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A review by phileasfogg
The Ipcress File by Len Deighton
4.0
As far as I'm concerned, there are three great Cold War spy series. (I really mean 'franchises', because they all started as books and were then adapted into other media, but I've never been crazy about that word.)
They are: Ian Fleming's James Bond, natch; John Le Carre's George Smiley; Len Deighton's nameless spy, called 'Harry Palmer' in the movies.
I've now read the first book in each series.
I liked Deighton's best. Le Carre's is the best-written, but as a 'cosy' mystery with a spying background it's a lot less ambitious than The IPCRESS File. Casino Royale was enjoyable enough, but felt like it lacked basic craft, its early chapters a miasma of McGuffinry* setting up the absurd idea that HM Gov badly needs someone to go to a casino and beat someone at baccarat.
Is The IPCRESS File self-consciously trying to be the anti-Bond? It's hard to say. The movie version is, but the book has a little too much jet-setting and exciting action to be an anti-Bond. I think it's trying to be like Bond in some ways - an exciting adventure story set in the world of espionage - but its point of difference is that it's trying to do it as realistically as possible. Is real spying anything like what goes on in here? Was it in the 1960s? I don't know. But I completely bought the reality of its spy world.
Its spy milieu is a lot closer to Le Carre's than Fleming's; it's like the action/adventure version of Le Carre's world. Our hero does lots of mundane stuff involving paperwork, requisitions, trying to get paid his salary, trying to get the expenses he's owed, and playing office politics to get things done; he also gets involved in violent action, jumping through skylights, killing people, getting beaten up and tortured. He's almost too busy trying to uncover moles, and trying to avoid being considered a mole, to deal with enemy spies.
It mostly takes place in a deromanticised spy world that should be recognisable as the intended reader's own. It takes spying away from the baccarat tables of the French Riviera and dumps it in the back room of a sleazy porno shop. It's a rainy world, with strip joints, pawn shops, suburbs, British newspapers and bad coffee. It's England's noir, its equivalent of hard-boiled-detective-land. This book, and even more so the movie based on it, helped to re-romanticise that world, so now it takes an effort of will not to see every detail as fun and awesome and if I had a time machine I'd spend half my time in 1962 London. It's a shame the later books (and movies) move the character away from this low-rent England. I've always imagined it must be great fun to read and see exciting, well-made adventure stories set in the place you live. New Yorkers and Londoners have always been well-served. Adelaideans, not so much.
Part-way through, the action suddenly moves across the world, and although it's a shame to lose that shabby London, the new setting is pretty interesting.
A lot of readers seem to find the plot over-complicated. I didn't, though in the early chapters I was puzzled a few times about what was meant to be going on, as if the narrator had left out one or two bits of explanation that would have made all clear. I think this isn't over-complication exactly, but poor writing - for me this problem stopped after a while, as if Deighton had got the hang of this kind of writing by then. I liked the rest of the book enough to forgive the early lapses.
Seeing the movie three times might have helped. (And I've listened to the soundtrack album, which includes some great dialogue exchanges, dozens of times.) The details of the plot are different in the movie, but what helped was that I could put faces to the names, so I was in no danger of forgetting who was who, even if a pivotal character was absent for 100 pages.
I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this series.
Appendices
APPENDICES
Nameless spy loves his endnotes, or 'appendices'. They're kind of fun. Some provide technical information, but in the voice of the narrator. Some are personal reminiscences, explaining his history with various characters. One of these, the story of Reg Cavendish, is bizarrely missing from one of my copies of this book. I imagine the author decided to remove it while preparing a later edition, as it puts the reader on hold for several pages during an exciting bit. But it's a shame to lose it.
MCGUFFINRY?
There's probably a better word for this, but I call it McGuffinry. As you may know, a McGuffin is some object that characters in a story pursue, leading to conflict between them. A Maltese Falcon, a lost Ark of the Covenant, letters of transit, the One Ring. Most McGuffins are interchangeable. Victor and Ilsa could just as easily be trying to obtain the Maltese Falcon or the lost Ark to buy their way out of Casablanca. It would be the same story (and might make more sense than a document that magically says 'barleys'* to your Nazi enemies). McGuffinry is like that, except instead of an object it's an elaborate set of background circumstances, which may or may not be explained at tedious length, and which explains why the characters must fight. It could just as easily be some entirely different explanation: if Bond was a guy who owes money to bad people and his best hope of making it is to win at baccarat, it would be much the same story.]
BARLEYS
Does the outside world would know about 'barleys', or does it only exist in my home town? Google suggests it's not widely known. The word 'barleys' is used in old-fashioned children's games to temporarily suspend play, to avoid injury, discuss the rules, or just avoid losing.
They are: Ian Fleming's James Bond, natch; John Le Carre's George Smiley; Len Deighton's nameless spy, called 'Harry Palmer' in the movies.
I've now read the first book in each series.
I liked Deighton's best. Le Carre's is the best-written, but as a 'cosy' mystery with a spying background it's a lot less ambitious than The IPCRESS File. Casino Royale was enjoyable enough, but felt like it lacked basic craft, its early chapters a miasma of McGuffinry* setting up the absurd idea that HM Gov badly needs someone to go to a casino and beat someone at baccarat.
Is The IPCRESS File self-consciously trying to be the anti-Bond? It's hard to say. The movie version is, but the book has a little too much jet-setting and exciting action to be an anti-Bond. I think it's trying to be like Bond in some ways - an exciting adventure story set in the world of espionage - but its point of difference is that it's trying to do it as realistically as possible. Is real spying anything like what goes on in here? Was it in the 1960s? I don't know. But I completely bought the reality of its spy world.
Its spy milieu is a lot closer to Le Carre's than Fleming's; it's like the action/adventure version of Le Carre's world. Our hero does lots of mundane stuff involving paperwork, requisitions, trying to get paid his salary, trying to get the expenses he's owed, and playing office politics to get things done; he also gets involved in violent action, jumping through skylights, killing people, getting beaten up and tortured. He's almost too busy trying to uncover moles, and trying to avoid being considered a mole, to deal with enemy spies.
It mostly takes place in a deromanticised spy world that should be recognisable as the intended reader's own. It takes spying away from the baccarat tables of the French Riviera and dumps it in the back room of a sleazy porno shop. It's a rainy world, with strip joints, pawn shops, suburbs, British newspapers and bad coffee. It's England's noir, its equivalent of hard-boiled-detective-land. This book, and even more so the movie based on it, helped to re-romanticise that world, so now it takes an effort of will not to see every detail as fun and awesome and if I had a time machine I'd spend half my time in 1962 London. It's a shame the later books (and movies) move the character away from this low-rent England. I've always imagined it must be great fun to read and see exciting, well-made adventure stories set in the place you live. New Yorkers and Londoners have always been well-served. Adelaideans, not so much.
Part-way through, the action suddenly moves across the world, and although it's a shame to lose that shabby London, the new setting is pretty interesting.
Spoiler
The new setting, Tokwe, is a slightly disguised Eniwetok (now known as Enewetak), the site of many US nuclear bomb tests. These bomb tests haven't been seen much in fiction, as far as I can tell, possibly because the details were fairly secret. Once again, just as he convinced me that his version of spy v spy 1962-style was real, Deighton convinced me that his version of Tokwe might be very like the real thing.A lot of readers seem to find the plot over-complicated. I didn't, though in the early chapters I was puzzled a few times about what was meant to be going on, as if the narrator had left out one or two bits of explanation that would have made all clear. I think this isn't over-complication exactly, but poor writing - for me this problem stopped after a while, as if Deighton had got the hang of this kind of writing by then. I liked the rest of the book enough to forgive the early lapses.
Seeing the movie three times might have helped. (And I've listened to the soundtrack album, which includes some great dialogue exchanges, dozens of times.) The details of the plot are different in the movie, but what helped was that I could put faces to the names, so I was in no danger of forgetting who was who, even if a pivotal character was absent for 100 pages.
I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this series.
Appendices
APPENDICES
Nameless spy loves his endnotes, or 'appendices'. They're kind of fun. Some provide technical information, but in the voice of the narrator. Some are personal reminiscences, explaining his history with various characters. One of these, the story of Reg Cavendish, is bizarrely missing from one of my copies of this book. I imagine the author decided to remove it while preparing a later edition, as it puts the reader on hold for several pages during an exciting bit. But it's a shame to lose it.
MCGUFFINRY?
There's probably a better word for this, but I call it McGuffinry. As you may know, a McGuffin is some object that characters in a story pursue, leading to conflict between them. A Maltese Falcon, a lost Ark of the Covenant, letters of transit, the One Ring. Most McGuffins are interchangeable. Victor and Ilsa could just as easily be trying to obtain the Maltese Falcon or the lost Ark to buy their way out of Casablanca. It would be the same story (and might make more sense than a document that magically says 'barleys'* to your Nazi enemies). McGuffinry is like that, except instead of an object it's an elaborate set of background circumstances, which may or may not be explained at tedious length, and which explains why the characters must fight. It could just as easily be some entirely different explanation: if Bond was a guy who owes money to bad people and his best hope of making it is to win at baccarat, it would be much the same story.]
BARLEYS
Does the outside world would know about 'barleys', or does it only exist in my home town? Google suggests it's not widely known. The word 'barleys' is used in old-fashioned children's games to temporarily suspend play, to avoid injury, discuss the rules, or just avoid losing.