Kingdom of Shadows: A Novel [Hardcover]

If you are a gem merchant, you probably knew this: apparently your family has been doing deals of this sort since 1350. As I am not a gem merchant, this trancscontinental fandango is one of the many things I learn in reading Alan Furst's "Kingdom of Shadows," one of the half dozen espionage novels in which Furst undertakes to recreate the atmosphere of Europe on the eve of World War II.

For Furst, I can thank Brad de Long, the Berkeley economist who runs a great weblog. De Long says he gives copies of Furst novels to incoming grad students to remind them that the 20th Century was not always as triumphal as their ending. A good choice: I gather Furst himself says he keeps in his workroom a picture of the Austrian writer Joseph Roth, perhaps the greatest expositor of the mood of apocalyptic doom that overlay any thoughtful person in a decade when it looked as if the future lay with either Hitler or Stalin. Indeed, characters in "Kingdom of Shadows" attend Roth's funeral. "It was probably a good thing," says one of these characters, "that you coudln't commit suicide by counting to ten and saying /now/." In fact, Roth himself did something very close: he drank himself to death in despair over the storm clouds that lay all around.

It's certainly risky to take your history from novels, but I must say whenever Furst writes about things I (think I) know, he seems to get him right. Therefore I am inclined to take his word on others. For example -- who knew that the Hungarian national anthem declares (declared?) that "this nation has already paid for its sins, past and future"? Or that "the slow, meticulous grinding of civil servants" has a German name -- "Schreibitschtater," that is "desk-murderer"? I don't think I'm giving away too much here: Furst has stuff life this on almost every page.

It is remarkable how readable these novels are when you consider (as others have noted) that he's actually pretty weak in a lot of the basics of the novelist's art: his plots are slack and his characters are pretty much cardboard -- except in the sense that they are all struggling to hang on in troubled times. But at least many of them get to do their struggling in Paris, which ought to be some consolation. One thinks of an epigraph, quoted in the introduction to Mavis Benchley's "Paris Stories" -- from Shakespeare's "As You Like It:" "Ay, now I am in Arden, the more fool I. When I was at home, I was in a better place, but travellers must be content."

Also on my desk as I read Furst is "My Century" by the Polish poet, Aleksander Wat. Wat contrasts the 30s with the 20s: he points out that in the 20s, we were maddened by the sense of almoswt limitless possibility--futurists, dadaists, god-knows-what-ists, all responding to the new world opening up in the aftermath of the Russian revolution. By the late 30s, most of those possibilities had turned to gall, and any number of thinking people were wondering if they had any future at all. It is Furst's great achievement that he keeps the nemory of these times green.

The hero Nicholas Morath tries to live the "normal" life of a successful advertising executive in Paris under the shadow of the impending World War II. At the same time, he does favors for his uncle, a Hungarian spymaster, in a vain effort to thwart Nazi designs, maintain Hungarian independence and slow Hitler's inexorable march toward conquering southeastern Europe.

Furst's writing and settings have been described as historical noir novels. This is pretty accurate -- the scenes flit by, the tone is dark, the concepts are interesting, the day-to-day is gritty, and despair gnaws at the back of each character's mind. Good stuff for those interested in fiction displaying the mood of Europe during the coming of the darkness before WWII. I look forward to reading the others I have -- Polish Officer, Dark Star -- and to the upcoming-release Blood of Victory.