TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/081991/0819470.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.4 KB | 185 lines

                                                                                BOOKS, Page 56

When Spies Become Allies


Faced with a melted cold war, espionage novelists are turning
their attention to the Middle East, South Africa, Asia,
eco-terrorism and the frontier of technology

By STEFAN KANFER -- Reported by Wendy Cole/New York


    Berlin. What a garrison of spies! what a playground for
every alchemist, miracle worker and rat-piper that ever took up
the cloak.

    -- John le Carre, A Perfect Spy



    The playground has closed. The garrison is dispersing. And
with it is going another dejected group: the spy novelists. The
cold war, central theme of espionage thrillers, has melted in
the warm sun -- and hot air -- of glasnost and perestroika.

    It may be quite a while before writers find an arena as
morally complex or financially rewarding. Before World War II,
the spy novelist usually took the low road: the hero was
implausibly good, as in John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps.
Evil was unambiguous. Sax Rohmer invested his villain, Fu
Manchu, "with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race
. . . the Yellow Peril incarnate." But in the postwar period the
public grew weary of caricatures, and only Ian Fleming could
profitably drive on the old thoroughfare, with men like Doctor
No and Goldfinger in the backseat.

    The high road, paved by Graham Greene and improved by John
le Carre, led to an entirely new kind of literature. The books
no longer echoed of national anthems. Instead they suggested
T.S. Eliot's Gerontion: "Think/ Neither fear nor courage saves
us. Unnatural vices/ Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues/ Are
forced upon us by our impudent crimes."

    In these espionage novels, impudent crimes were committed
on both sides of the Berlin Wall. There was a peculiar
similarity to the sunless corridors and bureaucratic fatigue of
Moscow and Washington. Enemies became interdependent and
sometimes indistinguishable; it was a case of the left hand
strengthening the right. George Smiley in Britain needed his
rival Karla in Moscow. NATO needed the Warsaw Pact. The CIA
needed the KGB. And the spy novelists needed them all.

    No wonder publishers are so melancholy. "Soviet-U.S.
confrontation as a genre is dead," says Viking editor Al
Silverman. Adrian Zackheim, executive editor of Morrow, puts the
situation in the absolute terms of a bumper sticker: "Espionage
is over."

    Some acknowledged spy masters have joined the funeral
march. "The public won't accept that espionage is still
happening," observes novelist Frederick Forsyth (The Day of the
Jackal). "The KGB general as the all-purpose bad guy isn't going
to work anymore."

    For Martin Cruz Smith (Gorky Park), the spy genre has lost
its drawing power: "I don't find it as compelling or as
credible. We've gone past the epic enemy. Now we're down to the
mini-series enemy."

    Yet not every writer is willing to mourn the passage of
Boris and Natasha. The man who renewed the espionage genre back
in 1963, when he brought his spy in from the cold, believes the
glass is half full. "If the spy novelist of today can rise to
the challenge," claims le Carre, "he has got it made. He can
sweep away the cobwebs of a world grown old and cold and weary .
. . and take on any number of new hunting grounds."

    But where are those grounds? The headlines and back pages
suggest a few territories available for exploitation:



    EASTERN EUROPE. When a subject grows old enough it becomes
new. Long ago, novelists thought they had exhausted the subject
of Balkan intrigue. Now that the U.S.S.R. seems destined, in
Trotsky's memorable phrase, for the dustbin of history,
long-dormant rivalries have been awakened. Once again Romania,
Albania, Bulgaria and company provide an exceptional backdrop
for enmity and vengeance.



    SOUTH AFRICA. Pariah states provide ideal stages for
international intrigue -- one reason why Larry Bond's Vortex
made the best-seller list. Even with De Klerk's policies and
relaxed sanctions, the permutations of black vs. black, black
vs. white, white vs. white are endless. Besides, adds Bond,
"Afrikaners make good bad guys."



    THE MIDDLE EAST. In Joshua and Judges, the Hebrew generals
regard spies as standard equipment. Espionage agents have been
employed ever since, on both sides of the Negev. Like Saddam
Hussein, treachery seems unlikely to go away, and as long as oil
remains the fuel of the future, power struggles will provide
plots for a thousand sun-and-sand scenarios.



    JAPAN. With superpower status has come some super
liabilities. The "land of the rising sun" now has its own
full-blown financial scandal, and the nation will soon be a
focal point of the international thriller. Next March, Viking
provides a formidable entry with Henry Meigs' Gate of the
Tigers, centered on a Japanese scheme to capture U.S. high-tech
secrets.



    TECHNOLOGY. In an age of space exploration, robotics and
cyborgs, the techno-thriller is only beginning to make its mark.
There is no reason to cede all the special effects to Arnold
Schwarzenegger; atomic submarines, undetectable aircraft and,
of course, the ever popular Ultimate Weapon can and should be
vital parts of this novelist's arsenal.



    ECOLOGY. The Four Horsemen have been replaced by the Three
Ps of the Apocalypse: Predators, Polluters and Poachers. They
provide equal-opportunity villainy: everyone is against them,
and anyone who fights them is an automatic hero or heroine.
Indeed, one eco-thriller, The Covenant of the Flame by David
Morrell, centers on an international group out to rid the earth
of its despoilers.



    INTERNATIONAL FINANCE. The B.C.C.I. affair reverberates on
both sides of the Atlantic. A cast of plutocrats and drug
runners, politicians and terrorists, should provoke a shelf of
thrillers, and when this scandal runs out, there surely will be
another money laundry, disguised as a bank, ready to prod the
writers' fantasies.



    LATIN AMERICA. Nothing has changed. South of the Rio
Grande the spy novelist will still find the same ingredients:
vibrant village myth, religious ritual, Spanish elegance,
exploited minorities, abject poverty and flamboyant wealth. The
only problem, says Bond, "is getting the scenarios down on paper
before things change. You've got to pick a long-term crisis. You
don't want some Banana Republic revolution."



    Given these grounds -- and almost every item on Nightline
-- it seems much too early to administer Extreme Unction to the
international thriller after all. Jason Epstein, editorial
director of Random House, is less a cheerleader than a realist
when he observes, "Spy novels have survived since the beginning
of time. It all began with the Trojan horse."

    He concedes that "no one is going to write about the cold
war except in a historical work. But writers will think up new
standards. The spy novel is not going to go away. There are
always going to be spies. There will be spy novels as long as
there are people."

    What kind of novels does he expect to come across his
desk? He counters with another question: "Who can tell what
these guys will turn out? It's not predictable. If publishers
knew what would turn up, publishing would be a lot easier." An
unpredictable life, filled with difficulties? Hmmm. The
publishing industry might just be the right locale for a
thriller or two . . .