé................................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgments...............................................................................................................vi Introduction: Aftermath: Diplomacy and the Postwar British Novel..................................1 Chapter 1: Arbitrating the Aftermath: Rebecca West’s Journalism and The Saga of the Century........................................................................35 Chapter 2: Diplomatic Revisions: Lawrence Durrell and the Postwar Novel...............89 Chapter 3: "A Sort of Victory": Nationalism and the British Council in Olivia Manning’s Balkan Trilogy..........................................................132 Chapter 4: Secret Soldiers: John Le Carré’s Spies and the Politics of Stability .........172 Conclusion: Foreign Relations and British National Identity........................................203 Works Cited .....................................................................................................................209 ii Abstract In the aftermath of the Second World War, British writers engaged with the reconfiguration of national identity that resulted from the dissolution of the empire. In many regards, the postwar British novel performs the work of diplomacy. While colonial power held together global networks before the war, an emerging discourse of internationalism urged cooperation after the war. Rebecca West’s travelogue about Yugoslavia, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, as well as her reportage on the Nuremberg Trials, laid the groundwork for her incomplete tetralogy, Cousin Rosamund: A Saga of the Century. In both her fiction and non-fiction, West considers questions of British responsibility on the international stage. Similarly, Lawrence Durrell writes about the aftermath of the Second World War by reflecting on the motives and effects of British foreign policy in the Mediterranean. Durrell’s travelogue, Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, influenced the narrative structure of the Alexandria Quartet. By focalizing Mountolive, the third volume of the Quartet, through the character of a diplomat, the narrative reflects on questions of the private and public responsibilities of ambassadors. Olivia Manning’s Balkan Trilogy, which concerns British nationals in Romania before and during the war, is concerned with global events that provoke mass displacements. Even the British become refugees because of aggressive warfare. While journalists craft their reputations through authorship in the public sphere and diplomats inscribe their perspective into the reports they send to embassies, the spy’s works remain hidden from the public gaze. Nonetheless, it fulfills a diplomatic function. In The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and The Looking Glass War, John Le Carré shifts novelistic attention to the ways in which spies skirt democratic processes and opt for creating international relationships through iii secret means. This thesis relies on archival documents and theories of narrative in order to demonstrate how a concern with international cooperation influences postwar preoccupations and narrative structure. Although literary critics often characterize the postwar British novel as being in decline, mid-century novelists, in fact, adapt the genre to changes in the global balance of power. iv Résumé Les écrivains britanniques d’après-guerre révisent l’identité nationale suite à la dissolution de l’empire. Un discours de coopération internationale remplace les liens globaux maintenus par le colonialisme. Pendant cette période, le roman britannique sert à une fonction diplomatique de plusieurs façons. Le récit de voyage de Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon et ses articles sur les procès de Nuremberg ont influencé sa tétralogie inachevée, Cousin Rosamund: A Saga of the Century. Dans ses romans ainsi que dans ses reportages, West se penche sur la question de responsabilité de la Grande Bretagne dans un climat de diplomatie internationale. De la même manière, Lawrence Durrell écrit à propos des motivations et des effets de la politique étrangère britannique dans la region méditerranéenne. Son récit de voyage, Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, a influencé la structure narrative de la série Alexandria Quartet. Le troisième roman dans la série, Mountolive, focalise sur la question des responsabilités privées et publiques à travers la figure du diplomate. La trilogie d’Olivia Manning, Balkan Trilogy, qui raconte l’histoire de personnages britanniques habitant la Roumanie avant et après la guerre, se préoccupe des effets que les catastrophes globales ont sur les réfugiés de guerre. Dans ce roman, même les personnages britanniques deviennent des réfugiés. Pendant que les journalistes forment leur reputation dans la sphère publique et que les diplomates incluent leur opinion des faits implicitement dans les rapports qu’ils envoient à leur ambassades, le travail de l’espion demeure caché du regard public. L’espion contribue cependant au travail diplomatique. Dans ses romans, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold et The Looking Glass War, John Le Carré ré-oriente l’attention sur les moyens par lesquels les espions contournent les procédés démocratiques et choisissent de créer des liens v internationaux par des voies secrètes. Cette thèse met en valeur les sources archivales d’auteurs et de départments gouvernementaux, dont elle a recours. En général les critiques littéraires considèrent que le roman britannique d’après-guerre représente un déclin. Toutefois, cette étude démontre que les romanciers de cette époque adaptent leurs romans aux changements du pouvoir politique international. vi Acknowledgments I wish to thank my supervisor, Professor Allan Hepburn, for his generosity, his respect for my ideas, and his scrupulous attention to my writing. I am grateful for the advice and mentorship of Professor Miranda Hickman, and for the help of Professors Martin Kreiswirth, Peter Gibian, Monica Popescu, and Ned Schantz. Financial support provided by a SSHRC-CGS Fellowship allowed me to complete this project. A McGill Arts GST Award, and a SSHRC MSFSS Travel Fellowship made archival research at the National Archives, the BBC archives, and the Harry Ransom Humanities Center possible. I wish to acknowledge the generosity of the Wertheim Study at the New York Public Library for granting me a space to write and access to their collection. I am grateful to the many librarians and archivists who have helped me to track down sources: Lonnie Weatherby, David Smith, Jay Barksdale, Brooke Watkins, Molly Schwartzburg, Tom Staley, Marc Carlson, and Louise North. Many thanks to the Rebecca West Society, particularly Ann Norton, Bernard Schweizer, and Debra Rae Cohen, for helpful discussions on West, and for a Graduate Student Award that allowed me to participate in the 2009 West conference in London. I wish to thank James Gifford for sharing sources on Lawrence Durrell, Phyllis Lassner for materials on Olivia Manning, and Sir Michael Packenham for clarifying some intricacies of contemporary diplomacy. I am grateful for the guidance of many teachers past and present. Early in my graduate studies, at Queen’s, Maggie Berg and Paul Stevens got me thinking about journalism and empire. At Concordia, Fred Krantz urged us to Tolle, Lege! while Andras Ungar and Zsolt Alapi introduced modernism. At Marianopolis, the late Beverly Kennedy vii invoked Hermes, while Peter Henderson reminded us of the point. The friendship and intellectual companionship of Amy Cox, Brianna Wells, Robin Feenstra, Karen Oberer, Paula Derdiger, Patrick Moran, Justin Pfefferle, and Ian Whittington inspired and sustained me through the completion of this project. Many thanks to Laurel Harris, Seamus O’Malley, and Joel Deshaye for discussing and reading drafts. I am grateful to Shirley Cully for opening her home to me in London. Warm thanks to Anne Garner for lunches “on the couch” in Bryant Park and a computer, and to my old friends Roxanne Homayun, who demystified 1. A. i., Katherine Williams, who urged risk-taking, and Rimousky Menkveld, who talked about Mountolive from Istanbul to Cairo. I am grateful to my parents, Olenka Jarema and Andrzej Krzakowski, for their example and for having nurtured my interests from the beginning. Dzienkuję. Many thanks to Rod, Sue, and Lucy Senior for their unwavering support. For James Oliver Senior, who has lived with this project from the beginning and discussed its arguments with energy, loving support, and patience, I reserve my deepest thanks. This project is dedicated to the memory of my grandparents, Janeczka, Michał, Irena, Mieczysław, and Żuk, who were victims, survivors, and witnesses. 1 Aftermath: Diplomacy and the Postwar British Novel Aftermath Diplomats circulate through modern fiction. This dissertation looks at diplomats and international relations in fiction and non-fiction written between 1935 and 1965 by Rebecca West, Lawrence Durrell, Olivia Manning, and John Le Carré. Writing fiction in the 1950s and 1960s that deals with

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