Rating: 4/5
Review:
Beautifully written
I found this a gripping, superbly written book but I did
have my reservations about it.
It is almost impossible to give an outline of the plot (such
as it is) without divulging far more than I would have waned to know before I
began. Set in 1981, the protagonist is
Stephen, a young man from a very ordinary background who, after going to Oxford
is working as a "listener" for the Intelligence Services, listening
to hours of surveillance tapes each day…and becoming completely besotted with
the wife of one of the subjects. The
book is an almost forensic portrayal of his internal state as his infatuation
leads him by tiny degrees into deeper and deeper water.
It's brilliantly done.
The atmosphere of the time, the period detail and the sense of cold and
bleakness as Christmas approaches for Stephen are wonderfully evoked, and
Francesca Kay's psychological portraits of both Stephen and his mother are
exceptionally good, built up utterly convincingly from the minutiae of their
everyday lives, thoughts and feelings. Don't
look for a fast-paced spy thriller, because this is anything but that, but it
has a gripping, doom-laden feel which builds powerfully throughout the
narrative and it's one of those books where I had to make an effort to bring myself
out of its world and readjust to reality
after reading for any length of time.
My reservation is that, however lonely and besotted Stephen is,
and however much he drinks, I couldn't quite believe that as a highly
intelligent man he would be quite so foolish and naïve as to do some of the
things he does, or to be blind to some of the obvious things he ought to see. Toward the end, I even muttered "Oh, for
heavens' sake" as he makes yet another ridiculous decision (or, more
accurately, fails to make an even remotely sensible one). This did take the gloss off an otherwise
excellent book for me.
That aside, this is a fine book; it is exceptionally well
written, very insightful and quite gripping, with brilliant portraits of a time
and of its characters. Recommended.
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