There are all sorts of signs of our divisive society and one of them is how the series Slow Horses has been a big hit but if you only have Freeview you are unlikely to have seen it - there are other series in that mold, like Breaking Bad - though I started renting that on DVD from my library.
So in the spirit of the kid whose mum won't let him stay up to watch Dr No on the telly and instead picks up a paperback book from his local antiques shop, I decided to read Slow Horses by Mike Herron instead.
It's a page turner and got through it in a few days. It's about some London MI5 type spooks who have been discredited or disgraced on the job in such a way that they can't cover it up or blame someone else. Rather than be fired - which might involve an investigation or a payoff, they are relocated to Slough House and given work of such ignominious drudgery that it is hoped they may just quit anyway.
As the author explains, 'Slough House' is not in Slough and nor is it a house but rather it is a dreary office block near the Barbican, the sort set above a former newsagent turned mini market and a Chinese restaurant, on a bus route. The nickname 'Slow horses' is a pun derived from that and staff are forever trying to work their way back to the prize plum jobs at the Regents Park office, with whom they have occasional rivalry or at least conflicts of interest.
In the first 100 pages the author pulls a few narrative tricks on the reader which I did find a bit tiresome, pulls the rug up under you. There is a reference to one spook shadowing 'Lady Di' and you think, hang on, the book isn't that old so how come she's alive? Is it set in the past? She died in 1997. In due course, the book reveals who it means by 'Lady Di'. The book came out in 2010 - so it's really an old book now, and was released in the wake of the London bombings. Depressingly however, given the events of the week, its themes of stoked division are still topical and while it's not the BNP that is gaining seats in the polls as in the book, it is now Reform that stand to make gains.
Thinking back to 2010 - both my parents were not only alive, they were both still living at home! Doubtless you will have your own markers.
Some of the characters - a former Marxist journalist who has drifted to the Far Right and is now persona non grata - may ring a bell. Might it be Peter Hitchens - used to be a lefty, except he isn't Far Right, just right wing and is In no way disgraced, just a bit by his own admission sidelined. One Cabinet minister called CJ however, introduced on page 187, well, you'd have to be blind to not see that as Boris Johnson (BJ) to such an extent I'm surprised it wasn't actionable - although was Boris a Cabinet member back then or still London mayor? It's such an absolutely unflattering, damning account that if everyone had read the book it might have rendered him unelectable.
I enjoyed this but some of the trickery made it less plausible for me. The way it is set up, introducing the failed spooks, who due to being in Slough House, sort of resemble the characters in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's The Office, is nicely done and perhaps that is what the new Bond novelist was attempting with her debut; it works better here and when the jeopardy and main plot arrives, it is straightforward. Unfortunately it's not very nice - a teenager is kidnapped and threatened with beheading - so this didn't make for cosy bedtime reading for me, it all felt compelling, not wholly plausible and nightmarish, which is an uneasy combo.
The series is a sort of black comedy but this book isn't quite comedic, the author doesn't despise his characters but doesn't really sympathise with them enough to make them comedic either.
Ultimately we find that the so-called losers are - it turns out, and this includes their fat flatulent head Jackson Lamb, played by Gary Oldman in the series - are not so incompetent after all and can almost pull it together at times, so we are in the Clark Kent/Superman, Sir Percy/Scarlet Pimpernel, Jason Bourne amnesiac/ace spy dual identity thing that is a familiar set-up. Soon, the characters are jibing at each other with occasional wisecracks which seems to be the trend these days in these things.
I read Slow Horses about 8 years ago because I kept hearing it was the best thing since Bond, or Bourne, or whatever. It isn't. I am fairly certain I'm the only person I know who considered it dull, unbelievable and crammed full of crass unlikely and unlikeable people. I enjoy being in a lonely minority.
I went on a Kingsley Amis binge: Colonel Sun and James Bond Dossier, both of which I consider to be canon. I found Col. Sun to be a bit lack luster, propably mainly for the reason that 1) it really stripped M of his aura, and turned him into a distressed senior citizen 2) the uneven handling of the villains, who were introduced as "real professionals" that even Bond felt helpless to move against, only to be defeated at the drop of a hat when the plot needed it and 3) Bond being just way too "Bond", I mean he seduced an enemy agent in minutes of first meeting her!
The Bond Dossier is on the other hand an entertaining book, as long as you don't take it too seriously!
"I mean, she almost kills bond...with her ass."
-Mr Arlington Beech
James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007 (1973) by John Pearson. An interesting experiment, to say the least. Greatly enjoyable, even if some of the timelines don't mix well together. This was arguably the first time that a Bond author overwrote some of the material, provided by Fleming. I feel it's best for a new general reader to just read it on their own terms. It feels like Bond's life story in a greatest hits montage. That's not a bad thing in my eyes, it was actually done very well here. Like Kingsley Amis before him, it's a shame that John Pearson never got to write a second Bond novel. He clearly knew the character and his history well. I like the use of Aunt Charmian Bond and May the Housekeeper. Plus, the one Bond woman who deserved to comeback, where it doesn't feel like fan service. Highly recommended, as a finale for James Bond as Fleming (and Amis, briefly) wrote him, in all their original viewpoints.
Yes, that book almost feels like canon to me and there is stuff in it I often mistake for Fleming in my memory, the circumstances of his first real love affair ('affair' implies a marital infidelity but 'love affair' does not, why is that?) with a French woman after he loses his pocketbook.
Comments
There are all sorts of signs of our divisive society and one of them is how the series Slow Horses has been a big hit but if you only have Freeview you are unlikely to have seen it - there are other series in that mold, like Breaking Bad - though I started renting that on DVD from my library.
So in the spirit of the kid whose mum won't let him stay up to watch Dr No on the telly and instead picks up a paperback book from his local antiques shop, I decided to read Slow Horses by Mike Herron instead.
It's a page turner and got through it in a few days. It's about some London MI5 type spooks who have been discredited or disgraced on the job in such a way that they can't cover it up or blame someone else. Rather than be fired - which might involve an investigation or a payoff, they are relocated to Slough House and given work of such ignominious drudgery that it is hoped they may just quit anyway.
As the author explains, 'Slough House' is not in Slough and nor is it a house but rather it is a dreary office block near the Barbican, the sort set above a former newsagent turned mini market and a Chinese restaurant, on a bus route. The nickname 'Slow horses' is a pun derived from that and staff are forever trying to work their way back to the prize plum jobs at the Regents Park office, with whom they have occasional rivalry or at least conflicts of interest.
In the first 100 pages the author pulls a few narrative tricks on the reader which I did find a bit tiresome, pulls the rug up under you. There is a reference to one spook shadowing 'Lady Di' and you think, hang on, the book isn't that old so how come she's alive? Is it set in the past? She died in 1997. In due course, the book reveals who it means by 'Lady Di'. The book came out in 2010 - so it's really an old book now, and was released in the wake of the London bombings. Depressingly however, given the events of the week, its themes of stoked division are still topical and while it's not the BNP that is gaining seats in the polls as in the book, it is now Reform that stand to make gains.
Thinking back to 2010 - both my parents were not only alive, they were both still living at home! Doubtless you will have your own markers.
Some of the characters - a former Marxist journalist who has drifted to the Far Right and is now persona non grata - may ring a bell. Might it be Peter Hitchens - used to be a lefty, except he isn't Far Right, just right wing and is In no way disgraced, just a bit by his own admission sidelined. One Cabinet minister called CJ however, introduced on page 187, well, you'd have to be blind to not see that as Boris Johnson (BJ) to such an extent I'm surprised it wasn't actionable - although was Boris a Cabinet member back then or still London mayor? It's such an absolutely unflattering, damning account that if everyone had read the book it might have rendered him unelectable.
I enjoyed this but some of the trickery made it less plausible for me. The way it is set up, introducing the failed spooks, who due to being in Slough House, sort of resemble the characters in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's The Office, is nicely done and perhaps that is what the new Bond novelist was attempting with her debut; it works better here and when the jeopardy and main plot arrives, it is straightforward. Unfortunately it's not very nice - a teenager is kidnapped and threatened with beheading - so this didn't make for cosy bedtime reading for me, it all felt compelling, not wholly plausible and nightmarish, which is an uneasy combo.
The series is a sort of black comedy but this book isn't quite comedic, the author doesn't despise his characters but doesn't really sympathise with them enough to make them comedic either.
Ultimately we find that the so-called losers are - it turns out, and this includes their fat flatulent head Jackson Lamb, played by Gary Oldman in the series - are not so incompetent after all and can almost pull it together at times, so we are in the Clark Kent/Superman, Sir Percy/Scarlet Pimpernel, Jason Bourne amnesiac/ace spy dual identity thing that is a familiar set-up. Soon, the characters are jibing at each other with occasional wisecracks which seems to be the trend these days in these things.
There's a series of these but I'll pace myself.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I'll look for it.
Thanks for the review 🍸
I’m keeping an eye for all the books in this series as I’ve been wanting to read them for awhile now.
I read Slow Horses about 8 years ago because I kept hearing it was the best thing since Bond, or Bourne, or whatever. It isn't. I am fairly certain I'm the only person I know who considered it dull, unbelievable and crammed full of crass unlikely and unlikeable people. I enjoy being in a lonely minority.
I went on a Kingsley Amis binge: Colonel Sun and James Bond Dossier, both of which I consider to be canon. I found Col. Sun to be a bit lack luster, propably mainly for the reason that 1) it really stripped M of his aura, and turned him into a distressed senior citizen 2) the uneven handling of the villains, who were introduced as "real professionals" that even Bond felt helpless to move against, only to be defeated at the drop of a hat when the plot needed it and 3) Bond being just way too "Bond", I mean he seduced an enemy agent in minutes of first meeting her!
The Bond Dossier is on the other hand an entertaining book, as long as you don't take it too seriously!
-Mr Arlington Beech
James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007 (1973) by John Pearson. An interesting experiment, to say the least. Greatly enjoyable, even if some of the timelines don't mix well together. This was arguably the first time that a Bond author overwrote some of the material, provided by Fleming. I feel it's best for a new general reader to just read it on their own terms. It feels like Bond's life story in a greatest hits montage. That's not a bad thing in my eyes, it was actually done very well here. Like Kingsley Amis before him, it's a shame that John Pearson never got to write a second Bond novel. He clearly knew the character and his history well. I like the use of Aunt Charmian Bond and May the Housekeeper. Plus, the one Bond woman who deserved to comeback, where it doesn't feel like fan service. Highly recommended, as a finale for James Bond as Fleming (and Amis, briefly) wrote him, in all their original viewpoints.
Yes, that book almost feels like canon to me and there is stuff in it I often mistake for Fleming in my memory, the circumstances of his first real love affair ('affair' implies a marital infidelity but 'love affair' does not, why is that?) with a French woman after he loses his pocketbook.
Roger Moore 1927-2017