Guy Burgess seen through the lens of Lawton's imagination

Just finished John Lawton's latest Troy novel. Once more I'm in awe of his reconstruction of the past, his living and breathing characters, and his masterfully delectable handling of the English language.

In an addendum to the novel, Lawton explains that his portrayal of Guy Burgess is "an interpretation, a fiction based upon a real man rather than a representation of the real man." He includes only one actual quotation, a rude throwaway line Burgess uses on a superior who's advising him on etiquette for a U.S. posting. Lawson's invented Burgess is seen through the eyes of Chief Superintendent Frederick Troy. Watching Guy pass a joint to a world-famous cellist who survived Auchwitz (a character first seen in A Lily of the Field), Troy feels sure "they'd both be happier if he minded." He sees their behaviour as "the self-regarding defiance of naughty children."

Troy does not much like Burgess, but Guy keeps turning up. In one conversation between the two men, Troy observes how Burgess "seemed to perk up at the word Moscow, a glimmering pointless self-respect surfacing in the pool of booze and self-pity."

Glimpsing Guy after some years stuck in Moscow, the reader learns that while "a sentimental, self-deceiving man -- and Burgess was both -- might be able to recreate the illusion of the flat in Bond Street," the constant view of the Novodevichy Cemetery and the Orthodox convent make that illusion of home impossible to sustain.

The text is rich with such well-put ironies. For instance, Yevgeni Ivanovich Dragomirov proves to be an unexceptional man who looks "more like the Liberal candidate in a rural English by-election than a KGB officer."

Naturally, Guy himself is an ironist, albeit a self-serving one. Yet he is aware, at least in middle age, of the repetitive nature of his witticisms. In Russia, he is homesick. Meeting a US diplomat, Guy feeds him a line he's used before and recognizes that he'll likely use till the day he dies. Living in England, he claims, he missed ideas, while here in Moscow he misses "the trivia, the unimportant things." He goes on to ask the American to bring him some Patum Paperium, Fortnum's Gentleman's Relish on his next trip.

This novel includes plenty of real people besides Guy Burgess. Harold Macmillan features in the tale, although the author claims to have made up all his lines, including this recollection of the one and only time the PM met Burgess: "'Can't deny the wit, but his manners were deplorable, and his personal habits disgusting. You could raise a crop of spuds in the dirt under his fingernails.'"

In this story, much is made of a closed power elite bases on class and caste. Troy was born in England, yet remains somewhat of an outsider, because his elite journalist father was a Russian emigre. He enjoys wealth, a private education, a country house, and a respected MP brother with a knighthood. Yet even these trappings are not quite enough to secure his immunity from censure when the chips are down.

Gus fforde, Troy's insider diplomat friend admits he "bumped into" Burgess "a few times during my years with Five." Even before that, they "overlapped at Cambridge. Can't say I knew him, but his set were very high profile, always being seen, always wanting to be seen."

Insiders and outsiders. From this novel's perspective, the Cambridge Five appear as rich spoiled young men whose connections provide them with unearned immunity from practically any kind of mischief. The rash manner of the defection by the bickering Burgess and Maclean seems to take place in a moment when their showy bravado carries them unwittingly past a point of no return.

Double agent Bill Blaine is another Cambridge man, a rower not a debater. His comments about his time at university are described by a colleague as "little short of vitriolic." Blaine refers to the Cambridge spies as "fair-weather Marxists," or sometimes, "a bunch of poofs who were in it for the rough trade."

Appearance versus reality is another recurring theme. The novel is shot through with toxic secrecy. This shadowy atmosphere is reflected in everything from the hidden yet open gay culture of the times to the political pretensions of governments and the schoolboyish rivalry between competing MI services and the police. At one point, as Troy trades information with a contact in St. James's Park, he remarks that they should bring some food for the ducks next time, so they don't "look like a couple of spies."

In spite of the delightful linguistic hijinks, and the near-perfect sense of historical immersion (Lawton has also written history books), this, like other Inspector Troy novels, offers a rather dark vision. Stuck in Moscow in mid Cold War, both the world-famous cellist and a sad and rather pathetic Guy Burgess want to go home, but they cannot. Troy wants to avoid involvement with the deplorable machinations of MI5, but he cannot.

As always bored with desk work, Troy tells a colleague he needs a good murder to keep his mind occupied. As things turn out, if he'd known who was about to be killed, he might well have thought twice about what to wish for.

Miss Flavia de Luce is still on the loose

The intrepid eleven-year-old sleuth, Flavia de Luce, is determined to solve the mysteries that present themselves. Sometimes that requires manipulating a few adults: "When God has given you a great brain and long eyelashes, they may be the only weapons you have at your disposal." Naturally, she uses them.

This time, the death is a drowning. Flavia is not home at Buckshaw, but on holiday with her sisters. Predictably, they switch back and forth between moody and mean.

Fortunately, Dogger is available to take her where she needs to go in Harriet's Rolls Royce, and to conjure up a few chemical tests in a hotel room as well. All in a good cause.

This time, thugh, Flavia sails too close to the wind. Her snooping leads to her discovery and capture in a coffin maker's workshop. Fearing she's had the biscuit, she mentally prepares herself to die, then return to earth in a new incarnation as a famous chemist. Fortunately, with friends and relatives near at hand, the situation is less desperate than she'd thought.

And for Kelowna author Alan Bradley, the Flavia de Luce series is doing much better than he'd expected.

The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks

The amazing Dr. Oliver Sacks wrote much of this book in 2005, when he was seventy-three and had just been treated for a melanoma at the back of his retina. This delicate procedure threatened the sight in his dominant eye, and he ably describes some moments of terror the cancer evoked.

Though Dr. Sacks eventually lost sight in the affected eye, he survived for ten years and published this and four more books, including the astonishing Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, which came out in 2010. Sacks's final book came out in 2017, two years after his death.

Like his other works, this volume is full of amazing patient stories, but this time, the storyteller -- as a neurologist, a patient and a man -- is more visible in the narrative.

He shares his passion for swimming and stereoscopy, and reveals his own neurological oddities: "I have had difficulty recognizing faces for as long as I can remember." Place recognition can also pose problems, making it necessary to avoid deviating from a particular route unless he is with a friend. "At the age of seventy-six, despite a lifetime of trying to compensate, I have no less trouble with faces and places. I am thrown particularly when I see people out of context, even if I have been with them five minutes before."

As always, the patients he describes suffer from odd brain-related symptoms, and he explains with affection and sympathy how different individuals cope with their losses. Jane Goodall, like Sacks himself, suffers from prosopagnosia, or face blindness, but as this is moderate, both "can, after repeated exposure, learn to identify those we love best."

Following a stroke, detective novelist Howard Engel found that he could still write, but was no longer able to read. It happened that his publisher, Scribner, also suffered from alexia. Both men not only found new ways of coping with their disabilities, they used "a handicap to hone a skill."

Capgras syndrome is a problem that causes patients to lose their sense of emotional connection to the faces of people they know and love. Lacking that "special warm feeling of familiarity, the Capgras patient will argue" that their loved ones "must be clever impostors, counterfeits."

In prelingually deaf people, the auditory parts of the brain remain active and functional, but they are reallocated to other functions. In a similar way, "the visual cortex, deprived of visual input, is still good neural real estate, available and clamouring for a new function."

Blindness can cause "a heightening of other senses," including "the ability to use sound or tactile clues to sense the size or shape of a space and the people and objects within it." The blind physician Dennis Shulman feels that he is "far more sensitive to others' emotional states since losing his sight." Indeed, he can recognize many patients by smell, and "pick up states of tension or anxiety they might not even be aware of."

The reader also learns interesting things about animals. Siamese cats are often born cross-eyed, and the ability to see in stereo is biologically crucial to many creatures. "Predators, in general, have forward-facing eyes, with much overlap of the two visual fields; prey animals, by contrast, tend to have eyes at the sides of their heads, which gives them panoramic vision, helping them spot danger even if it comes from behind."

Once again, a truly fascinating work by the great neurologist who wrote Hallucinations and The Man that Mistook his Wife for a Hat. The closing passage of the book refers to a "delicious" paradox, and reveals this remarkable doctor's zest for knowledge, and for life.

Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley

"Most people, when you get to know them, are not what you're afraid they'll be." M. de Sabran, a French soldier held on parole, his word of honour, New York, 1762.

I love the work of Susanna Kearsley, and found this novel exceptional. Portraying universal dilemmas, it affords glimpses into the social history of a decisive period in North America: the Seven Years War, the fall of Quebec, and the taxation policies that eventually led to the American Revolution. When two French officers are billeted at Lydia's home, she is forced into the company of "enemies." Yet by observing the different characters and outlooks if the Quebecker and the Frenchman, and their contrast from her Acadian neighbour, she comes to realize that snap judgments and simple characterizations are unrealistic and unfair.

In this part of the novel, the reader also meet Loyalists, traders, farmers, Spanish sailors, slaves and slave-owners. Language and cultural barriers are rife in this novel -- even the battle site Fort Oswego is known in French by the quite different name of Fort Chouaguen. Fortunately, when Lydia is nearly caught up in a New York riot over illegal trading practices, the Canadian-born French marine does not need English to shield her from physical harm.

The modern characters reveal more recent north-south history with interesting parallels. Charley, the protagonist, is the daughter of an American whose family disowned him when he crossed into Canada to avoid being drafted to fight in Vietnam. When her brother dies in a small New York town, she leaves her Ontario home to take a job and spend time with her bereaved young cousin there. Charley's work establishing a historic house museum eventually forces her to confront her estranged grandmother, a wealthy widow who chairs the local branch of the Daughters of Liberty. The old woman she finally meets is certainly not the monster Charley feared she would be.

Sam, a contractor who is doing the restoration work on the museum, is wise, calm and easygoing. The son of a Mohawk ironworker, a connector (interesting double entendre), Sam comments in an offhand way about the human tendency to classify others into overly simple categories. His own history and ethnicity defy all attempts to pigeonhole him. With roots on both sides of the 49th parallel, he is the grandson of two residential school survivors. "'I got a bit of everything,'" he tells Charley, "'Mohawk, English, French, Oneida, Scottish, Catholic, Protestant -- you name it.'"

With roots as mixed as those of part-indigenous novelist Joseph Boyden, Sam has learned to remain unfazed by what people say to and about him, and he has also learned when to keep his mouth shut -- an admirable trait we'd be wise to emulate. He's a positive role model who expresses the multiplicity of our human roots and origins. Through Sam's calm and non-judgmental comments, Kearsley handily exposes a bane of our era: constant efforts by ignorant people and politicians to pigeonhole individuals for their own ends.

Some of the novel's big themes are also expressed through the displaced Acadian farmer Pierre Boudreau. Though many of his English-speaking neighbours do not trouble learn his surname, they know they can rely on the translations of "French Peter." A survivor of many hard blows, Pierre is observant, philosophical and kind. His advice to M. de Sabran, not to look back but to "grow roots where you are standing" is astonishingly similar to similar advice given by his abbott to the American monk Thomas Merton: "Bloom where you are planted."

Of course the book contains a ghost, but this the supernatural aspect of the tale plays a smaller role here than in earlier works. Indeed, one could almost interpret the ghost as the part of Charley that has the ability to go quiet and intuit the presence of the past.

The fact that this volume contains material extraneous to the story reveals the tale's closeness to the writer's heart. Descended from Loyalists, the author learned that her ancestors owned slaves, and she devotes the book to them in apology and to honour their memory.

In an extra section, About the Characters, Kearsley reveals her hope and optimism by citing the "highly respected and influential philosopher" the Earl of Shaftesbury, who believed in the innate human moral sense, the ability to know right from wrong. She also quotes his comments to the effect that the love of doing good is reason enough to do it, and that prejudice is a "mist" that sadly dims our vision.

In this passage, and also in the novel itself, she refers to the Truth and Reconciliation process, and quotes the final report of the Commission, which says that "The Arts help to restore human dignity and identity in the face of injustice."

History casts long shadows. Thank you, Susanna Kearsley, for casting your light on some of them.

Canadian Authors Metro Vancouver hosts June Open Mic

Twenty Readers, five minutes each. The eternal refugee spoke these poignant words by poet Lozan Yamolky. You won't find me among those little girls who have been bought and sold and traded -- spoils of war -- I am here. Help raise me...I am the child, and this is our village.

New work from Jay Bates (below) included this line: A lifetime of hurts fitted into a tiny suitcase. 

Among the other words heard: 

Briana Garelli: At Sunday mass, her mother prayed for Blanca's return. 

Susila Bryant: Tales told, lives led, pleadings pled, songs sung. 

Jay Storey: The doors were still operational, but wouldn't be for long. 

Andrew Littler: Those that knew how much they should be drinking, and those that did not. 

Karen Lee: The one thing I remember from Sunday school is that God takes a dim view of self-interest. 

Malcolm van Delst: I'm not gonna lie any more, even though I'm exceptionally good at it...If you lose track of the story, you lose track of yourself. 

Tikiri Herath: His ears billowed like the sails of a pirate ship. 

Karen Schauber: He is managing quite well for a purebred...He's a quick study. 

Tara K Torme: You are an unopened Pandora's box. 

Lilija Valis: I'm taking another look at No. Yes takes all the credit...In some cultures, no is not allowed in public. Yes and No need each other, but they quarrel all the time.

Marion Lovelace: I will require a formal pose. Perhaps it will please you to come to the embassy? 

Renee Saklikar: The dance, most of all. 

Sofie and Cecilia by Katherine Ashenburg

To write this book, Katherine Ashenburg did a great deal of research and travelled to Sweden to seek out settings and talk to locals. The novel portrays two couples: all four are artists, but in the early 20th century, both women give up painting once they marry. According to society, the real (male) artists are owed this by their wives.

The story is strengthened by the fact that both Lars and Nils, the husbands of protagonists Cecilia and Sofie, are loosely based on real Swedish artists.

In an incidental way, this story of a friendship is also a lesson in 20th century European history and society. The main tale, though, is an intimate portrait of two artist's wives, who meet through their husbands and slowly develop their friendship.

As an old woman, Sofie looks back on her marriage to Nils, thinking "Love, the bodily love...had convinced her to accept him. That kind of love had an element of destiny. The love of friendship, on the other hand, felt more like a choice."

In her old age, Cecilia, who is of Jewish ancestry, must watch the rise of Nazism in Germany, where she first studied painting. A rising wave of national fervour in Sweden leaves her feeling somewhat isolated, as her liberal artist friends ignore the impending threat. It is a bitter pill indeed that Cecilia's homeland of Sweden, where she and Lars have spent years of effort and huge sums of money to create a museum to preserve Swedish arts and crafts, is not immune from the demented ideal of national "purity."