MASARYK UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
Department of English Language and Literature
The Spy Novel in English Literature
Diploma Thesis
Brno 2010
Supervisor: Written by: PhDr.Pavel Doležel, CSc. Leona Buzrlová
Prohlášení: Prohlašuji, že jsem na mé diplomové práci pracovala samostatně a použila jsem pouze ty zdroje, které jsou uvedeny v bibliografii. Souhlasím, aby tato diplomová práce byla uložena v Informačním systému Masarykovy univerzity, případně v knihovně Pedagogické fakulty, a sloužila tak akademickým účelům.
Declaration: I declare that I worked on my diploma thesis on my own and I used only the sources listed in the bibliography. I agree with this diploma thesis being deposited in the Information System of the Masaryk University, eventually in the Library of the Faculty of Education, and with its being taken advantage for academic purposes.
Brno, 17 April 2010 Leona Buzrlová
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Acknowledgement:
I would like to express my very sincere thanks to PhDr. Pavel Doležel, CSc. for providing me with many pieces of great advice, bringing me in many useful ideas, and supporting me throughout the whole course of my writing.
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CONTENT
1. Introduction: The aim of the thesis...... 5 - 8
2. The purpose of espionage...... 9 - 13
3. The first novels with crime elements and their development...... 14 - 17 3.1. The Newgate novel...... 17 - 21 3.2. The sensation novel...... 21 - 22 3.3. The main difference between the Newgate and sensation novel...... 22 - 23 3.4. The other novelists and authors of the Victorian era...... 23 - 26
4. The spy novel in English literature...... 27 4.1. The first spy novels and their authors...... 27 - 30 4.2. The glamorising of spy novel...... 30 - 33 4.3. The novel of adventure...... 33 - 37 4.4. The deglamorising of spy novel...... 37 - 41
5. The postwar period of spy novel...... 42 5.1. Ian Fleming...... 42 - 44 5.2. Other postwar spy novelists...... 44 - 48 5.3. The post-war American espionage authors...... 48 - 51
6. The typical feature of a spy hero...... 52 - 53 6.1. James Bond phenomenon...... 53 - 56 6.2. The characters of villains in a spy novel...... 56 - 57 6.3. Villains in spy novel with James Bond...... 57 - 60
7. The books with spy plot...... 61 7.1. Casino Royale (1953)...... 61 - 64 7.2. Funeral in Berlin (1964)...... 65 - 67 7.3. The Tailor of Panama ( 1996)...... 67 - 71
8. Conclussion...... 72 - 74
9. Resumè...... 75
10. Bibliography...... 76 - 81
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1. Introduction: The aims of the thesis
This diploma thesis, carrying title The spy novel in English literature is concerned with the literary genre of spy fiction – sometimes called political thriller or spy thriller which came into existence before World War I at about the same time when the first modern intelligence agencies started to appear. The whole body of the diploma thesis is divided into several chapters which deal with the theme of spy novel. Each single chapter contains its own theme connected with the main theme of the diploma thesis, which all together give a general view of the nature and development of this literary genre. The first introductory chapter is connected with the aim of my diploma thesis. As the result of my diploma theses I decided to collect the most important information concerning spy fiction and to give to a reader of my diploma thesis a general view of this genre, its rise, nature, features, development and examples of the authors who represent spy fiction. The second chapter of the diploma thesis will be dedicated to the historical background of spying and to the purpose of espionage. The beginning of spying is associated with the ancient civilization, through information on the spying in Old England and finishing with modern espionage using the latest techniques and equipment. The significance of spying itself in military matters has been namely recognized since the recorded history, and spies are as old as history as well. In this chapter the main emphasis will be placed on the explanation of the word “espionage” and its meaning. Spying is presented not only as a negative but also as a positive activity which can save human lives. Spying can help make the world safer, especially in time of terrorism, regional instability, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, white slavery and illicit traffic of drugs. The third chapter of the diploma thesis deals with the beginning of crime fiction, whose roots can be seen in so called Newgate novels which played a very important role in English literature and which influenced the development of many other literary genres, especially the development of such later genres as the sensational novel and the detective novel are. Most Newgate novels drew their inspiration from the Newgate Calendar, a published biography of famous criminals, which were described as the sympathetic heroes in crime literature before the end of the nineteenth century. Newgate
5 novels were written by male authors. In contrast to the Newgate novels, the sensational novels did not picture the criminal world but they rather featured the seamy sides of respectable or noble society and their plots depicted the criminal deeds. Within this chapter I pay attention to the main differences between the Newgate and sensational novel. The conclusion of the chapter is dedicated to the novelists and authors of the Victorian era like Reynolds and his Mysteries of London, Thackeray´s novel called Catherine Hayes which is considered to be Thackeray´s attack on Newgate novels, but in the matter of fact it is often accepted as a Newgate novel itself. The focus is put also on such authors like George Eliot, Mrs. Gaskell, Anthony Trollope or Thomas Hardy who did not glamorize the crime, but they saw it in his realistic substance, Trollope even with a light scent of satire. The fourth chapter contains information concerning the rise of the spy novel in English literature, the first spy novels and their authors like James Fenimore Cooper, known for his tales of the early frontier or Erskiene Robert Childers with his novel Riddle of the Sands. The attention is also paid to the predecessors to twentieth–century detective and espionage fiction, which were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens. Within this chapter, as well as Edgar Allan Poe is worth of mentioning as the inventor of the detective story, appreciated for his tale of mystery. The second part of the fourth chapter puts emphasis on the explanation of the international relations in the world and feeling of national insecurity, which both related to the period called the Great Game based on the rivalry between Great Britain and Russia. The rise of spy novel before WWI can be then connected with such a significant feeling of national insecurity in time of changing international relations, which leads to the fact that spies are presented in a way of glamorizing. This glamorizing of a British spy was visible even in popular press. The thesis points out that at the turn of the century the interest of the public concentrates on Germany and Russia, and a new stream of espionage based on imagination rather than on true life began to appear around that time. On the one hand there were writers like William Tufner Le Queux who glamorised their spies, and on other hand there was another group of authors who deglamorised them and saw them as normal human beings with their mistakes - Josef Conrad ranks among such the authors. Le Queux put a big emphasis on the spying based on imagination. The attention is paid also to Walter Wood whose works contain elements of xenophobia, especially in his book The Enemy in our Midst, or to E. Phillip Oppenheim´s novel The Great Impersonation and also to baroness Emma Orczy who is remembered as the author of
6 Scarlet Pimpernel. As well as adventure novels can not be left out from this chapter because they influenced spy novel and some of their elements can be seen in them. Moreover, adventure novels often have tendency to blend with other genres, especially with crime novels, spy novels, war novels, fantasy etc. After primary espionage stories of Doyle and Poe, also Rudyard Kipling deserves the same acknowledgement as being among the earliest writers of the secret agent short story genre. Most of the Kipling´s stories were set in India and dealt with the fighting between the native Indian people and the British. Gilbert Keith Chesterton is another great literary personality of spy and detective fiction whom the attention is paid to. He is praised for creating his Father Brown and John Buchan for creating his spy stories with political background. Last part of the chapter features the authors including Eric Ambler, Somerset Maugham and especially Graham Greene, who often described lonely spy individuals on the verge of a state government. After WWI, the next phase of espionage literature reflects spies in a relatively critical perspective of official state authority. The fifth chapter is dedicated to the postwar period (after WWII) of spy novel which is associated with the Cold War, a competition between democratic capitalism and Soviet socialism. The Cold War turned espionage to an escalating industry and provided authors with various material to work on. Postwar spy fiction is dominated by the Fleming´s James Bond novels. No less popular in this period is John Le Carré, Len Deighton, Francis Clifford, Nigel West or the authors from the United States including Thomas Pynchon, James Grady, Charles McCarry, Clive Eric Cussler who all deserve acknowledgement in this chapter. The sixth chapter deals with typical features of a spy hero. It gives a general view of a typical spy, a person who usually gather military, political and nowadays also industrial data about one country for the benefit of another. Spy is supposed to have certain general features which are common for all spies. But not all the spies are the same. Of course, there are distinctive differences among them, something which makes them unique. And this part of my diploma thesis is intended not only to general characteristics of a typical spy but also to description of factual literary heroes in spy novels. I devoted here relatively a big space to Fleming´s James Bond figure because I think that he is the most famous figure in spy fiction at all. James Bond, Harry Pendel, Harry Palmer... have all something in common, but in spite of that fact they are all really unique. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the James Bond phenomenon, the
7 second one with characters of villains in a spy novel and the last one with villains in spy novel with James Bond. The following - seventh chapter concentrates its attention on the books with spy plot including Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, Funeral in Berlin by Len Deighton and The Tailor of Panama by John le Carré. All these books belong to spy fiction genre. Though they have lots in common, they also have certain special features which distinguish them from each other and which are typical for their authors. These books serve as real examples of spy novels used in the diploma thesis for their mutual comparison. The last chapter closes the diploma thesis with generalization of acquired and processed information and summarize the most important facts and ideas of the theme to give a comprehensive view of spy fiction genre, its rise, nature, features, development and examples of the spy novels representing authors.
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2. The Purpose of Espionage
The best battle is the battle that is won without being fought. Sun Tzu 1
In today´s world a piece of news is getting a bigger and bigger importance and its value is increasing all the time. Who has right information is sometimes mightier than the one who has lots of money. No matter where we are, we get in touch with information - from newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, personal daily contact with people etc. Almost every day we are confronted with various information concerning stealing data from data bank, information leakage, industrial or economic espionage, political spying and other similar activities. The newspapers are often full of articles about an industrial espionage or about the police who uncovered an internet spy network that hacked into computers owned by governments and private organizations in various countries. Such and other news can feed us everywhere whenever we go. The world becomes smaller and interconnected due to globalization and information plays more and more important role in it. Even our forefathers truly appreciated and valued information. They knew the significance of information and could prosper from it. Information and the obtaining of information always played a very important role for them. And just espionage was one of the ways how they could get such valuable and important information. Espionage comes from the French word “espionnage”, means spying and from “espionner”, means to spy. 2 The espionage can be considered as the use of spies to detect secret information about a country, an organization or their systems. The obtained information is then regarded as secret or confidential. Spies mostly operate in an unstable and dangerous world. Knowing the situation can provide other party an immense advantage or odds
1 Bradford, Alfred S. With Arrow, Sword and Spear: A history of Warfare in the Ancient World. Wesport: Praeger Publisher, 2000, p. 36 2 Espionage. The Meriam-Webster Dictionary. 18 March 2009
9 during the settlements of disputes and claims. Spies collect data that reveal the intentions, plans, orders, strategies and capabilities of the enemies and provides the basic for making a decision and action. The gathered information can create the platform for analysis with the following warning. When we think about espionage, images like hidden cameras, stolen microfilms, recorders, exploding pens or cigars, stolen data, mystery spies usually come to our mind. Generally said, spies usually run the high risk to serve their country, particularly in wartime. However, in wartime there is a probability for spies to be executed if they are caught. The beginning of spying served for getting information which was mainly significant for winning various battles and wars. The significance of spying itself in military matters has been perceived since the early recorded history, and spies are as old as history itself. Like everything else, spying can be traced back to the bible. In 1480 B.C, Moses used twelve men to spy in the Land of Canaan. Every single man was taken from the different tribe. One man was called Joshua, who was a son of Nuns. In the book of Joshua we can get information about a trip of two men to Jericho where they were forced to stay in the house of Rahab, the house of a whore. From this point of view, the relationship between espionage and love stories is neither an invention of colportage nor of secret services, but as old as the world´s second oldest craft. 3 Around 334 B.C. Alexander the Great established the first postal organization based on the espionage.4 Or in 878 A.D King Alfred the Great, “pioneer of the English secret service“, as a bard strolled and observed the Danish military camps to gain sufficient information which should help the English to defeat the Danes. 5 Also in ancient China espionage played a very important role. “Espionage, strategy and tactics were known as The Art of War – Sun Tzu, 500-320 B.C. Sun Tzu was considered to be the author of The Art of War, which was a Chinese book on military strategy. This philosophy stresses the unpredictability of battle, the importance of deception and surprise, the close relationship between politics and military policy”. 6 The ancient Egyptian and the Hebrew used spies as well, as in the story of Rahab. Even feudal Japan used ninja spies to gather information. Also later in Elizabethan England spying played a significant role not only
3 Markus, Wolf. Spionage Chef im geheimen Krieg. München: List Verlag GmbH. 1997. p. 149. 4 Markus, Wolf. Spionage Chef im geheimen Krieg. München: List Verlag GmbH. 1997. p. 150 5 Introduction and Short History of Spies and Spying. Trivia-Library.com. Web 20 March 2009 < http://www.trivia-library.com/a/introduction-and-short-history-of-spies-and-spying.htm> 6 The Art of War. Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia. 28 March 2009
10 but mainly in foreign politics. England in the period of the Queen Elizabeth was on the verge of disaster. In this world information was power. Francis Walsingham was the first “spymaster” in the modern sense. 7 His methods are similar to modern methods of espionage and under his influence many modern espionage strategies were established in England. He directed a network of spies accross the Europe, including double agents in Spain and Rome – the main enemies of the Queen Elizabeth and her protestant system. Walsingham cipher expert´s ability to decipher other peoples secrets messages made him a mightier man of the young Elizabeth rule. 8 Many times in history spying was also based on the woman´s help, which demonstrates various stories, e.g. Delilah used her beauty to betray Samson or Mata Hari spied in the First World War to gain secret information for the German Army. Spies uncover valuable information which can often provide the key platform needed to defeat the enemy. Spies usually detect and gather military, political and nowadays also industrial and technological data about one country for the benefit of another. Most modern spies work for a certain intelligence or some secret service. They are usually sent on some specific intelligence missions and actions, such as forwarding message, killing somebody, organizing a resistance or generally to find out any information that might be useful. Spying involves more than searching and then forwarding information. Sometimes the human cost of such actions can be terribly high. Spies mostly run the risk and if captured, it could mean a long prison sentence or even execution for them. To elude disclosure and betrayal, spies trust no one and learn to live fully “undercover”. Spies usually pay too high price for their decision to be involved in such dangerous activity and of course, for their success. They are forced to give up a career, family life and also friendship. Even if they retire, they are forced to make compromises. Mostly the country, where they operate, is not their homeland, but often a society, where usually the custom and language are different. These all facts make it hard and impossible for them to return to a normal everyday life. The menace of foreign espionage is mostly used as a justification for suppression and the restriction of civil rights in many countries. The defencesive side of intelligence activity which leads in preventing another nation from obtaining such data, is known as counterespionage. There are many counterespionage organizations which guard and
7 Hutchinson Robert. Elizabeth´s Spymaster. New York: St.Martin Press. 2006. P.9 8 Hutchinson, Robert.:op.cit.,10
11 supervise their country´s secrets, follow and capture spies or perhaps provide them with false information. Counterespionage services sometimes have tendency to use double agents, it means men who make believe to spy for a specific enemy, but in the matter of fact are all the time loyal. They have tendency to pretend something all the time. The assignment of double agents can create confusion. Double agents are mostly equipped with false data. Under international law, intelligence activities are not illegal and that´s why are not forbidden. However, every nation has its laws against espionage. Many years ago, spies, were mostly amateur agents with low technology. Even a radio transmitter was a scarce thing. All this entire lack was caused with the approaching World War II and the scantiness of material equipment and finance. Over the time espionage has made a big progress. Nowadays, spies use the latest scientific methods, aids and equipment. In the areas of radio signal interception and high-attitude photography new technological advances are fully used and supplemented. Also equipment from in space placed satellites and high-attitude planes has become a significant espionage technique. The procedure of code creating and decoding have become fully computerized and automated, and at the same time became very foolproof and effective. Espionage as an integral part of the intelligence activity is also related to analysis of diplomatic reports, commercial statistics, newspapers, technical publications and radio/ television broadcast etc. The espionage in the world of twenty-first century is challenging and is relatively unpredictable. No one knows what direction a new development takes. Although rising technology uncovers many secrets, individual agents still play and will play a key role in the field of espionage also in future. The prospects of that old profession – spy profession, indicate to be just as busy and interest-holding as in the past. Generally said, spying can help make the world safer, particularly in time of regional instability, white slavery, terrorism, exuberance of weapons of mass destruction and illicit traffic of drugs. There is a serious menace from international terrorism, the most significant terrorist menace comes from Al Qaida and associated networks of Al Qaida, Northern Ireland related terrorism, Islamic radicals, ETA etc. Nowadays the menace we are confronted with, is not common. It represents a threat of a different nature from anything the world has had to face before, but the contemporary world must adjust to such a new nature of threat. And also even spies must conform to it and combine their abilities, possibilities and talents according to what the mission requires and awaits. Spies working for various world-wide secret services provide governments and
12 authorities with useful information to promote and defend the national security and economic prosperity. They are responsible for protecting the country and its citizens against organized threats. Their activities can save many lives and protect much of what is valuable to all of us.
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3. The First Novels with Crime Elements and their development
The eighteenth and nineteenths centuries brought big changes to Great Britain. The transformation of Britain into the industrial country with the help of an industrial development was a gradual and slowly process that started in the eighteenth century. This underlying industrial trend continually influenced and changed the British nation through the following nineteenth century. Great Britain was becoming the centre of an industrial life and world of ideas. Cotton mills and ironworks transformed and industrialized Northern England. While the north was transformed into an industrialized part of the country, the south, represented and dominated first of all by London, was the centre of commerce, politics, intelligence, science and culture. We can also assume that the introducing and building the railway in Britain had a positive impact on future development in this country, particularly it shortened the space and time. The industrial development had its own specifics. On the one hand British industrial expansion moved the whole country into an era of prosperity, on the other hand huge masses of population suffered from the economic problems. In rural areas, the impacts of agricultural depression were underlined by draconian laws and enclosures that drove cottagers out of their homes led to the fact that people were becoming more and more exploited or were forced to emigrate abroad. 9 In other words, British relations were connected with social injustice and a legal system was based and administered in favor mostly of the privileged and wealthy people. What was positive for the political formation in Great Britain, we can surmise, is the matter of fact that Britain was not devastated and destroyed by the revolutions and uprisings like old continental Europe. Some of these European revolutions brought their nations more civil rights and reforms in the legal fields, what was not the case in Great Britain. These nations struggled against the absolute monarchs insisting on Catholicism and mostly on legal system without firm rules. The British people of eighteenth-century were proud of their law. It was a law based on English Liberty, won during the constitutional struggles of the seventeenth century. In England all human beings were equal before the law and had the right for a trial before their peers. 10 “From the mid-
9 James, Louis. The Victorian Novel. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 2006. p.11-13 10 Kadlecová, Marta., Schelle, Karel. Obecné dějiny státu a práva. II. Státy západní Evropy a USA. Brno: Masarykova univerzita. 1993. p.206-207.
14 eighteenth century parliament authorized the payment of expenses in successful prosecutions if the prosecutor was poor. Moreover the attention was focused on the brutality of the eighteenth-century Bloody Code, the sense of capital punishment and prison as a place of punishment in the light of reformation”. 11 The literature played a very important role for British people during their history, and especially the eighteenth and nineteenth century are considered as the most flourishing periods of English literature. If we should answer the question, what is the purpose of literature at all, we will get several responses. It can be said that early literary works mostly had religious or didactic purpose or even moralizing. Literature as written art in which a writing device is used to put words on paper can have hundreds of purposes, but there are some of the most important ones here. Literature has a very important function within the context of society and history. Literature is simply an instrument of the world changes because the whole world civilization is based on communication. Literature can be then considered as a fine communication to express our thoughts, wishes, hopes, presumptions and ideas and at the same time as a device to get to know about different people and races and their history. History, language, culture, science and art – that everything depends on continuous communication. The whole life of ours depend on the communication. The literature containing information about a race or people gives us the hints, clews which they have been recorded through the time. Another purpose of literature is to entertain. Such entertainment might invoke horror and sadness, sorrow or disappointment as well as laughter, surprise, enthusiasm and excitement. And the final and the most important purpose of literature is the expression of self. Self-expression, speaking our minds stands with the fact that all human beings are capable to express themselves with help of language and literature. Literature helps people discover and find themselves. It puts its readers inside into their feelings, thoughts, pasts, futures, wishes, dreams and values. From the above mentioned facts we can conclude that also the eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature in Britain had the same purpose, to entertain, to serve a good communication among people and to help to create a reader´s self-expression etc. It can be assumed that even in the eighteenth century publishing of the books and other stuff remained an exclusive matter, not only in Great Britain but in the whole civilized world. Books were considered as an expensive luxury goods made in small
11 Emsley, Clive. The Newgate Calendar. Ware: Wordsworth Classic of World Literature. 1997. p.XIV.
15 limited amount designed and intended for the rich and the privileged people. “Since the books of Walter Scott had been produced on a mass scale in comparison with the other authors, the previous old terms started to change. The average sale of the books grew. “It is estimated that only between 1837 and 1901 some 60 000 novels were published in Britain”. 12 The origin of the novel as a literary genre in England at all can be found in the 18th century through the work of Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding. 13 It can be said that around the time when Charles Dickens and other authors won a huge audience for their serial publications, the novel reached the peak of its popularity. What should be represented in such a novel? To answer such a question, we will come to conclusion that the typical general elements of a novel are plot, setting, character, narrative method, and point of view, scope, and myth and symbolism. Another important element is length, typically having a plot which is connected with actions speech and thoughts of the character. 14 Novels can be then divided into various types and styles including gothic, picaresque, epistolary, romantic, realistic and historical novel. The publishing in the Victorian era can be distinguished between the 1830´s and the 1870´s – the era of Trollope, Thackeray, Dickens, and George Elliot, and the 1880 and 1890´s – the period of Gissing, Moore, Corelli etc. The fiction in the Victorian era was created in accordance with unwritten set of rules which were required by the general public. These unwritten principles forbade the direct depiction of sensual or sexual things and at the same time dictated explicit ideas of class, gender and British character, which were binding.15 “Nothing should appear in a novel that a middle-class British father would be ashamed to read aloud to his family or might make young daughter blush”. 16 While Thackeray opposed such abridgement in the preface to Pendemnis and Dickens stultified them in Our mutual friend, the most of the Victorian novel writers accentuated the very high reputation of England novels and reclined on their good sense, sanity and purity.17 The following generations can see it as a prudery and erderliness.
12 James, Louis. The Victorian Novel. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 2006. p.14. 13 Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2000. p. 302-303 14 Velardi, Patrick. Plot, Character und Setting: A study of Mystery and Detective Fiction. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. 10 November 2009
16 A dissimilar view of the general public was placed as on the Newgate novel as on the sensational genre. The Newgate novel and sensational novel were both literary concept with plots focusing on the criminal deeds, and it can be said that their formation is probably connected with the increase of the newspapers. Newgate fiction had certainly a large influence on the representation of crime in the nineteenth-century novel in general, and on the shaping of genres like the sensational novel and the detective novel are. The Newgate novels can be considered as crime novels, and, in some cases as novels with historical elements, which described the adventurous stories of legendary eighteenth- century criminals. By the start of the nineteenth century, crime fiction did not point to the status of justice, but was formed as literature genre with the general purpose to entertain. Later the interest of readers changed. The stories about the criminals were superceded by the stories where the main figures were involved in capturing and punishing the criminals. The ground of a literature of detection was laid.
3.1 The Newgate Novel
The background of spy fiction can be seen in so called Newgate and sensation novels which played a very important role in English literature and which could inspire many other literary genres. What is interesting is the fact that the first crime literature depicted the criminals as the harmonious and positive heroes. The Newgate novels or so called Old Bailey novels were created in England from the late 1820´s until the 1840´s and were determined to glamorize the lives of the criminals which they pictured. Most Newgate novels took their inspiration from the Newgate Calendar, a biography of famous criminals. The first Newgate Calendar appeared in 5 volumes in 1773, and later calendars in 1824-26. These stories came up anonymously. 18 Newspapers and periodicals helped sales with good crime stories, especially with sensational violent crime. During the eighteenth century biographies and autobiographies of offenders (Captain John Kidd, Jack Sheppard, Jonathan Wild, Dick Turpin. Several of these had never seen the inside of Newgate.19 ) started to come up to and the careers of
18 What is the Newgate Calendar? Ryerson University Canada. 15 October 2009
17 burglars, highwayman, murderers and pirates were focused on. 20 Printers were probably so using the name with Newgate attribute to sell more such stories. The literature of the eighteenth century treats the crime in a specific way. “The main tool of law-enforcement was the fear of horrific punishment if caught: the so called “Bloody Code” which penalized even minor thefts with death.” 21 The Bloody Code of the eighteenth century was known for its brutality. Exile overseas, to the America, Australia or New Zealand, was the next punishment. The Newgate Calendar (generally known from 1773)22 is one of the first, and maybe the most prosperous collection of the stories of criminals. It took its name from Newgate London´s prison. 23 From this main London´s prison, the criminals were taken through the excited crowds to the gallows at Tyburn. 24 Newgate was the most well-known prison of eighteenth-century in Great Britain and it was not intended as the place for the execution of punishment, it was mainly a place for those who were awaiting trial at the court of the Old Bailey. The Old Bailey was the criminal court for the capital of London which met eight times during the year. 25 The calendars were the lists of prisoners shaped and prepared for trial at the judicial sitting. The calendars provided detailed printed information of the accused and of their misdeeds and their copy was generally wrapped around the indictments handed and presented to the court.26 Newgate novels were crime novels, and, in some cases novels with historical elements, which tracked the adventurous stories of legendary eighteenth-century criminals. Their settings ranged from castles to various nests intended for frequently meetings of the underworld members. The Newgate stories tended to glamorize crime, and spread likings and sympathy for criminals and their deeds, but not for the victims of crime. 27
20 What is the Newgate Calendar? Ryerson University Canada. 15 October 2009
18 As it was said before, the Newgate novels found their names, their leading characters and plots from the various stories of the Newgate Calendar. Moreover these stories were connected solely with male authors. Edward Bulwer Lytton was the first author involved in Newgate and he created the novel called Paul Clifford (published in 1830), which is considered as the first novel with Newgate elements.28 This novel represents an attack on the obsolete legal and penal system. “The legal and penal systems of Clifford´s day were oppressive, corrupt, inhumane and ineffective” and prisons brutal and insanitary.29 “According to Bulwer, crime is both a social construct and the product of unfair social conditions.” 30 Bulwer tended to glamorize his highwaymen by treating them as noble vagabonds.31 Bulwer´s another novel, Eugene Aram (1832) was also Newgate novel with a criminal hero, but based on an existing murderer who had been hanged in 1759. 32Also here is crime glorified and glamorized. Also William Harrison Ainsworth supplemented the lists of Newgate novelists with his Rookwood (1834), which was the romance about the highwayman Dick Turpin, the criminal who really existed.33 Ainsworth involved some gothic (“the most prevalent fictional genres of the late eighteenth century, the gothic - the first gothic novel Horace Walpole´s The Castle of Otrando34, was the genre where powerful men with guilty secrets had been forced to confess their crimes by a variety of pressures ranging from haunting to more internalized torments”35) in his Rookwood. In contrast to Ainsworth´s thoughtless romances, many of Bulwer´s crime novels, primarily Paul Clifford were determined as critique of social injustice and a legal system that was created and exercised in favor of the rich and privileged class. 36The genre reached its peak with Ainsworth´s Jack Shepperd published
28 Baldellou, Marta Miquel. Bulwer-Lytton´s Paul Clifford and Poe´s tales. The Victorian Web. 6 November 2009
19 in 1839, a novel about the life of Jack Shepperd, a thief who was hanged in 1724. 37 The author also tended to highlight the story with his experience of lower life and underworld. Also Charles Dickens´ Oliver Twist can be considered as Newgate novel, because the plot is concerned with crime. Dickens´ all writings, from the newspaper sketches of the 1830s (later as Sketches by Boz) over the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)38 were touched with the theme of crime and criminals. Dickens showed also his deep concern about social problems. 39 His stories focused on criminals and poor life and were determined to shock the middle-class readers with life´s reality which they could normally not meet in their lives. “Dickens took his criminal types and criminal scenes partly from the Newgate literature, partly from his own observation, and partly from the contemporary newspaper police reports and articles on juvenile crime. Other Newgate elements include the depiction and description of the habitants and inhabitants of the criminal underworld. Like the other Newgate novelists Dickens was accused of representing criminals too sympathetically.”40 Also Dickens depicted and portrayed criminals too sympathetically and sometimes he identified himself or his relatives with them. Another of Dickens´ novel with Newgate elements was his historical novel “Barnaby Rudge where Dickens took a Paul´s Clifford´s theme of oppressive laws as instrument of an unfair legal system”. 41 Unlike Ainsworth or Bulwer, Dickens did not arouse and provoke the sympathy for his criminals. He tried to withdraw and distance the real lives of his characters from the seamy side´s histories of the Newgate Calendars. His fiction was based on the indictment of a cruel and oppressive society and at the same time he involved the elements of menace and mystery. By the start of the nineteenth century, crime fiction was not only focusing on the status of justice, but shaped a commercial literature which were intended for relaxation.
37 Jack Sheppard. Answers.com. 23 November 2009 http://www.answers.coom/topic/jack-sheppard-novel Priestman, Martin.: Op.cit.,p.29 38 Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.409 39 Collins, Philip. Dickens and Crime. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 1995. p.114-115 40 Priestman, Martin. The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003. p.27-28. 41 Priestman, Martin. .: Op.cit.,p.28
.
20 Later in the midst of interest stood those who followed and captured the criminals, not the criminals themselves which led to the rise of a literature of detection. The first British literary detective novel, however, did not appear until Dickens´ novel Bleak House was created. 42
3.2 The Sensation Novel
The Newgate novel and the sensational novel were genres of the literature of crime, which were probably relatively in great vogue of the public. The sensation novel was a literary genre of fiction, which also focused on tales based on criminal stories. The sensation novels included elements of gothic and romantic genres. In this way the sensation novel distinguished itself from other contemporaneous genres, including the gothic novel, by using these themes in ordinary, familiar and domestic setting. 43Events happening in sensation novels were something new and different from the contemporary comfortable middle-class.44 The sensational novel was not concerned with the criminal lower world but it examined the seamy side, weak point of creditable and respectable society. The plots and involutions involved criminal deeds. Sensational novels were as tales using nervous, psychological, sexual and social scares and shocks, which underlined the whole atmosphere of the story. 45 These novels mostly were distinguished with complicated “plots involving bigamy, adultery, seduction, fraud, forgery, blackmail, kidnapping and, sometimes, murder.” 46 The plots were taken and chosen from real life crime, as reported in contemporary newspapers rather than from the Newgate Calendars. Sensational novel tended to be connected with a secret and also contained an explicit degree of criminal activity. Though the criminal activity in the story was not central and significant to the narrative but it helped to make the story more sensational and interesting.
42 Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.390,402. 43 Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2000. p.438-439 44 The sensation novel. Wikipedia Free Encyklopedia.Web 10 October 2009
21 “Wilkie Collins´s The Woman in White is sometimes called as the first true sensational novel”. 47 It was the novel written in an epistolary form and tale which can be considered as an early example of detective fiction.48 “Dickens´ Great Expectations49, published also in All the Year Round from December 1860, can be also reviewed as a sensational novel.”50 “One of the most successful of all sensation novels was Mary Elizabeth Braddon´s Lady Audley´s Secret (1861), a tale of a bigamist and arsonist” 51. The controversy plot of bigamy and attempted murder was regarded fairly immoral at the time of publishing, but it was extremely best-selling” 52
3.3 The Main Differences between the Newgate and the Sensation Novel
One of the main differences between the Newgate novel and the sensation novel is that the latter mostly dealt with upper- and middle-class society crime. 53 In the sensation novel the scene of the crime takes place at home than on the street or open spaces, in the living room rather than in pub or public rooms. The family became the base and place for crime, and the secrets of the family are responsible for most of troubles and problems, which happen in the story. Crime and punishment applied their force and influence within the family.54 “Although the court of law was the source for many sensation plots, sensation novels do not end in the courtroom or the prison. Crime was dealt with in and by the family.”55 One of the more important differences between sensation fiction and the Newgate novel are the shift of focus from crime to its
47 Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.439. Priestman, Martin. .: Op.cit.,p. 33 48 The Woman in White. 4 December 2009.
22 detection.”56 Another aspect of mentioning is that the greater prominence was given to female criminals and female detectives who slowly started to appear. Like the Newgate authors, also sensation authors can be considered unrealistic. Sensation novelists did not glamorize villainy, but they presented the stories in an exaggerated and inadequate version of the modern world.57 Both, the Newgate and sensation novel provide interesting examples of life between high and low culture and both emphasized the need for a necessary unavoidable change. And the last thing which should be pointed out is that sensational novels were written mostly by female authors and Newgate novels mostly by male ones.
3.4 Other novelists and authors of the Victorian era
In the first half of the nineteenth century George William McArthur Reynolds (1814- 1879) enjoyed a great popularity though he seems to be forgotten now. His best-known work was the long-running serial The Mysteries of London (1844) whose theme he borrowed from Eugene Sue´s Les Mystéres de Paris (The Mysteries of Paris). He lived in Paris where he started to publish a daily English newspaper since 1830´s. 58 He was well-known as a great journalist and editor, and as well as a bestselling author of historical romances, gothic and sensation novels, oriental tales, and domestic fiction. “The Mysteries of London was one of the most famous “penny bloods”, which were very cheap sensational serials published weekly and created for working class readers, throughout the Victorian era.”59 “The Mysteries of London and its lengthier sequel The Mysteries of the Court of London involved elements of “urban mystery genre”. It was also a mix gothic novel elements with its haunted castles, strange villains plus elements of a style of sensational novel. They all were stories based on the shocks and scares of life, mostly illustrated and
56 Priestman, Martin. .: Op.cit.,p. 34 57 Allingham, Philip. The Victorian Senastion Novel, 1860-1880 – „preaching to the nerves instead of the judgment“. The Victorian Web. 2 December 2009
23 decorated with lurid engravings.”60 They were determined for simple readers, mostly poor and without education. Stories were designed and intended for an adult audience because the crime might have a terrible effect on the young people of the Victorian era. The writings of G.W.M.Reynolds enjoyed a massive circulation. “Attacks on the royal influenced press were common in anti-monarchist publications like Reynolds´ Weekly Newspaper. Royal reportage was also frequently mocked by satirical journals like Punch. The media sensation around the Queen Victoria was also the subject of Reynolds retelling of the “Boy Jones” stories in his famous series, The Mysteries of London (article: A stranger in her majesty´s bedroom).” 61 His name is also associated with “the novel of urban mysteries”, which title originated in the mysteria mania that seized both sides of the channel after the enormous success of these both authors (Sue and Reynolds). 62 Another author who paid his attention to London was Charles Dickens. His depiction of London influenced the shaping conception of Victorian London for all following generations. He showed London´s street and neighborhood in Sketches by Boz in vivid, often grotesque ways. He depicted London in Oliver Twist or in the book of Bleak House. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) can be sometimes connected with a negative role in the history of crime literature due to his opposition to the Newgate novels, though he was very interested in crime. “Almost all Thackeray´s early fiction is concerned with rogues making their selfish way through society over the heads of dupes and in the shelter of social pretense and snobbery. The supreme rogue is e.g. Becky Sharp herself in Vanity Fair.” 63 Thackeray´s seemed to criticize Bulwer and his parody of Eugene Aram. Thackeray´s attack on Newgate fiction can be considered through his novel Catherine. He took the plot of Catharine Hayes from the cases in the Newgate Calendar and overworked it far beyond the facts of the case. 64 Thackeray disapproved the glorification of criminals, criminal acts and low life. He believed in fiction to have an educational function. In his opinion the romantic depiction of crime was capable to
60 George W.M.Reynolds. Wikipedia Free Encyklopedia. 10 October 2009 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._M._Reynolds> 61 Maunder, Andrew. Victorian Crime, Madness and Sensation (Nineteenth Century Series). Alder- shot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. 2004. p-.18-19 . 62 Maxwell, Richard. The Mysteries of Paris and London( Victorian Literature and Culture Series). Westport: The University of Virginia. 1992. p.9-10. 63 Borowitz, Albert. „Why Thackeray went to see a manhanged?“ The legal Studies Forum, Volume 29, No. 2,2005. Crime gone by collected essays of Albert Borowitz 1966-2005. Web 8 October 2009
24 induce imitative criminal behavior. 65 “Thackeray with his essays of 1839 and 1840 attacked the capital punishment in Britain and supported the abolition of this punishment. This aspect of Thackeray´s career is not known, in comparison both with his role in the Newgate controversy and with Dickens´ role several years later among the advocates of abolition. Throughout his life, Thackeray appears to have been obsessed with capital punishment, both as a physical fact capable of arousing morbid fascination and, at the same time, as a personal issue intimately related to his own speculations about the meaning of life and death, health and illness, and divine involvement in human affairs “ 66 Another leading novelist of the Victorian era was Mary Anne Evans (1819-1880), better known as George Elliot. She was an author of novels like Middlemarch (1872), Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Silas Marner (1861).67 Her novels were full of realism and psychological insight. As themes she depicted the rural society, the cases of outsiders, small town prosecutions, the status of women and nature of marriage, political reforms etc. Her characters were taken usually from certain social classes linked with birth and money. Figures were portrayed within their social climbing as well as sinking or falling. 68 Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson (1810-1865) allias as Mrs. Gaskell, was also very famous English novelist and short story writer. In her novels North and South (1854) or Sylvia´s Lovers used local dialect words in the speeches of middle-class characters and also of the narrator itself. 69 She associated with the stream of realism. Greater than any other Victorian novelist can be considered Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), which was an author of more than forty novels and also short stories. Trollope gives us various portrayals of women and paid attention to their positions in Victorian society. He described realistically Victorian world. His most successful novels are The Warden (1857), Barchester Towers (1854), Dr. Thome (1858)
65 Borowitz, Albert. „Why Thackeray went to see a manhanged?“ The legal Studies Forum, Volume 29, No. 2,2005. Crime gone by collected essays of Albert Borowitz 1966-2005. 8 October 2009
25 and The Prime Minister (1876). 70 The story from The Warden is set in the imaginary English county Barsetshore and tells about the clergyman whose comfortable life is destroyed when he is accused of misusing money, fraud. So this is also the story with a crime theme. Another later Trollope´s novel The Way We Live Now (1877-73) is drawn as a social satire, which has found comparison with Thackeray´s Vanity Fair (1848). The central character is an Austrian Jewish financier who is involved in financial and political intrigues in London world. 71As a writer Trollope wrote in a very realistic way. Another Victorian realist, novelist and poet who is worth of mentioning is Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) who set the scene of his works (as Trollope did it) in the imaginary world of Wessex which he created for this purpose. He had a deep likings for the rural way of life which he had known as a child. 72 For his main novels Tess of the d´Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895) received much criticism for the presentation of the immoral woman and big sins, and the decline of class system and values. His main characters were mostly labeled with tragic, unfair, immoral and sometimes with obscene features. 73 He worked with a crime as the theme, which was first of all the crime of rape and murder (see Tess of the d´Urbeville). As Trollope as Hardy didn´t glamorize the crime, but both of them saw it in his realistic substance and perception. Trollope even with a light scent of satire. Hardy´s another well-known works are The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887), Two on a Tower (1895). 74
70 Sanders, Andrew.:Op.cit.,p.417-419 71 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.1007-1009 72 Sanders, Andrew.:Op.cit.,p.463-466 73 Tess of the d´Ubervilles. Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. Web 2 December 2009
26 4. The Spy Novel in English Literature
There has been spies as long as there has been war and war interests. While spies have a long history dating back to biblical times, in espionage literature it can be said that spies made their appearance relatively late. Espionage fiction is considered as a relatively recent invention. Spy story as a literary genre appeared before World War I at about the same time when the first modern intelligence services started to appear. The rise of spy novels can be associated with a perception of national insecurity in time of changing international relations. The world presented in these novels is a dangerous and Britain is presented as the target of the envy, hatred, hostility of the other European countries and spying was one of the activities of those countries which they do to cause any harm to Britain. Spy novel as the genre is difficult to be defined because its borders are not clear, something between the crime novel and adventure novel. Many books with spy theme contain all their elements. From that reason we can assume that the history of the spy novel is probably almost as long as the history of the crime novel itself. “The earlier novels were mostly closely connected to the crime novel and the “gentleman thief” novels.” The spy story is a close but distinct variation on the tale of detection with the difference that there is no discrete crime involved but rather a covert action which, as John Cawelti and Bruce Rosenberg argue, transgresses conventional,moral, or legal boundaries.” 75 The action of the story is mostly evidently political and the genre is featured and defined by its international subject. Another distinction from the detection genre is that the investigator is often an agent. The spy novel has a unique character, its first purpose, it can be said, is to entertain. A good spy novel enables a reader to feel the world from the inside perspective of the spy.
4.1 The First Spy Novels and their Authors
“The first novel to deal centrally with espionage was James Fenimore Cooper´s The Spy (1821) which is set in the war between Britain and the newly independent United States. “76 James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was the first novelist to get involved in the theme of espionage. Cooper could not use examples and instead of them he applied the
75 Priestman, Martin.:op.cit. p.115 76 Priestman, Martin.:op.cit. p.115-116
27 elements of other genres – first of all, the romantic historical novels of Sir Walter Scott. 77 His works The Spy: A tale of the neutral ground (1821) and The Bravo were set in the period of the American Revolution.78 Cooper´s The Spy was linked with the above mentioned Sir Walter Scott´s Waverly series, and told an adventurous tale about the American Revolution, the righteousness of the uprising and the failure of the British army, set in Westchester country. The protagonist was Harvey Birch, who spied for George Washington. Scott inspired Cooper to draw stereotypes of light and dark, good and evil and separate the female into the fair and pure, the dark and tainted. 79 Cooper introduced with Birch a typical American character figure into U.S. literature. Birch was a spy, who fought against the British, though he was captured several times by the Americans, mysteriously managed to escape each time. Harley Birch is a peddler and patriot with big amount of patriotism. His patriotism accompanied Birch to his destiny. 80 Cooper used love and loyalty to the country as the main theme. Another Cooper´s book with a spy theme was The Bravo (1831). 81 “In time of Cooper´s life spies and their activities were dangerous, morally tarnished, and prone to scandals, illegally, or both. Spies were considered to be liars, traitors, thieves or even worse – Cooper´s fictional context shifted public opinion toward viewing espionage as a patriotic duty, and seeing the spy in an entirely new light – “the unsunguinary hero”.82
After Coopers´ novel in 1821, there was no more spy fiction until Charles Dickens (1812-1870) published A Tale of Two Cities in 1859 which was a historical story set in the time period of the French Revolution. 83 And 44 more years passed until the next spy
77 Franklin, Wayne. The New World of James Fenimore Cooper. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2007. p.8-10, 399-401 78 Drabble, Margareth. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford University Press. 1997. p.195 James Fenimore Cooper. Krjasto Web. 17 March 2009. < http://kirjasto:sci.fi/jfcooper.html > 79 Drabble, Margareth. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford University Press. 1997. p.195 James Fenimore Cooper. Krjasto Web. 17 March 2009. < http://kirjasto:sci.fi/jfcooper.html > 80 Franklin, Wayne. The New World of James Fenimore Cooper. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2007. p.8-10, 399-401 81 Ousby, Ian. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. 1992. p.221 82 Woods, Brett F. Revolution and Literature: Cooper´s The Spy Revisited. Early America. 14 April 2009.
28 novel Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers (1870-1922) came up in 1903. 84 Erskiene Robert Childers was writer and political activist. He is remembered for his novel Riddle of the Sands which is the story of two amateur English yachtsmen who sailed to the Frisian Islands and found out the German invasion preparation plans of England. 85 . Childers skillfully linked a story of a yachting on the Frisian Islands with a detection plot. The novel contained within the text a number of maps and charts so that reader could the events visually. This novel totally avoids the sensationalism and xenophobia of Le Queux and other contemporaries. 86
A handful of further literary characters such as Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories, were also clearly important predecessors to twentieth-century detective and espionage fiction. “According to Holmes, the “ideal detective” needs not only “the power of observation and that of deduction” but also “knowledge”.87 Though Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) is more known as a author of detective fiction, some of his stories are in matter of fact early examples with the spy elements, e.g. The Naval Treaty, The Second Stain. In His Last Bow is the main protagonist Sherlock Holmes himself even as a double agent giving false data to the German army during the World War I. 88 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer, poet, literary critic and editor who is also worth of mentioning as for the authors engaged in detective story. Poe is known for his tale of mystery and is considered as an inventor of the detective story. 89 Two Edgar Allan Poe´s stories are regarded as early spy stories. The Purloined Letter (1845) featured C.Auguste Dupine who was more spy than detective. 90 Poe´s Gold Bug
84 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.184 Sanders, Andrew.:Op.cit.,p.408 85 Erskine Childers. Fantastic Fiction Web. 10 May 2009.
29 (1843) can also be considered to be a spy story, as the focus was put on the writer´s interest in ciphers and codes.91 “In general, it can be said that detective stories can be divided between the American, which are set in the world of industry and finance, and those which more focus on the family and family life, home. Agatha Christie (1890-1976), one of the most successful female detective writers of the 20th century. “Fleming is somewhat Dickensian in his villains. The Bond is not a one-dimensional figure, he is the narrator almost in all the novels (except The Spy Who Loved Me). Although Holmes and Bond have something in common, Bond does not have his Baker Street and Holmes does not have Bond´s sexuality. The mission of Bond is central, and he is a dedicated servant of the right cause. What is common for them, both are gentlemen and each of them is significant for the detective literary genre. “Unlike the “Queens of Crime” – Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Patricia Wentworth or P.D.James – with their emphasis on domestic settings, there was a strong interest in a wider world in both Doyle and Fleming “ 92
4.2 The Glamorizing of Spy Novel
In the second half of the 19th century the international relations changed and a feeling and perception of national insecurity started to appear in the world. Moreover there was a rivalry among many countries, especially that between Great Britain and Russia. It was first of all a complex of rivalry linked with wars, assassinations, and espionage conspiracies. The Great Game was something like later the Cold War. The rivalry between Great Britain and Russia was called “the Great Game” and ranged from Europe to the Far East. The Great Game is a term used for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the above mentioned nations for the supremacy and priority in Central Asia. 93 The classic Great Game period is generally dated from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. 94 The competition for influence in the
91 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.786 92 Britton, Wesley A. Beyond Bond: Spies in fiction and film. Westport: Praeger Publishers. 2005. Pp.203 93 Britain vs Russia. The Great Game. 3 December 2009
30 territory that separated Russia and Great Britain became then also called as the Great Game. The British were afraid that Russia might gain Russian influence in Asian area (Persia and Afghanistan) and use it first of all for the military purpose. “On borders of India – so called “the Game” forced Britain into military adventure as in Afghanistan as in Tibet. But the British had to face increasing pressure by Russia also in the other area of the Great Game, the Near East (Turkey) “95 Russian power was over under the Czar Nicholas II in the first decade of the twentieth century. In August 1907, the Anglo- Russian Convection in St. Petersburg formally closed the Great Game, although a certain rivalry, tension and espionage have tendency to go on. 96 The rivalry between Great Britain and Russia was also over with the beginning of the WWI when both these nations had to fight together against Germany – the fact that nobody would have believed several years before – Germany was considered and seen as an imminent menace. From the literally point of view, the term “the Great Game” is apparently associated with Arthur Conolly, a British intelligence officer who served in India. This person was introduced in Rudyard Kipling´s novel Kim (1901), which is regarded as a spy novel because it deals with espionage plot. 97
The spy story as a mix of international intrigues and adventure novel appeared to exist before World War I. Around that time the first modern intelligence services started to be formed. Their rise of the intelligence services was influenced by feeling and perception of national insecurity in the world with changing international relations. The action in these spy novels is mostly evidently political. The genre is mostly concerned with an international subject which determines and defines the genre by some means. As it was said before, spy novel as the genre itself is difficult to be defined because its borders between the crime novel and the adventure novel are not clear. General heroes of this new fiction were mostly and “typically young, male, athletic, handsome gentlemen, usually only making amateur excursions in the field of espionage.”.98 We can assume that the spy novel development at the beginning of the twentieth century was inspired
95 Britain vs Russia. The Great Game. 3 December 2009
31 most specifically by the forming and shaping of organized intelligence services in the period before WWI. In my opinion, the growth of the British publishing industry at the end of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the following century also contributed to increasing interest in novels including spy thrillers. These books usually depicted some good and evil characters and featured current politics. By the end of the nineteenth century a fear of the enemies was not so fundamental thatś why it stopped functioning. Around that time the glamorizing of a British spy went on, mostly in popular press, at the turn of the century the interest of the public was mostly put on Germany and Russia. It was also probably one of the reasons why in England, a variety of writers had used espionage as a main theme in their stories at the beginning of the twentieth century. Espionage put on imagination rather than actual life is connected with William Tufner Le Queux. Espionage in his eyes was glamorized. This author mainly wrote the genres of mystery, thriller and espionage, particularly in the years around World War I. “His Duckworth Drew´s adventures were precursors to later ones focused on new technology, such as an “electronic eye” – an Italian device that detonated mines.” 99 “Apart from Le Queux, the novelist usually credited with shaping the spy genre is E.Phillips Oppenheim. His The Great Impersonation (1920) reveals the interesting theme about German aggression. This novel starts its plot with meeting of two old fellow students in East African bush, one German – Baron Leopold von Ragastein, one English Sir Everald Dominey, who had a striking resemblance to each other. One of them got an idea to impersonate each other because he was interested to gain an access to the higher society. Oppenheim´s novel The Great Impersonation was made and remade into successful movies several times. Oppenheim wanted to show the fall and failure of Germany in the world war. Another Oppenheim´s novel The Kingdom of the Blind (1916), is a story about the German sinking of the British ship the Lusitania in 1915”. 100 Hungarian-born British novelist Baroness Emma Orczy (1865-1947)101, remembered as author of the Scarlet Pimpernel from the times of the French Revolution depicting adventurous stories of the Sir Percy Blakeney, who was entrusted with smuggling French aristocrats from their country to the safe place. In her another work - The Old
99 Britton, Wesley. A. Beyond Bond: Spies in fiction and film. Westport: Praeger Publishers. 2005. p.6 100 E.Phillips Oppenheim. Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. 10 December 2009. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Philips_Oppenheim> 101 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.738
32 Man in the Corner (1901), presented a hero who was a new kind of detective. She presented here a different sort of an educated man whose most values is intelligence. She also write detective stories, including Lady Molly of Scotland Yard (1910) and Unravelled Knots (1925). Her Lady Molly of Scotland Yard was an early example of a female detective as the main character. She wrote sequels - The Elusive Pimpernel (1908), The Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1933). She is mainly valued for her womanly intuition.102
4.3- The Novel of Adventure
As it was said before, the international relations in the world changed, a feeling of national insecurity started to appear and as well as a rivalry between many countries, especially between Great Britain and Russia became more and more visible. In this period novel with spy elements can be found in some novels of adventure. The adventure novels influenced spy novels and some of their elements can be seen in them. In the sense of a narrative it is typical for the adventure genre that a main figure or other major characters are placed in dangerous situations. “The adventure novel has its roots in the medieval romance with its knight hero in quest for adventure, developed from the Spanish picaresque through English and French 18th century examples (notably Defoe, Smollet and Lesage), in the 19th century, with works by Sir Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper, Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson etc. “ 103 In the 18th century novels of adventure were addressed to a broad mass reading public which corresponded with the contemporary public likings for such literary genre.
Literally it is a genre which is associated with adventure as its main theme. A construct of an adventure means an exciting story involving risk and physical danger but also courage and effort of its hero(s). The hero of a typical adventure novel has to undergo a set of adventures to reach his/her goal. Adventure novels often overlap or blend with other genres, first of all with war novels, spy novels, crime novels, fantasy,
102 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.738 103 On the Borders of the Adventure Novel: Narratives of 18th-Century Travel in Indian Territory. Web \erea \revues. 20 December 2009
33 science fiction etc. 104 The term “adventure” is concerned with things that come to pass or happen, every adventure is associated with events and with the individuals. The events are based on risk, danger, surprise, and nothing ordinary. The happenings and events in such a story are typically unpredictable and unforeseen. Many literary works contain elements of adventure, or use adventure as a medium, although their main concern is elsewhere. “The adventure novel must create with the help of literary means, a sense of adventure, or at least an adventure effect. There are two main ways in which this effect is typically created. First, there is the creation of a persona who is the subject of the adventure, often it is the first person narrator. The reader identifies with him/her, and there is an evocation of the inner state of the subject, which can be more or less active, sometimes heroic (the adventure type) or passive and suffering (the victim). Second, there is the use of narrative techniques that elicit vicarious emotions of adventure in the reader, oft through the responses of the person. “Common techniques can include the build-up of excitement, fear, or horror, the intimation of possibilities (suspense), the continual introduction of sudden, unexpected new developments etc. In repeated cycle, there can be a build-up of tension, a crisis and a release, and then more of the same.” 105 Parallel to the adventure novels there exist a non-fictional literature of “true” adventure (literature of facts). The spy novel became well-established to develop a new stream of authors who used spy novel as a background for the twenty-century feeling of the disintegration of human personality, uncertainty of human relations, and, finally, the aimlessness of human destiny. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1836) also deserves acknowledgement as being among the earliest writers of the secret agent short story genre. Rudyard Kipling´s “Kim” (1901), which was based on the Great Game (espionage and politics) between Europe and Asia in Afghanistan. Kipling´s novel takes places in India. An Anglo-Indian boy using his Indian origin as a cover for colonial espionage during the Great Game. The story of Kim is about a boy who succeeded to be recruited by the British Secret Service and under their guidance he became a spy for a mission. The story is also about Kim´s desire to be accepted towards the Empire. Though Kim wanted to be accepted, he had no loyalty to
104 The Adventure Novel. Wikipedia Free Encyklopedia. 18 October 2009 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/adventure_novel > 105 On the Borders of the Adventure Novel: Narratives of 18th-Century Travel in Indian Territory. Web \erea \revues. 20 December 2009
34 the British. He is interested in being in espionage for the adventure and fun. 106 Kipling was also an author of short stories. His first stories included in the collection Life´s Handicap – The Man who was (1890) a story of a British officer who had been captured in Russia during the intelligence service task and fled many years later. The Man who was shows seamy sides of the army, the rituals, loyalty but also the frustration of the officers. The second story The Mutiny of the Mavericks has a different theme – features the role of a secret Irish republican organization based in America which followed its goal to cause a mutiny (with the help of an agent provocateur) against the British among the Irish soldiers. 107 Another Kipling´s story with spy plot is A Burgher of the Free State and a poem with spy theme The Spies March about the role of spy in war. 108 Most of Kipling´s stories were set in India and they dealt with the fighting between the native and the British forces on the Afghanistan border. Many of them were spy stories. 109
“Riddle of the Sands” by Erskine Childers (1870-1922) appeared in 1903. Erskiene Robert Childers was a writer and political activist, worked as a clerk in the House of Commons and served as a soldier in the Boer War, and later paid attention to Irish political affairs.”110 Childers is remembered for his novel “Riddle of the Sands” which is the story of two English men who sailed with a yacht to the Frisian Islands and found out that German planned an prepared invasion to England. 111 This whole text of the novel is characterized with a good mastery for detail, high moral values, civic consciousness and political earnestness. The novel includes within the text a number of maps and charts so that reader can follow the events logically with his eyes on the maps. Moreover Childers used his credible military and navy knowledge and terms.112 This novel is free of the sensationalism and xenophobia of Le Queux and other contemporaries. Childers´ descendents are Ian Fleming´s Bond novels, and the various
106 Drabble, Margaret. The Oxford Companion to English literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1997. p.173-175 107 Sanders, Andrew.:Op.cit.,p.472-473 108 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.545-546 109 Carrington, Charles Edmund. Rudyard Kipling: His life and work. Ney York: Penguin Literary Biographis. 1959 . p. 54-62 110 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.184 111 Erskine Childers. Fantastic Fiction Web. 23 March 2009.
35 authors of the vast amount of war novels. Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) is another great spy and detective fiction writer whom the attention should be paid to. He was so great because he was considered to be the greatest thinker of the twentieth century. 113 He wrote a hundred books, contributions to poems, plays, novels and some short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. Chesterton was first of all a journalist because he wrote several hundreds of newspaper essays for Daily News and other newspapers. His style is connected with wit, wonder, surprise and humility. 114 His best-known character was the priest-detective Father Brown who as a Roman Catholic was interested in crime and in taking criminals. He became a very successful detective because he could read human nature and character, was willing and ready to risk and his incidental death did not mean anything to him. Moreover he understood the criminals and their grounds why they do such bad things. He was endowed with simple common sense and intuition what other people lacked. Stories featuring Father Brown were published in five volumes. The Innocence of Father Brown (1910), The Wisdom of Father Brown (1913), The Incredulity of Father Brown (1923), The Secret of Father Brown (1927) and The Scandal of Father Brown (1939). 115 In all volumes Chesterton shows his deep understanding for human beings and their behavior. “Father Brown´s figure was based on a real Irish Roman Catholic priest Father John O´Connor of St. Cuthbert´s, Bradford to whom The Secret of Father Brown was dedicated ( the fourth volume)”. 116 His other well-known novel is The Man who was Thursday (1908) where his spy joined the inner group of seven bombers, considered them to be anarchists, six of them all will turn out to be police informants spying on each other. His another novel with spy and detective elements was called The Man who knew too much (1922). 117 “Neither Conrad nor Chesterton takes seriously the idea of the nation under the threat which is central to John Buchan´s Richard Hannay novels.”118 John Buchan (1875-1940), rank among the authors who wrote also spy novels. He was 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, a Scottish diplomat, barrister, journalist, historian, poet and
113 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.182-183 114 Sanders, Andrew.:Op.cit.,p.491-492 115 Priestman, Martin. The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.2003. p.54. 116 Grosset, Philip. Clerical Detectives. 15 October 2009
36 novelist.119 He wrote adventure novels which are high in romance. He paid the attention to the description of the landscapes. In my opinion his stories are full of characteristic elements of nationalism. “In Buchan and the genre of the gentleman spy, patriotism was given a markedly right-wing character. “In Buchan´s world, there is really no coincidence or accident. What appears to be chance is actually the mysterious and enigmatic working of providence. This means that the novels symbolically re-enact the establishment of a desired order threatened by malign forces.”120 He became best known for his novel The Thirty-Nine Steps, as well as his horror fiction. The novel The Thirty- Nine Steps introduced his famous hero, a fictional secret agent Richard Hannay who can be found in other four novels (Greenmantle, Mr. Standfast, The Three Hostages and The Island of Sheep). The novel The Thirty-Nine Steps featured details of the urgent necessity for counterespionage in a typical German plot against the English Navy.121 Richard Hannay was depicted as a patriotic type of spy. He is described by Buchan as an engineer who used to live in South Africa, who is skilled in solving the codes, a sportsman, and above all these aspects, first of all a man with the character of a real gentleman. In Buchan´s story “there is also very little discussion of the ethics of secret service.” In general the forces which Buchan lines up show the polarity between good and evil and what is visible, his villains are very striking.122
4.4. The Deglamorising of Spy Novel
With the approaching end of nineteenth century spies were presented in a different way than it used to be in the past. They were not glamorized and glorified but seen as common people. Spies were considered as people with a certain job which is connected with a certain amount of risk and danger. They were described more in a natural way as human beings with everyday´s mistakes and problems which everybody does and has. Josef Conrad was also the author whose spy figures were deglamorized. His spy protagonists were not so self-confident and self-assured. They never were made up to
119 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.137 120 Priestman, Martin.: op.cit.,p.120-121 121 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.137 122 Priestman, Martin.:op.cit.,p.121
37 be admired or to be imitated by someone. With their appearance and abilities arouse more sorrow and mercy than whatever else. Josef Conrad (1857-1924) ( with his own name Josef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) 123 is also one of the English writing authors connected with the history of spy novel. Conrad was known as a novelist and short story writer. His literary style and anti-heroic character have influenced and inspired many writers. Though he was Polish in origin, he had a very excellent command of languages because he was able to write in English, French etc. , even the literary texts. Conrad´s novels and stories have also inspired such films as Sabotage adapted from author´s The Secret Agent or Francis Ford Coppola´s Apocalypse Now adapted from Conrad´s Heart of Darkness. 124 The Secret Agent is set in London in 1886 and deals largely with the life of Mr. Verloc and his job as a spy. Nobody had an idea that he was employed as an agent provocateur. It shows anarchist or revolutionary tendencies before many of the social and political uprisings of the twentieth century. The Secret Agent by Josef Conrad has been noted as “one of the most cited works in the American media since September 11, 2001. 125 The period after the First World War saw a number of changes and shifts in the style and structure of spy fiction. After WWI, the next phase of espionage literature reflected and depicted a perspective increasingly critical of official state authority. The spies in works by authors including Eric Ambler, Somerset Maugham, and especially Graham Greene, often are lonely human beings, individuals on the fringe of a society. Somerset Maugham´s Ashenden: Or the British Agent (1928), which was based on the author´s experiences when he worked in Switzerland for British Intelligence. Ashenden is considered as the first realistic story of espionage. William Sommerset Maugham (1874-1965) worked for British Intelligence in Europe during the war and was recruited to the network of British agencies operated in Switzerland and later in Russia. 126 “His Ashenden is a collection of linked stories which is considered to be an archetype of the espionage novel which influenced the Ian Fleming James Bond novels and a book to which more modern practitioners such as Eric Ambler, Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, Len Deighton, John le Carré, Robert Ludlum and Alan Furst are indebted for its role in developing the genre. As example of this is the device, which
123 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.217 124 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.217-218 125 The Secret Agent. Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. 10 April 2009
38 Fleming copied in the James Bond novels, of referring to the head of British Intelligence only by an initial”. 127
I have never pretended to be anything but a story teller. It has amused me to tell stories and I have told a great many. It is a misfortune for me that the telling of a story just for the sake of the story is not an activity that is in favor with the intelligentsia. In endeavor to bear my misfortunes with fortitude." (from Creatures of Circumstance, 1947)128
As an agent and writer Maugham can be considered as a link in the long tradition from Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson or Daniel Defoe to the modern period spy fiction writers like Graham Greene, John le Carré, etc. who all have worked for the secret services. “It is said that the modern spy story began with Maugham´s Ashendan, which is a collection of 6 stories set in Switzerland, France, Russia and Italy.” 129 “His life was summarized as if he had the most ordinary job in the world: Ashenden´s official existence was as orderly and monotonous as a clerk. He saw his spies at stated intervals and paid them their wages, when he could get hold of a new one he engaged him, gave him instructions and sent him off to Germany. This deglamorising of espionage was quite new and made a big impression on John le Carré who praised Maugham for being the first who “write about espionage in a mood of disenchantment and almost prosaic realistic.” 130 Since the first half of the twentieth century people not only in England and United were slowly becoming aware of international politics. With the approaching threat of WWII, a great number of writers changed the theme of their writing and started featuring international issues. Afterwards these writers returned to their usual themes. Before the outbreak of WWII two important authors of the spy fiction genre emerged. Geoffrey Household with his outstanding Rough Male 131 and Eric Ambler with series of books with spy elements, especially The Mask of Demetrios (1939) 132. In his stories,
127 Ashenden or the British Agent. Wikipedia Free Encyklopedia. 8 November 2009
39 the agents and spies were not splendid patriots, but hired killers. 133 He wrote six classic political novels like The Dark Frontier (1936), Uncommon Danger (1937), Epitath for a Spy ( 1938), Cause for Alarm (1938), The Mask of Demetrios (1939) and Journey into Fear (1940). 134
But to me the most important thing to know about an assassination is not who fired a shot but who paid for the bullit. (Eric Ambler, The Mask of Demetrios, 1939)135
In the novel The Mask of Demetrios one British academic found himself on holiday in Turkey where he met one man from the Turkish police, Demetrios. The British academic has no official connection with the intelligence agencies. Demetrios is presented as a morally degenerated individual,immoral human being, but also as the symptom of a diseased society based on capitalist exploitation, one that prioritizes money and property at the expense of moral and spiritual values. “Upon closer inspection can be said that there may have been Mein Kampf at the back of Ambler´s mind. There are some reasons for it. Like Hitler, Demetrios was born in 1889, began to attract attention in early 1920´s, was involved in a political coup in 1923, achieved outward respectability and a position of power in the early 1930´s, and interfered in the affairs of other countries in the late 1930´s. From this point of view, there is a certain similarity.” 136 A well-known author who also produced some fine spy novels, is Graham Greene (1904-1991). Among them are The Third Man and Our Man in Havana. 137 The Third Man is a story of social, economic and moral corruption in a post-war Vienna. In this novel, Graham Greene shows a parody of the Cold War. Like The Third Man also Our Man in Havana was intended for entertainment. Our Man in Havana is a novel set in Cuba during the regime of Batista and tells the story of a British spy in the time of the Cold War, who collects information of political or military importance in Havana and
133 Woods, F.Brett. Beyound the Balkans – Eric Ambler and the British Espionage Novel, 1936-1940 10 November 2009
40 passes it along for British intelligence.138 It is a satirical Cuban tale of espionage and intrigue of Jim Wormold who run a small vacuum cleaner business in Havana and he was always short of money. In need he accepted the offer to become agent of MI6 (the big similarity with le Carré´s The Tailor of Panama). He had no qualification, he was foreign, he was British which should give him a real guarantee. He had no experience in espionage and no knowledge to do such a job, but to keep this job, he filed false reports and sent them as required. Finally he was caught and departed from Cuba. In Great Britain he started to work for the British Secret service. The story satirized the British espionage and absurd British bureaucracy. In his life Graham Greene dealt with counterespionage in the Iberian Peninsula during the World War II where he learnt how the Nazi Secret Service sent home false reports and he used, it can be assumed that the author reflected this experience in some of his novels. 139 Another Greene´s novel with spy elements is The Ministry of Fear (1943) 140. In this novel Greene depicted the fact that wartime does not ask if killing is according to the law and justified.
138 Drabble, Margareth. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1997. p. 420-421. 139 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p. 413 140 Sanders, Andrew.:Op.cit.,p.583
41 5.The Postwar Period of Spy Novel
World War II made great advances in both espionage, intelligence, security counter- intelligence and counter-espionage, giving many a first-hand experience of that world. The years after the second world war are associated also with The Cold War, a competition between different ideologies, democratic capitalism and Soviet totalitarian socialism, which dominated the whole politics for the second half of the twentieth century. The Cold War provided authors with unlimited material to work on. Post-war spy fiction has been dominated by the James Bond novels. Stories of the secret service therefore had to be either incredible of farcical. Fleming wrote basically incredible stories.
5.1. Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming (1908-1964)141 was a man of variety experience and talents. He is the author of 14 original books of James Bond, the world´s best-loved spy which plays a very important role in spy fiction. “Ian Fleming was born in 1908 as the second son of Valentine and Eve Fleming. Valentine Fleming was elected as Member of Parliament for South Oxfordshire in 1910 and the family moved to Pitt House on Hampstead Heath. Valentine Fleming joined the Oxfordshire Yeomanery in August 1914, and was soon promoted to major. He was killed in action in 1917”.142 “Winston Churchill wrote an appreciation of his friend to the Times. Ian Fleming would always keep this in his mind for the rest of his life.” 143 “Along with his three brothers Ian Fleming was educated in Eton. He was not a very good pupil, but he was excellent at sports. After leaving Eaton, he spent some time in the Austrian Tyrol and went on study in Germany and Switzerland. He attended the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst for a short period of time.”144 At the outbreak of WWII he was active as a lieutenant Commander of Naval Intelligence and during the war he
141 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p. 356 142 Ian Fleming. Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. 2 December 2009 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian _Fleming 143 Ian Fleming. Official Web Site of Ian Fleming. 14 April 2009
42 was Personal Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence at the Admirality.” 145 In my opinion, his wartime experiences provided him with a basic knowledge of secret operations and inspiration for his later writing. He familiarized himself with the work of intelligence. He made also several confidential missions to the United States for Naval Intelligence Service. His work took him to France, Spain, North Africa, where he visited British embassies and followed operation of Golden Eye, a plan who should provide a defense of Gibraltar. 146 “He built his house, Golden Eye in Jamaica and there at the age of forty-four he wrote “Casino Royale”, the first of the novels featuring Commander James Bond. After finishing his second novel “Live and Let Die”, Fleming started to work as columnist of the Sunday Times, which provided him a lots of ideas, news, facts for his other works – Moonraker, Diamonds Are Forever, From Russia with Love which meant a real success for him. Doctor No”, the first film featuring James Bond and starring Sean Connery, was released in 1962 and the Bond films continue to be huge international successes.”147 Apart from books, his passions were games, especially golf. He was above all original in everything he did, he did not imitate anyone in taste or style. With intention of James Bond, Ian Fleming created the greatest British fictional icon, symbol of the late twentieth century. One of the most important aspects of the Bond story is just the very name “Bond, James Bond”. Bond is a figure designed to resist the menace to empire, Bond was seen as a defender of United Kingdom and the whole empire. Later the setting and dynamics of the plot changed, as the cultural, historical and political environment in which the Bond character are put, altered and changed as well. The changing British world role and view of the world was demonstrated via Bond. Bond was created and formed as a cold-hearted hero, a gambler, society man. He is connected with an image of toughness, stubbornness, sharpness, cleverness, gentlemanliness and male sexuality. Attributes of a gentleman were important to Bond´s success. With Bond Fleming represents the unrealistic school of glamour-espionage because he tried to glamorize him in all aspects. Fleming´s last novel The Man with the Golden Gun was written while Fleming was sick and was only able to work for one and a half hours a day. The book was published
145 Ian Fleming. Official Web Site of Ian Fleming. 14 April 2009 43 posthumously in 1965. 148 Fleming´s death in 1964 did not lead to the end of the Bond novels. There was a certain pressure of the public to continue the product. Kingsley Amis continued in this tradition as a follower of Ian Fleming. 5.2. Other postwar spy novelist “John le Carré is a pen name of David John Moore Cornwell. He was born in 1931 as the son of Richard Thomas Archibald Cornwell and Olive Cornwell in Dorset, England. His mother Olive abandoned him at the age of five. He began to attend St. Andrew´s preparatory schools in Berkshire, but he was unhappy there because of the harsh regime which was typical for British public schools at that time”. 149 “In 1950 Le Carré joined the British Army´s Intelligence Corps in Austria where he improved his knowledge of German. Later he studied at Lincoln College, Oxford where he also carried out secret assignments for MI5, which was connected with collecting information about possible incident Soviet Agents. Before he started to work for MI5 as a full-time job officer, he taught foreign languages at Eton College, mainly German and French. “150 While engaged in the work for MI5, he started to work on his first novel Call for the Dead. “In 1960, Le Carré changed the intelligence service and joined the foreign- intelligence Service MI6. He worked under the diplomatic cover of the British Embassy in Bonn and later he was sent to Hamburg, where he wrote his another two books A Murder of Quality, where he followed the pattern of a murder mystery with an element of espionage . It was a detective story and The Spy Who Came In from the Cold which brought him another success and became the best-seller.” 151 John le Carré lives in St. Buryan, Cornwall. He won the Somerset Maughan Award 152 and is a well-known British author of espionage novels of which some have been adapted for film and television. 148 Ian Fleming. Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. 2 December 2009 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian _Fleming 149 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p. 567 150 John Le Carré – pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell. Kirjasto Web. 20 April 2010 44 Nearly, all of his works are spy novels, with a particular stress on the Cold War. His main figure George Smiley appears in most of his novels – Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality. Le Carré as an English author of spy realistic stories was not immediately famous with his first two novels – both books mentioned above. In these two novels Le Carré introduced the mild-mannered secret agent (George Smiley), but this were more crime novels than spy novels. His success started with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, a cold-war thriller inspired by the events taken from the Berlin Wall. Smiley became a major character, a spy master fighting his opposite number Carla. 153 Le Carré with the publication of his book The Spy Who Came In from the Cold in 1963 presented the definitive opposite-matter to the Bond tales. Like Ian Fleming, Le Carré had worked for British secret service 154, but le Carré created a wholly different kind of spy fiction. He brought this type of novel at the platform of realism and in his figure of George Smiley he created a spy as unlike Bond as possible. His spy was more credible, trustworthy, realistic and more worthy. Many of le Carré´s books can be seen as a reaction against the sensationalism of Fleming and all his characters are far removed from those of Fleming and sensational characters in general “John le Carré is compared of James Fenimore Cooper because they both express similar emotions. Le Carré in his The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Cooper some 140 years earlier with his 1821 Revolutionary War narrative. In Le Carré story, the spy is Alec Leamas, who is executed in Cold War Berlin. In Cooper, it is Harvey Birch, an American spy cast against the backdrop of the revolution in New York. Both stories are in concert with their times, parallel reality and tales of adventure with dark world of espionage. The moods are gray, the settings circumscribed, and Leamas and Birch emerge as ordinary individuals who are not much different than the people they oppose. They are common men following dangerous paths through uncertain time period. “155 His other works are A Small Town in Germany, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley´s People, The Little Drummer Girl, A Perfect Spy, The Russian House, The Tailor of Panama, Absolute friends, A Most Wanted Man etc. 156 Le 45 Carré´s next two novels put the satirical view on the secret service ( The Looking-Glas War, 1965) and on the Bonn diplomatic community (A Small Town in Germany, 1968). 157 The Looking-Glass War features a desire for power in the British secret service which have impact on the loss of contact with reality. The return to the state of realism is fulfilled in the book The Tailor of Panama (1996). Le Carré´s work is in many ways a critical response to the glamorizing of the central figure James Bond in Fleming´s spy novels. Le Carré´s protagonists are namely more realistic and their situations and circumstances are not as glamorous as James Bond´s ones. In his works there is only a minor degree of violence and action. The story is, first of all, based on an intensive mental activity of his main heroes. In le Carré´s books can be found the scent of skepticism, but simultaneously his works are noted for their sense of humor. "Writers are frequently asked why they wrote their first book. A more interesting answer might come from asking them why they wrote their second one. Anyone can write one book: even politicians do it. Starting a second book reveals an intention to be a professional writer." (Len Deighton in 'Preface' to Horse Under Water, Silver Jubilee Edition 1987)158 Len Deighton (born in 1929) is a British historian and novelist and is regarded as one of the best spy novels´ authors. His first spy novel The Ipcress File came after le Carré had started his writing career but before The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.159 This novel made him famous and was also made into a film starring Michael Caine. In Deightons´ first books there is something little from action similar to the James Bond story. His first four novels featured an anonymous anti-hero, named Harry Palmer, who was a fictional secret agent protagonist. Palmer had a silly and unglamorous name because the author probably wanted him to distance from Ian Fleming´s James Bond. Deighton´s spy is namely described as a spy from working class, living in an ordinary street flat and doing his daily shopping in supermarkets. He wears glasses and he is a total opposite to James Bond. His hero is not successful with women. His other spy novel are Spy Story, Funeral in Berlin, Billion Dollar Brain and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little 157 John Le Carré – pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell. Kirjasto Web. 20 April 2010 46 Spy.160 Later he wrote a further series of the Cold War best sellers featuring the British agent Bernard Sampson: Berlin Game, Mexico Set and London Match, then Spy Hook, Spy Line and Spy Sinker and another trilogy Faith, Hope and Charity. 161 Len Deighton is well known for his liking in leaving clues, like using crosswords puzzles and crossword clues for chapter headings. His spy novels are clever, witty and filled with sense of humor. Deighton consistently deglamorized the figure of his spy figure. Deighton published also two trilogies: Game, Set and Match (1983) and Hook, Line and Sinker (1988-90). 162 Deighton´s novels are highly entertaining and realistic. Francis Clifford (1917-1975) is a pen name of Arthur Leonard Bell Thompson. He was a British writer of crime and thriller novels. He has written two novels that gives him a place among the major spy novels. One is The Naked Runner, about a businessman who was forced to act as an agent for British intelligence. This story was made into a film where Frank Sinatra played Sam Laker, the main role in the movie. The other one is All Men Are Lonely Nows also spy novel. 163 Ted Allbeury (1917-2005) allias Theodore Edward Le Boutiller Allbeury began writing in his fifties after his career as a lieutenant-colonel in the Intelligence Corps during World War II. He served in a number of European countries and he was a genuine spy. In his private life he had lots of jobs but he was also a fluent linguist in a number of languages including French and German. 164 In his literary works he tried to depict technology, introspection, excitement, espionage plots with specific sense of humor. In his early books (A choice of Enemies, 1973) there was put an emphasis on action rather than character elements. He is also the author of the novel called The 160 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p. 266 161 Len Deighton. Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. 4 December 2009 47 Special Collection (1979) which concerns a KGB plot and of a short story collection called Other Kinds of Treason. 165 Nigel West (1951) (with his own name Rupert William Simon Allason) is also an espionage author, simultaneously British military historian and politician. Nigel West is considered to be an expert on modern espionage, intelligence, secret service and security. He published over 25 books, including The Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence (2005). His other books are Counterfeit Spies (1998), Molehunt: Searching for Spies in MI5 (199), The Secret War for the Falklands (1997). 166 West also paid a big attention to the role of women in espionage and is the author of the book called The A to Z of Sex Spionage (2009). “He claims that sex can not be separated from espionage. Since the founding of UK´s Intelligence agencies in 1909, sex has played a pivotal role. He notes that more women have worked in the secret services than men and they were good at their jobs. According to West, women spies know how to keep secrets, they possess finely tuned observational skills, they think chronologically and they are not compelled to impress others. “167 His information in the books is often so precise that people could believe he is the historian of the secret services. Moreover he teaches the history of postwar intelligence at The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies in Alexandria, USA.168 5.3. The post-war American espionage authors Espionage in post-war American fiction is also featured as an increasingly important subject. Thomas Pynchon (1937) is one of the most important authors of that era. In his novel Under the Rose (1961) he mixed the plot of the story with historical elements and traditions in espionage where everything was put on a gentlemanly basis. 169 Pynchon 165 Ted Allbeury. Thriller-writer and spy. The Independent Web. 15 December 2005 Web 24 November 2009 48 focused on the shift in spy fiction away from individual action to that of groups or institutions. In another his book called Gravity´s Rainbow (1973) the main focus is put on the menace to self determined by the domestic workings of the secret services. Pynchon´s works are based on many of the themes like racism, colonialism, imperialism, conspiracy, religion. His another novels are The Crying of Lot 49 (1990), Vineland (1990), Mason & Dison (1997) and Against the Day (2006). 170 Richard Condon (1915- 1996) is an American satirical and thriller novelist who pays his attention also to espionage themes. His famous depiction of the brainwashed assassin in The Manchurian Candidate (1959) is a combination of parental and national betrayal. It is a conspiratorial book featuring the story of the son of a prominent US political family who was brainwashed into being an unwilling assassin for the Communist Party.171 The same theme recurs in later novels like James Grady´s Six Days of the Condor (1974).172 In these above stated novels, the nature and limits of intelligence agencies are largely a domestic problem.173 Also Charles McCarry (1930) an American, who served in the United States Army and from 1958 to 1967 worked for CIA as an intelligence officer under deep cover in Africa, Asia and Europe ranks among the most important spy novel authors in USA174. Later he worked as a speech writer for the Eisenhower administration175. He is known for his books featuring the story of super spy agent called Paul Christopher who was a witness of several true events, murders, e.g. the Kennedy assassination. The books The Miermik Dossier (1973), The Tears of Autumn (1974) and The Secret Lovers (1977) are interesting for their historical beckground, detailed descriptiuon and depiction of art of spying. The first Paul Christopher novel, The Miermik Dossier (1971) based on documents, collected from intelligence agencies around the world. Taddeus Miermik, was a Pole working for the U.N. in Switzerland. McCarry is often compared to Faulkner. “McCarry is beyond Le Carré in vision and purpose and is producing some of the best, 170 Thomas Pynchon. Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia 23 November 2009 49 most readable and provocative literature today. He has set himself the task of recording the hopes, dreams, frailties and mistakes of several generations of Americans whose decisions have determined the course of twentieth-century history.”176 Clive Eric Cussler (1931), an American adventure novelist and a former US Air Force officer, who has written big number of novels featuring the hero Dirk Pitt.177 Pitt is described in much the same way as Bond and each novel opens with an action scene that at first appears to be unrelated to the rest of the plot. Dirk Pitt is a marine engineer, government agent and adventurer.178 Cussler´s novels usually feature a menace to the United States or to the rest of the world in general. The first two Pitt novels, The Mediterranean Caper and Iceberg, are relatively thrillers with maritime plot. Another novel, Raise the Titanic is a mix of adventure plus high technology, involving immoral megalomaniacal villains, lost wrecked ships and sunken lost treasure. His novel Dragon (1991) a story about a nuclear bomb intended for Japan at the end of the second world. 179 British dominance in espionage literature seemed to leave somewhat during the last quarter of the 20th century. Since the 1980´s, American novelists including Robert Ludlow and Tom Clancy competed and started rivalry with their British colleagues and counterparts in writing best-selling spy fiction. Around that time the world of international politics and matter issues is no longer perceived as western-centric or bipolar (split into adverse nation states) as it was apparent throughout much of the twentieth century. As international secret services and agencies pay their attention to current crises like illicit traffic of drugs, trafficking, white slavery, illegal gun business and terrorism, also such sides of the world will likely be reflected on the pages of the literature of intelligence in the coming generations. The end of the Cold War did not result in the doom and disappearance of the spy novel, but it led 176 Morton, Marcus. Beyond Bond. Forget Fleming: lose Le Carré-Charles McCarry is undiscovered the Master of the Spy novel 10 November 2009 50 to reorientation of secret service agents and to the change of their tasks, and to a new target-determination of new potential enemies. In context of the events of 11 September 2001, the outline turns out what new course the genre of spy fiction will take. 51 6. The Typical Features of a Spy Hero History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing places. James Bond in Casino Roayle180 For some people spying could be considered immoral, dishonorable and inconsistent with a free and democratic society. They could consider spies to be liars, traitors, thieves or even worse. Few people have any real understanding of what the world of spying is like. Moreover nowadays spying has become rather politicized. Peoples´ views are namely shaped by the media and films stereotypes about spying and they give sometimes an inaccurate picture of how espionage is done. The public is usually expected from knowing about specific operations or sensitive sources and methods. Spies are collecting the intelligence critical data to protecting the country. The job they are doing is difficult and dangerous, but somehow important. They are always to prepare themselves against enemies. A prepared country is then seldom attacked. Spies are then one of the greatest forces for world peace. Apart their military colleagues, spies do not have a written official set of rules which would be binding for their behavior. If spies should not set the rules themselves, who should? Without clear rules set by an executive body spies could get not only themselves in a bigger risk. Though spying has changed little over the centuries except in new technologies, the character of spy has almost not changed. In my opinion, the requirements had not changed since biblical times. “Just like Moses, modern spymaster sent out those trained men in observation and memory, and gifted with descriptive skills “the least developed of all human traits”. “181 What kind of human being is then a spy? How can one join the real world of the men whose fiction counterparts live in a fantasy world of beautiful blondes and sports cars like Jaguar, Aston Martin? Can a common person engage in espionage on behalf of some 180 Black, Jeremy. The Politics of James Bond. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2005. p. 4 181 Britton, Wesley A. Beyond Bond: Spies in fiction and film. Westport: Praeger Publishers. 2005. p.7 52 country, and not destroy his or her moral values? What comes before one enters such a job? And what about an appearance of a common spy? Is there any need for an expert knowledge to become a spy? What do usually intelligence services and agencies employing spies need? What kind information do spy have to collect? Do spies have to follow some entry courses to familiarize with some information? Are there any tips how to become a spy or how to make contact with? There are lots of questions which must be answered before we can draw a general summary of a spy. A British agent is a very common, hardworking, ordinary person. He is obliged to follow the rules and regulations, asked with boring questions, reports and assigned with assessments of his own reports. Officially he must mostly lead a normal and discreet kind of life. Education, common sense, the hopefully knowledge of foreign languages are key requirements, especially when spy is to work abroad. Before such a one can enter such a job, he/she will be fairly thoroughly investigated. Many things can cause problems, origin, connections, attitudes, physical or mental barrier, diseases, appearance etc. Sometimes spy must be a real expert, it depends on his function and commission and sometimes there is no need for expert knowledge. Namely the organizations that spy should be active for, need various information on subjects like political, military, industrial, economic, social date. Sometimes such organizations force spies to watch carefully scandals in high places. All newcomers who are interested in becoming a spy are examined and tested in pretty hard courses to familiarize themselves with communications, codes, ciphers, tactics, strategies, plans, methods, procedures. Spies are given instructions concerning their targets and they are mostly contacted in target places, sometimes they have no idea who it could be. Generally said there are no tip how to become a spy. 6.1 The James Bond Phenomenon The modern world apparently knows James Bond through the films, not the novels. There are naturally many contrasts between the stories of individual books and films. The popularity of Bond is making Bond a crucial figure in spy fiction. Bond is in Flemings´ book featured as cold-hearted but warm hero, gambler and society man. He was and still is an image of toughness, sharpness, cleverness, sportsmanship and male 53 sexuality. Bond´s character was displayed in his actions. He represented gentlemanliness understood as action and all the time Bond represented with his gentlemanly values a person with self-image of manly courage. Bonds´ attributes of a gentleman were important to Bond´s success and Bond had to face a very different challenge. Bond was shaped as a saver, mostly of the whole Empire. In contrast to Bond, women were given only a secondary place and ordinary people in Flemings´ novels were not heroes. Fleming was not interested in them. Ordinary people could not be the villains either. In Britain foreign villains used foreign servants and employees (for example Goldfinger used Koreans, Drax in Moonraker then Germans, Dr. No employed Chinese and Negroes). 182 Bond was not free and independent. He was a British agent. Bond is a figure designed to resist the menace to empire. Increasing problems across the world and even at home are the settings in which Bond and the global villains can exist, move, operate and sometimes survive. Bond can be seen as a central figure in the culture of period of the Cold War. Bond is even given CIA support in many novels. This element provides an opportunity to test and examine the nature and persistence of the Anglo-American relationship and mutual development in this field. Bond was not of course only an agent who responded to accidental challenges. His world was shaped and given moral platform and direction. During the actions Bond does not kill without thinking. One can say that Bond stories should function as moral tales. Though Bond had to be a killer, but he was not a terrorist or primitive criminal. In some novels Bond is even depicted as an agent who had never liked killing people and is even concussed, shaken and shocked by the brutality of death. He is tired of having to be tough, cruel. Throughout the stories, even a moral sense is shown. Bond is gentleman, but this is a matter not only of his conduct, but also of an understanding of self, his own person and others. Both knowledge and his style rang among the elements leading to his strength and his glory. Bond is a man with a great power, thanks to his 007 status (this number has also a strong power). His mind as well his body have been placed great pressure many times. He can not accept a way of life without action. A total peace kills him. His need for action is more than psychological. But action is not easy. The need to be a man of action, his duty, his 182 Lindner, Christoph. The James Bond phenomenon. A critical reader. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2003. p. 18-19 Black,Jeremy. The Politics of James Bond. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2005. p. 173-4 54 patriotism and his conscience create psychological tensions throughout Bond´s career. Bond is seen as an intelligent male hero. Bond reflects the way in which many male beings liked and like to project themselves. He competes with sinister organizations. He is a gentleman with a taste for the high life and high society. Fantasy plays also a very important role in spy novel stories. At a time when most British people spent their summer holiday in Great Britain or in usual British destinations, Bond went to exotic locations, such as the West Indies, India or expensive ski resorts in Switzerland or America. The world described in the novels was depicted with a wealth fantasy. There was an excitement about luxury cars, house, jewellery, cloths, air travel or exotic drinks. Bond lives in economic fantasy, far enough and free from concern about salaries, mortgages and debts, free from normal worries of ordinary people. His person offers an apparently cost free style. He is much more a cosmopolitan man than a man of class. Bond is connected with sexual attraction but he is not caught and trapped into love net. Later there has also been adaptation in the Bond character. He does not smoke or gamble. Bond takes smoking as a filthy bad habit, Bond drinks and has very little sex, only with the wife of the villain, but this is not usually presented as a one night stand. Bond has become timeless and universal. He has overcame and bridged the gap between generations of readers or filmgoers. Bond was characterized also with his cars, especially with his Aston Martin (the Aston Martin presenting another aspect, symbol of British elements) whose equipment included machine guns, a rear bullet-proof shield, revolving number plates, a tire shredder, a smoke screen, radar, an oil slick, and a passenger ejector seat. 183 But Bond was presented also with Bentley (From Russia with Love, Goldfinger) and with an oldfashioned Rolls Royce, a very traditional image of British quality and elegance. The car became the symbol of Bond style, not least because it was not mass produced. Extraordinary weapons and vehicles became a crucial aspect of the Bond´s appeal as well. Bond image is also based on means like bravery, determination, luck and a real sex appeal. Bond is established as a hero not only by his actions and style, but also by the contrasts between him and the villains. Style is for Bond significant and crucial, because most of the villains have no style and aesthetic taste at all. Style also locates and 183 Lindner, Christoph. The James Bond phenomenon. A critical reader. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2003. p. 118. 55 determines Bond socially. Unlike Harry Palmer, the hero of the stories of Len Deighton, Bond does not cook. With his black glasses and shabby raincoat, Palmer was a working class character. He was a common man, the total opposite of James Bond. The matter of setting is important in all Bond´s adventures. The setting of the adventures changed, as the cultural, historical and political environment in which the Bond character operates, altered and developed. The spy novels with James Bond are linked to give some sense of chronological development and placing. Nevertheless, Bond does not age in the novels. He remains all the time the same. He becomes timeless. And moreover he is cosmopolitan. The decline of Britain and changing British role in the world and state of the world, can all be depicted through Bond. “The Englishness of Bond, or better said the Britishness of Bond in later Bond´s novels represented an American view of Britain, at once stylish and quaint, not lean and mean, the values of the Thatcherite mid-1980s “184 Fleming tended to describe everything with a precision. He was very precise as for details. His information is often so precise that many readers could believe that Fleming was an expert in the many fields of the science. In the novels, his description of underwater flora and fauna, machines, guns and cars were really breathtaking and amazing. Fleming´s love of travel and changing places and destinations help to shape the Bond novels and make them more interesting. 6.2 The Character of Villains in Spy Novels I´m not interested in extortion. I intend to change the face of history. -the villain Stromberg in “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977)185 A villain is as integral and significant to every story as a hero and is the second important figure in any story and perhaps, the most enjoyable and surprising character to develop. Villain is simply necessary in such a kind of a story. Villain is the exact 184 Black,Jeremy.:op.cit.,. p. 146 185 Black,Jeremy. The Politics of James Bond. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2005. p. 133 56 opposite of the hero, and sometimes they are even friends in a story, at least seemingly. Villain´s character is usually masked, first of all by beauty and nobility (typical for women). Villains are mostly wicked, selfish and are endowed with certain power which they use. Villain is formed to prevent the hero or protagonist from achieving his goal. In either case, it can be said that the villain deserves the same character-development and time as the hero of the story. The villain always has a certain role, function in a story and mostly his life story is presented as a conflict or problem with main characters. One can say, the better villain is, the better the story is. In some stories the villain is not even any human being – the case of a cruel fish (Jaws) or live monster etc. Some villains have been depicted and used so often that they became recognizable as general character types, real archetypes. Villains need strong, well prepared plots designed to allow their full, bad, horrible potential to develop and grow. A good literary villain is the same as pure evil. The depth of the pure evil villainy makes him a powerful and unforgettable figure for the readers and viewers. Sometimes villains pretend to do occasionally good, if necessary, but very suddenly they start to do evil or actions that are harmful to the hero. A good literary villain is motivated and he follows his motivation. A sympathetic villain gives readers a pleasure of reading, which is connected with the fact that also literary villains are human beings. Some readers even like the figures of some villains, they prefer them to the positive characters. “The aspects that separate the hero from villain are complex and uncertain, and great writers are often able to depict not only the evil done, but the humanity abandoned”.186 One reason for the villains´ popularity may be because the readers or audience want to understand his thinking and procedure of his thinking. Villains can even sometimes overshadow, cover the hero of a story and stay beyond. 6.3 Villains in Spy Novels with James Bond The villains in spy novels with James Bond are generally grotesque, while many of the other characters are one-dimensional. This is especially true of the goodies, many of whom are either dull (males) or inacceptable (women). The meeting between Bond and the villains are the most significant aspects of the Fleming novels and the films. They 186 What makes a Good Literary Villain? Wisegeek Web. 12 April 2009. 57 are important both to the plot and to the atmosphere, and they are crucial to the dynamism of the stories. Their meetings also provided an opportunity for expressing values and establishing the ethical status of the main figures and their characters187. Fantasy plays also a very important role in spy novel stories. The world described in the novels is depicted with a rich fantasy. There was mostly an excitement about luxury cars, boats, planes, machines, air travel, sea travel, luxury clothes, jewellery or exotic drinks. Bond lives in welfare fantasy, free from daily worries about salaries, mortgages, debts, pays and far from the worries of common people. He was created as a timeless cosmopolitan man. Dramatic and scenic development of a story is an important feature in the settings of Bond´s tales. Surrounding plays also a very important role in the story. Mountains are useful and popular element in the setting as well as the element of underwater. Both take the reader or viewer where he or she will rarely get an opportunity to be. Both provide the chance for hazardous surprising adventures. In contrast to mountains there has been relatively little use of forests, although one was used for example in Dr. No and Drax´s Brazilian base in Moonraker in deepest Amazonia. There are also urban elements in Diamonds Are Forever. Animals, especially sharks are other equivalent. Sharks play important role in many of the stories, they feature evil and terror. The first story with underwater plot occurred in Thunderball and it was also for the first time when the golden grotto sharks were used by a villain to kill somebody. Sharks also play a major role in Never Say Never Again and in License to Kill The villain of Moonraker, Sir Hugo Drax plans to destroy London. The pace of the story is set by the preparation for the rocket´s launch. Bond has to save the city. The plot was really apocalyptic. The novel Moonraker connected together the two different issues, the Nazis and the Soviet. Drax works for the latter, but he was also a Nazi. Drax was wealthy but simultaneously he was an outsider. He constructed a nuclear rocket. The story played with the idea that the Great Britain could develop the new progressive technology to overcome the economic and military status of the superpowers. Drax´s Nazi origins and his scheme for a rocket attack on London gives an interesting theme. Fleming did not use class enemies for his villains. The ordinary people were not 187 Black,Jeremy. The Politics of James Bond. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2005. p. 169-173 58 heroes. They lacked great wealth, evil, megalomaniacal greediness, they could not be the villains. Fleming was not interested in common daily people. Drax is shown as cruel and arrogant. He is also sadist with perversive elements. Bond in contrast to Drax is presented as a gentleman. Drax is also without any girlfriend. “Fleming also represented a widely held fear of Germany as the eternal enemy (Drax - Nazi origin). In the early 1950s, the British were less enthusiastic than the Americans about rearming the West Germans and integrating them into NATO, although they overcome their doubts in order to please their allies. Drax maybe also represented broader concerns about the survival of Nazism. For Fleming the past was not dead. Moonraker was the most British of the Bond novels, as far as setting and context are concerned. The setting in Kent reflected Fleming´s knowledge of the county but shows the significance of the White Cliffs of Dover for Great Britain. There was a sense that in Kent, Great Britain was most exposed”. 188 What is interesting, in Britain Fleming´s foreign villains used first of all foreign servants and employees. Drax used Germans, Goldfinger Koreans, Dr. No employed Chinese-Negroes. 189 In fourth Bond novel, Diamonds Are Forever, Fleming chose a foreign setting and depicted a menace to Great Britain. The subject was the richest smuggling operation in the world, but diamonds were stolen. This theft provided opportunities for villains as for making money and threatening British interest. Apart from other villains, this villain was created and shaped in a bit different way, because he is not dominant. There was no megalomania features either. Diamonds Are Forever lacked also a real focus as a place. The used and described places of a story Saratoga and Springs and Las Vegas were either well realized or presented, the same it is with London or New York. What was apparent in the story, the plot lacked also menace. Bond´s enemy in From Russia, With Love was Soviet power. The novel featured current public interest in East West espionage. These interests arouse from the outbreak of the Cold War. The plot in From Russia, With Love gave Fleming an opportunity to use his knowledge on the Cold War. Fleming demonstrated an extremely anti Soviet position in the novel. The use of Istanbul presented the reality of a location of East West intelligence operations and described Istanbul as a exotic place of the world. In a way of 188 Black,Jeremy. The Politics of James Bond. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2005. p. 23 59 Istanbul description there is a similarity to the world of Eric Ambler (The Mask of Demetrius) than of Deighton´s Berlin (The Funeral in Berlin). Dr. No was a novel about a discovery of conspiracy. “Rockets were a major issue in 1957 when Fleming was writing the book. The Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik I, into orbit that year. Dr. No is in partnership with the Soviet Union and he prepares to negotiate with China.” 190 Goldfinger, the novel was put in the period of the Cold War. The Cold War is strongly here present, as in a sense of America under threat. Figure of Goldfinger was personally disordered. He was a Balt with possible Jewish blood. “Bond feels, due to his short man´s interiority complex “Napoleon had been short, and Hitler as well. It was the short men that caused all the trouble in the world”.191 191 Black,Jeremy. The Politics of James Bond. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2005. p. 37-38 60 7.The books with spy plot Bond is what every man would like to be and what every woman would like to have between her steets. Raymond Chandler192 7.1. Casino Royal Ian Fleming wrote this novel at the age of 44 in Jamaica, where he built his house, Golden Eye. Casino Royal was finished on 18 March 1952. 193 The whole book is divided into 27 chapter and each chapter bears its own title. In this book Ian Fleming for the first time introduced a story of his secret agent 007 called James Bond, charming, sophiscated, handsome spy licensed to kill. This novel, like the other early Bond works, was a novel of the Cold War produced in the shadow and fading effects of World War II. The plot of Casino Royale introduced the world of the casino and its linking to the British Secret Service. One of the main figures, Le Chiffre, was an individual who paid the Communist-controlled trade union in France. The trade union was presented as an important fifth column in the war with so called “Redland”, the Soviet Union. “Le Chiffre financed also communist spies. The Paymaster will fix the funds. I´m going to ask the Deuxieme to stand by. It´s their territory and as it is we shall be lucky if they don´t kick up rough. I will try and persuade them to send Mathis. You seemed to get on well with him in Monte Carlo on that other Casino job. And I´m going to tell Washington because of the NATO angle. CIA have got one or two good men at Fontainebleau with the joint intelligence chaps there. 194 Fifty million francs of trade union funds were proposed to win at baccarat at the casino in Royale-les-Eaux, a fictional spa. Le Chiffre´s made this plan to wreck their 192 Fleming, Ian. Casino Royale. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2002. p. 020. 193 Ousby, Ian.: Op.,cit. p. 356 Casino Royal (novel) Wikipedia \free Encyclopedia. 10 December 2009 61 adversaries. The proposal was made in the sense that Le Chiffre will be gambled by the Secret Service´s best gambler who should be presented by James Bond. Bond is chosen and dispatched to Royale. Having had problems, Bond is rescued by Felix Leiter, the CIA observer, who gave him a big loan to beat the villain., Felix Leiter cooperates with Bond. There is a difference of emphasis between Bond and him. Leiter is less inclined to see the world in confrontational terms. Bond´s gambling skills are a measure of his level and style. Skill at gambling and knowledge of how to behave at a casino were depicted by Fleming as important rules of a gentleman that were significant to Bond´s character and nature. In my opinion, travelling, luxury cars and games are the central features to any Bond novel. No matter in what kind of game Bond is involved, he is demonstrated to manage anything and everywhere. After the card game at Royale, Vesper Lynd, Bond´s help is kidnapped by Le Chiffre, and the pursuing Bond was captured and tortured. Bond was again provided with a chance to escape. The torture is cut short as an agent of SMERSH arrives and shoots Le Chiffre. Le Chiffre is killed by SMERSH while controlling Bond. SMERSH was introduced at the beginning of the novel as the fearsome Soviet counterintelligence network. Bond is told of the devastation of Communist morale caused by the exposure and collapse of Le Chiffre´s system. Bond tells his French contact, René Mathis from the Secret Service that this country business which he considers to be right/wrong, is getting a little out of date. Mathis criticized Bond as an anarchist. In Casino Royale the question of the validity of killing is in centre of attention. The nature of SMERSH´s activities helped to justify Bond´s mission and deeds. Bond is created and considered as the servant of justice. Bond was not primarily an agent who responded to incidental challenges. His world was shaped and given. He does not kill without possibility of thinking. Bond was created as a killer, but not as a terrorist or a simple criminal. Bond can not accept a way of life without action and continuous motion. Peace and rest kill him. The need to be a man of action, his duty and his conscience create psychological tensions throughout all Bond´s career and development. The author paid attention also to the women´s element. Bond has an affair with Vesper. She tells Bond about the details of the complot to kill him on the streets of Royale. Le Chiffre wanted to destroy his own people as well as his opponents. The killing of Bond was left to three Bulgarians, which were held in France for this sort of work – saboteurs. The Bulgarians refused to obey the instructions and it was fatal to them, not to Bond. 62 “Apparently they were part of a pool held in France for this sort of job – saboteurs, thugs, and so on – and Mathis´s friends are already trying to round up the rest. They were to get two million francs for killing you and the agent who briefed them told them there was absolutely no chance of being caught if they followed his instructions exactly.” She took a sip of vodka. “But this is the interesting part.” “The agent gave them the two camera-cases you saw. He said the bright colors would make it easier for them. He told them that the blue case contained a very overfull smoke-bomb. The red case was to press a switch on the blue case and they would escape under cover of the smoke. In fact, the smoke-bomb was a pure invention to make the Bulgarians think they could get away. Both cases contained an identical high- explosive bomb. There was no difference between the blue and the red cases. The idea was to destroy you and the bomb-throwers without trace. Presumably there were other plans for dealing with the third man.” 195 At the end, Vesper, decides to commit suicide. Before the act, she wrote a letter to Bond that she was a Soviet double agent. Her boyfriend, ex RAF Pole, was a British agent, captured in Poland, also tortured, but kept alive in order to force Vesper to cooperate. Her cooperation was connected with the fulfillment of the plans to destroy Bond. For Fleming and Bond, the Soviets replaced the Nazis in a story (another totalitarian system). Vesper´s suicide leads Bond to resolve how to fight and destroy SMERSH, which he sees as the biggest terror within the Soviet espionage. The book closes with the words “The bitch is dead now,” 196 a reference to Vesper and her betrayal of him, but keeping it in Bond´s doubts. “This is 007 speaking. This is an open line. It is an emergency. Can you hear me? Pass this on at once. 3030 was a double, working for Redland. “Yes, dammit, I said “was”. The bitch is dead now.”197 Bond´s need for the American money at Royale reflected the significant position of the United States in the defense of the West world. There were also differences of opinion and thinking between Britain and America, especially outside Europe. The British wish to preserve and strenghten their empire and potential clashed with American interest. Fleming did not stress this Anglo-American clash in his novels, but he was aware of it and at times his plots can be seen as efforts to create an impression of the 195 Fleming, Ian. Casino Royale. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2002. p. 056-057. 196 Fleming, Ian. Casino Royale. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2002. p. 056-057. 197 Fleming, Ian. Casino Royale. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2002. p. 181. 63 normality of British imperial rule and action, with Bond as a defender of empire. This is not, however, the case in Casino Royale. The novels of Fleming tend to feature a series of opposite pairs. Bond builds an opposite to a villain or to a charming lady. Also the political issue is based on the opposite, free west world versus communist world. This oppositions are presented also in Casino Royale (Bond vs. M, Bond vs. villain, Bond vs. woman...). Bond vs. M is a relationship which is connected with continuous development and continuous events. M features duty, loyalty and commands. Bond is the hero of a story and M is the one who is able to judge what is wrong or right. Bond does his job at the command of M. M is a boss over the hero who is dependent on him. M supplies Bond with commands for actions and missiles. M can be considered as a ruler and Bond as his vassal, as the knight who carries out the given tasks. When Bond is compared to the knight, any villain can be compared to monster, dragon or some other figure of such a character. The beautiful girls/women and villains build also the opposites. Bond is somebody like the medieval knight who saves the beautiful noble Ladies. “ Between the Free World and the Soviet Union, England and the non-Anglo-Saxon countries is realized the relationship flanked by the Privileged Race and the Lower Race, between White and Black, Good and Bad. “198 Bond is always put into conflict with the villain. Bond has an opposite character and appearance like a villain has. In Casino Royale Le Chiffre is pallid and smooth, with a crop of red hair, an almost feminine mouth, false teeth of expensive quality, small ears with large lobes, and hairy hands. He never smiles. 199 “The villain is born in an ethnic area, mostly in East or Central Europe to Slav countries and the Mediterranean basin: usually he is of mixed blood and his origins are complex and obscure. He is asexual or homosexual, or at any rate is not sexually normal.” 200 Le Chiffre, who organizes a movement in France, comes from a mixture of Mediterranean and Prussian or Polish strains and has Jewish blood. He betrays even his own bosses. The opposition is also striking in the relationship between the villain and the woman – Vesper is blackmailed by the Soviets represented by Le Chiffre. Vesper Lynd carries in Casino Royale both 198 Lindner, Christoph. The James Bond phenomenon. A critical reader. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2003. p. 45 199 Lindner, Christoph. The James Bond phenomenon. A critical reader. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2003. p. 40 200 Fleming, Ian. Casino Royale. New York: Penguin Books. 2002. P.002-3,013 64 roles of the girl and villainess. She pretends love and interest to Bond, but in the end it is found out that she was an enemy agent. Bond´s love was changed into hatred. 7.2 Funeral in Berlin In Deighton´ s first books there is little action like in the stories of James Bond. His first novels featured an anonymous nameless hero, who was later introduced with the name as Harry Palmer. Harry Palmer appeared in Deighton´s novel called The Ipress File in 1962 for the first time and was fictional secret agent protagonist. 201 Deighton wrote altogether 6 novels featuring this nameless spy, two of which were turned into movies with Michal Caine as a main figure. Palmer had a silly and unglamorous name, simply common name, because the author wanted to create completely different type as Ian Fleming´s James Bond. Deighton´s spy is namely described as a spy from working class, living in a small flat and doing his shopping in supermarkets. He wears glasses, is not as elegant and charismatic as James Bond. He is completely the opposite to James Bond. His hero has no affairs with women and he is not successful with them, though he likes them (unlike Andy Osnard from The Tailor of Panama). Harry Palmer is a courageous, a common government man who goes into danger where seldom somebody would dare to go. He seems to be simply ordinary. He represents whoever from normal population, he does not behave like some flash superman James Bond. Palmer is created and shaped as the opposite of Fleming´s Bond. He has no family, he is lonely, he is poor and he comes from a poor background. He is subordinated to the bosses. Palmer has no pleasure in his job. He as a working fellow is undisciplined, but he gets his work done. Actually he has a certain strong feature of anarchy inside him. But he is not arrogant, but simple and nice. He does not respond with anger and grievance. His figure is not exaggerated as James Bond figure, he is not glamorized. Palmer as a spy attempts to stay authentic. He takes pleasure in classical music and food and is bad at solving of crosswords. At the beginning Deighton´s novels are written in the first person. The main figure, the main character is never named, it is only a fictional secret agent. Later Deighton in his books breaks his rule by changing it into the third person. 201 Ousby, Ian. :Op.,cit.p. 266 65 Also in Funeral in Berlin the hero uses only pseudonyms, a reader does not know his name. Most of the story is directed to Berlin where an old KGB boss plans his run-away to the West part of the city. The story starts with preparations made by Colonel Alexeyevitch Oleg Stock to sell an important Russian scientist Semitsa to the West for a very good price. The deal is negotiated with the help of Johnny Vulkan. British secret service accepts the proposal of the Russian, but under the condition that their own top secret agent stays in Berlin to act as required. The British secret service agent is sent to Berlin under the false passport name - Edmond Dorf. And Berlin was told to expect somebody like Edmond Dorf, Vulkan´s case officer for the operation with the code name King. Robin James Hallam, civil servant who is susceptible to blackmail and homosexual oriented, and Dawlish were helpful to Dorf during his missile. “So you are the man who is going to make Semitsa defect from Moscow Academy of Sciences and come to work in the west. No, don´t tell me.” He waved down my protest with a limp palm. “I´ll tell you. In the last decade not one Soviet scientist has defected westward. Did you ever ask yourself why?” I unwrapped one of the sugar pieces. The paper had “Lyons Corner House” printed on it in small blue letters. “This fellow Semitsa. A member of the Academy. Not a party member because de doesn´t need to be. Academy boys are the top dogs – the new elite. He probably gets about six thousands rubles a month. Tax paid. On top of that he can keep any money he gets for lecturing, writing or being on T.V. The restaurants are fabulous – fabulous. He has a town house and a country cottage. He has a new Zil every year and when he feels in the mood there is a special holiday resort on the Black Sea which only the Academy people use. If he dies his wife gets a gigantic pension and his children get special educational opportunities in any case. He works in the Genetic of Molecular Biology department where they use refrigerated ultra centrifuges”. Hallam waved his sugar cube at me. 202 Soon it becomes obvious that behind the cover of the prepared funeral in Berlin a game of a certain strategy and tactics is hidden and that it was only a manoeuvre how to solve certain problems in the time of the Cold War, the rivalry between the West and the East. Vulkan felt glad that Dawlish´s boy was heading back to London. He was all right as the English go, but you never knew where you were with him. That´s because the English were amateurs – and proud of it. There were some days when Johnnie wished that he was working for the Americans. He had more in common with them, he felt. 203 202 Deighton, Len. Funeral in Berlin. London: Penguin Books Ltd. 1966. Pp. 10-11. 203 Deighton, Len. Funeral in Berlin. London: Penguin Books Ltd. 1966. p. 50. 66 Deighton is well known for his liking in providing his clues, instructions like using crosswords puzzles and crossword clues. His spy novels are witty and clever. Deighton consistently deglamorized the figure of the spy fiction. Deighton´s novels are supremely witty and highly entertaining and realistic. 7.3 The Tailor of Panama Le Carré published his novel called The Tailor of Panama in 1996. 204 It is one of his best novels. Le Carré was inspired by Graham Greene´s Our Man in Havana. If we bring close these two books, we must notice the fact that the plots of both novels are very similar as well as the setting of the stories. It is a spy thriller of the Cold War era, with the elements of black comedy, but simultaneously it offers a witty involution. Though it is the spy novel, there is not as much action as it is supposed to be in such a literary genre. This story is without any car chases or gunfights, but is full of blackmails, betrayals and intrigues. Andy Osnard is an MI6 spy sent to Panama after having a love affair with a girlfriend of his boss. Osnard believes that he can find and uncover something big that will enable him his return back to London´s Secret Service. He hopes for a big break that will pardon him from his previous offence and thus earn him a better position. He is disappointed with his present position. Panama is a corrupt place after general Noriega´s reign. The Americans gave the Panama Canal back to Panama. Andy Osnard is not like James Bond to prevent some trouble, but on the contrary he wanted to start some. Osnard supposes that if he could find out where the status and backgrounds of the Canal issue is, London´s Secret Service will want to accept him back. The Panama Canal is for the British and as well as for the Americans very important. Anyone who wants to get to Central America must go through its door. Panama is a hot place for drugs, gun business and some other things. Osnard needs somebody who would cooperate with him and who would supply him with the necessary information. And he sees such a man in the tailor Harry Palmer, who makes suits for Panama´s elite like the president himself and another Panama´s 20 ruling families. 204 Ousby, Ian. :Op.,cit.p. 566 67 “Well, let me put it this way, Mr. Osnard. I´ll be serious, if you don´t mind. We dress presidents, lawyers, bankers, bishops, member of legislative assemblies, generals and admirals. We dress whoever appreciates a bespoke suit and can pay for it regardless of color, creed or reputation. How does that sound? 205 Andy knows more about Harry that Harry would like. He knows that Harry is deep in debts, he needs cash because he owes the bank money and he must pay it back. Pendel´s debts make his present life pretty hard. Harry could not resist when Andy told him that the British would pay for information concerning the status of the Canal. He agrees to provide Andy with the information about the political situation in Panama and starts to spin stories about people who knows. After he starts, he can not stop – the stories become more and more complicated, intricate and confused. Palmer spins a story that is not only taken as the truth but builds a real chain of events that threatens everything he values most in his life. Harry starts to tell Andy his stories which soon grab the attention of various British officials, even the Pentagon. Pendel thinks up a scenario, where the Panamanian government sells the Canal to an Asian buyer. The rumors of a possible sale of the Panama Canal to enemies of the West force Andy to keep the confidential information for himself before it is too late. False rumors concerning this sale and the false portrayal of retired Panamanian revolutionary, that all and other stuff spread by Harry Pendel cause problems and lead to the disturbances. Harry sells his best friend, exploits his clever and high-minded wife Louisa and jeopardizes her job with the people running the Canal. Andy chooses Pendel not just for his intimacy and contacts with the powerful, but mainly for his criminal record, his strange past and his enormous debts. Andy blackmailes Harry in this way. Osnard knows that Harry tells lies about his background. Harry needs money but he is too much of a gentleman to ask his clients to pay for their suits. So the cooperation with Andy was his solution from the financial crisis. His wife Louisa does not know anything about his husband´s debts and the fact that he owes money. She does not know anything about Harry´s recruitment into the world of spying by the British Secret Service. She does not even know that he cooperates with Andy Osnard, she suspects his husband of having a love affair. Louisa becomes increasingly suspicious of Harry´s sudden peculiar behavior and willingness to spend so much time with Andy Osnard. She works for the people running the Canal as an 205 Le Carré, John. The Tailor of Panama. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. 1996. p. 34. 68 assistant. And Andy persuades the tailor to spy on his own wife in order find out what the President plans on doing with the Canal. In spite of all those gossips, Louisa remained untouched by her husband´s behaviour which emerged him in the midst of an international clash and action. Harry Pendel is a child of street, an orphan brought up by his Jewish uncle Benny in London. His father was a deserting Jewish and his mother Irish catholic. He learned his sewing skills in a British prison where he was sent for arson. Harry´s comfortable family life and joy at being a family man and the father of 2 kids is lost with the activities which he starts to do for Andy Osnard. Harry was a liar, there never was a Braithwaite or any royal appointment, or even Saville Row. By telling all his lies he wants to hide his mystery and strange background. “You´re 906017 Pendel, convict and ex-juvenile deliquent, six years for arson, two-and-a-half served. Taught himself his tailoring in the slammer. Left the country three days after he had paid his debt to society, staked by his paternal Uncle Benjamin, now deceased. Married to Louisa, daughter of Zonian roughneck and Biblepunching schoolteacher, who dogbodies five days a week for the great and good Ernie Delgado over at the Panama Canal Commission. Two kids, Mark eight, Hannah ten. Insolvent, courtesy´s o´ the rice farm. Pendel & Braithwaite a load o´ bollocks. No such firm existed in Saville Row. There was never a liquidation because there was nothing to liquidate. Arthur Braithwaite on of the great characters o´ fiction. Adore a con. What life´s about. Don´t give me that swivel-eyed look. I´m bonus. Answer to your prayers. You hearing me?”206 Andy Osnard is the opposite of a Bond hero, rude, crude, rough, uncultivated, dishonest. Andy is described as a searcher for action and a man with the same interest in women like Bond. He is bad mannered and lacks the elegance which is typical for James Bond. Moreover he is also incapable of treating women with dignity and respects. He is not seen as the knight. He is a common man who earns his money by spying. Harry boy, my trouble is, everywhere I go, I come too and spoil it. “What are you, then? Pendel demanded of Osnard with a stirring of truculence. “I´m a spy. Spy for Merrie England. We´re reopening Panama.”207 With The Tailor of Panama Le Carré focused on white imperialists of the local Panamanian culture and also on the individuals who actually live apart from those white 206 Le Carré, John. The Tailor of Panama. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. 1996. p. 63-64. 207 Le Carré, John. The Tailor of Panama. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. 1996. p. 66. 69 imperialist, outsiders who considered themselves to be superior. He criticizes the spoiled children of the Panamanian rich and all the corrupt acts and deeds in the society. Le Carré´s major post-war concern in the themes like drugs, guns, undirected and uncontrolled intelligence agencies is apparent here. He wants to point out that there are corrupt institutions, people, manipulative press owners or industrial fabricants in the present world and the thoughtless pushing manner in which the United States applies military politics and their whole political affairs. Le Carré´s work is in many ways a critical and realistic response to the glorified figure of James Bond in Fleming´s spy novels. Le Carré´s protagonists are namely more realistic and their situations and circumstances are not as glamorous as James Bond´s ones. His spies are more credible und trustworthy. All the characters are described with a breathtaking accuracy. Le Carré shows them as human beings with their mistakes and problems, he gives a masterful portrayal of human weakness and imperfectness. He shows his readers what follows when human beings are driven by their greed. In his works there is only a minor degree of violence and action. The story is, first of all, based on an intellectual activity of his main heroes. In le Carré´s books the scent of skepticism can be found, but simultaneously his works are noted for their sense of humor Writers such as Len Deigton, John le Carré, and Ian Fleming achieved in spy literature a commercial success. “With the arrival of these new authors such as Len Deighton (comes from area: north London), and John le Carré (Oxford), a Foreign Office official “spy literature”, like satire, seemed to be turning into an industry. “Fleming´s 007 thrillers are a historically specific variation of the imperial spy novel that like the novels of Len Deighton and John le Carré, belongs to the era of the Cold War politics and an emerging society of the spectacle. Consumerism and tourism are the post-war cultural codes that the Bond tests register and ultimately reinforce.” 208 Le Carré and Deighton depict and stress the moral conflicts and issue in espionage and also political conflict, particularly during the Cold War. Their spies are involved in crimes from inside and outside view of their governments and authorities. Bond is established as a hero not only by his actions and style, but also by the contrasts between him and the villains in the stories . Style is significant and crucial, at 208 Lindner, Christoph. The James Bond phenomenon. A critical reader. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2003. p. 4 70 least for Bond, because most of the literary villains in the stories have no style. Style also locates and determines Bond socially in the society. Harry Palmer is not as stylish as Bond, he is a working class character. He is depicted as a common man. The same it is with Harry Palmer. Deighton´s hero, anonymous in the novels, portrayed as Harry Palmer in the films, was also purposely distanced and distinguished from Bond. He was also a British secret agent, but also unlike him, a working-class hero. “Spy stories of le Carré tells mostly tales of white-collar people and work, Fleming´s adventures are really tales of leisure intended for entertainment, tales where leisure is not a packaged, commodified holiday, filling up a space of time off from work, an acceptable moment to kill time, but is an adventure, a meaningful time, a time of life and death – in the words of From Russia, With Love, a killing time.”209 Unlike Ian Fleming, both, Len Deighton and John le Carré do not glamorize their spies but they try to present them in a realistic way with all their mistakes and imperfections. 209 Lindner, Christoph. The James Bond phenomenon. A critical reader. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2003. p. 63 71 8. Conclusion The aim of my diploma thesis was to sum up and give a general survey of information concerning the spy fiction genre, its rise, nature, features, development and examples of the spy novels representing authors. I think that all the gathered information in this diploma thesis can help readers to get a better view of such an interesting genre in English literature like spy fiction is. I am convinced that spy stories we have always had with us. Like everything else, they can be traced back to the Bible. Within the spy novel, we can find everything in the novel itself, from romance to bare realism, from junk to significant literature. Moreover espionage is becoming the reality which is closer to the average common man than at any previous time in history. People can better imagine what it means to be a spy and they can also imagine it in certain situations when they hear or read of international affairs, and the fact of espionage urges upon them even more tightly than that. People´s participations in daily life have their own procedures, ways, strategies and methods of spying upon each other, and upon them. People are aware, thanks to George Orwell´s prophecy in 1984 (“big brother is watching”)210, that some of the moments of their lives are unavailable to someone´s spy. People in short, are forced to accept espionage as part of human life, and thereby they try to get across it as a common part of any kind of fiction. Having followed most of the history of espionage, I noticed that the espionage in the past has made relatively a big progress. Spying has always been connected with its documentation which has met changes during its development as well. The first records concerning spying trace back to the Bible and since that time people always have the tendency to keep records about this special kind of activity and deeds. These records could have had various written forms and used various literary genres. Also the spy novel, the literary genre which is engaged in espionage and crime, went through changes. Since the first kept records when Moses used twelve men to spy out the land of Canaan over Alexander the Great´s establishment of the earliest postal espionage or to King Alfred the Great, who is considered to be “pioneer of the English secret service“, all these events were recorded in some way and are concerned with spy fiction. The methods, ways and genres of keeping records changed as the methods, ways and tactics 210 Nineteen Eighty-Four. Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. 14 December 2009 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four 72 of spying changed. With the subsequent spread of literacy the interest of people in stories with espionage elements grew. More people were able to read and more writers were expected to write about this matter, and the ways and forms of their writing were changing, especially with the introduction of the print medium. From at least the seventeenth century stories about various criminals were printed and sold at public executions depicting their criminal deeds. Newspapers and periodicals helped sales with good crime stories and during the eighteenth century biographies and autobiographies of criminals started to appear, together with various collections describing the careers of notorious murderers, burglars, highwaymen, vagabonds and pirates. In this respect it can be said that spy fiction takes its origin from so called Newgate fiction, which had a great influence on the authors of crime novel in general, and on the development of other literary genres like the sensational novel and the detective novel. Newgate novels were crime novels, and, in some respect historical novels, which depicted the adventure of various eighteenth-century criminals. Since the nineteenth century, literature with the intention to entertain started to appear and simultaneously it started to focus on the status of justice in the country. Later criminals did not stand in the midst of the interest, but those who followed and captured the criminals, in this respect, the rise of a literature of detection was given. There are spy elements in the Sherlock Holmes work and even before World War I there were such specialists in spy fiction as E. Phillips Oppenheim and the earlier and even less remembered William Le Queux. The trend of the unrealistic stream of glamour espionage to which Ian Fleming cling to the whole career carried through relatively a long time. Skillfully depicted with the elements both from literature and life, are the stories of John Buchan (The Thirty Nine Steps, 1915). Since the time of Buchan the British spy had begun to be presented with the elements of xenophobia. But the first stories of espionage with really realistic elements and character may be considered in “Ashenden: or the British Agent” (1928) written by Somerset Maugham, who himself was active for the Foreign Office during the war. After the WWI and before WWII the international politics appeared in the midst of interest and the spy novel reached its ripeness, which was demonstrated by some works of the spy novel authors, e.g Eric Ambler with Background to Danger (1937) , Graham Greene with The Confidential Agent (1939). And due to all these facts a spy novel could be created as full-valued as any other kind and form of fiction. Later with the approaching threat of WWII, a number of authors changed their topics and themes, and 73 turned for the first time to depict international intrigues and politics. After the war and restoration of normal life situation the same writers returned to their usual themes again. I would say that spy story and its next development, generally speaking, is in sound condition and on the good way today. Now there are lots of spy novel authors devoting presumably full time to such kind of fiction. First of all there are England´s John le Carré, Len Deighton or Frederyck Forsythe who have a good taste for orientation in an international political development and intrigues, and then American´s James Grady, Charles McCarry and Clive Eric Cussler, who writes political thrillers and stories from counter-espionage. Le Carré and Deighton feature the conflicts with moral elements in espionage, and political conflict, particularly during the Cold War. Their spies are forced to face crimes from inside and outside view of their governments, authorities and secret services. Modern crime novels try, and often even successfully, to combine the common elements involved in spy story with the tendency to puzzle and surprise. In my opinion, British dominance in espionage literature has started to grow weak owing to a strong competition, but not British. Approximately since the 80´s of the twenty century, also many American authors like Robert Ludlow and Tom Clancy have competed their British counterparts, colleagues in writing the best-selling spy fiction. It is not obvious only to me, but to whoever else that the world of international politics is no longer perceived and viewed as western-centric or east-centric or even bipolar as it used to be during the period of the twentieth century, especially the second half of the twentieth century. As international secret services and agencies turn to current crises and cases like illicit traffic of drugs, trafficking and terrorism, white slavery, the diminishing world stage will be more and more reflected on the pages of the literature also in the following years. The end of the Cold War did not result in the doom and disappearance of the spy novel, but it led to reorientation of secret service agents and to the change of their tasks, and to a new target-determination of new potential enemies. In context of the events of 11 September 2001, the outline turns out what new course the genre of spy fiction will take. 74 9. Resumé Tématem pro moji diplomovou práci jsem si zvolila špionážní román v anglické literatuře, jelikož již ráda čtu a obzvláště detektivní příběhy nebo příběhy se špionážním pozadím. Domnívám se, že i tomuto literárnímu žánru by měla být věnována pozornost tak, jak je třeba věnována pozornost jiným literárním žánrům, nebo i špionážní román patří rozhodně k plnohodnotným literárním dílům. Zároveň se domnívám, že v dnešní době se jedná o velmi aktuální téma, neboť se špionáží se můžeme setkat kdekoliv, ať již v podobě různých článků v denním tisku, zpráv z rádia či televizní obrazovky nebo i ze svého osobního života, pokud budeme sami vystaveni třeba i běžnému pozorování, sledování z něčí strany. Ve své práci jsem se pokusila nastínit vývoj tohoto literárního žánru od svých počátků až do současnosti, a uvést to hlavní, co tento literární žánr v anglického literatuře ovlivnilo, a jak se jeho vývoj celkově ubíral, kdo patřil a patří k jeho hlavním představitelům včetně těch nejstěžejnějších děl těchto autorů. Svou pozornost jsem rovněž věnovala tomu, jak jednotliví protagonisté tohoto žánru ke špionáži vůbec přistupují a jak ji prezentují ve svých dílech. Ne každý autor, věnující se tomuto tématu, má stejný pohled na věc. Součástí mé práce bylo i zaměření se na charakteristické rysy hlavních hrdinů – špionů některých stěžejních děl tohoto žánru. Domnívám se, že mnou nashromážděné informace a poznatky, které tato práce obsahuje, budou přínosné pro všechny, kteří se zabývají literaturou, a obzvláště pro ty, jejichž zálibou je četba špionážních románů. 75 10. Bibliography Black, Jeremy. The politics of James Bond. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 200 Bradford, Alfred S. With Arrow, Word and Spear: A history of Warfare in the Ancient World. Praeger Publisher. 2000 Brantlinger, Patrick. A comparison to the Victorian Novel (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture). Malden: Blackwell Publishing Company. 2002 Britton, Wesley A. Beyond Bond: Spies in fiction and film. Westport: Praeger Publishers. 2005. Burgess, Tony. English Literature. Harrow: Longman Group UK Limited.1974. Carrington, Charles Edmund. Rudyard Kipling: His life and work. New York: Penguin Literary Biographis. 1959 Davidson, James. Nation of Nations, a Concise Narrative of the American Republic. New York : Overture Books. 1996. Deighton, Len. 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