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The World at Night by Alan Furst
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(Paperback - Reprint)
- Pub. Date: January 2002
- 288pp
- Sales Rank: 64,410
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: January 2002
- Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
- Format: Paperback, 288pp
- Sales Rank: 64,410
- ISBN-13: 9780375758584
- ISBN: 0375758585
- Edition Description: Reprint
Synopsis
Often compared to Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, Alan Furst is a master of the spy thriller and one of the finest war novelists of our time. Published to outstanding acclaim, his novels brilliantly recreate the atmosphere and tension of the worlds of espionage and resistance in the Europe of the 1930s and the Second World War. After many years living in France and traveling as a journalist in Russia and Eastern Europe, Furst now resides in Sag Harbor, New York.
Booklist
With deft texturing and tight storytelling, Furst puts film producer Jean Casson into perilously exciting jams in German-occupied Paris. So complicated are Casson's problems, yet so clearly and cleverly constructed his extrications, that Furst never forces solutions, demonstrating that he wields that authentic literariness essential to the better espionage titles.
More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
When it comes to spy novels, no one is more erudite or elegant than Alan Furst, whose novels -- all set in the European theater of World War II – are rich with both historical fact and brilliantly imagined circumstances.
More About the AuthorFact File
Name:
Alan Furst
Current Home:
Sag Harbor, New York
Place of Birth:
New York, New York
Education:
B.A., Oberlin College
Biography
Alan Furst may have the narrowest purview in literature. His books – which he calls historical espionage novels -- are all set in Europe between 1933 and 1945, and all are stories of World War II intrigue.
But that brief eight-year period in history has given Furst a rich amount of source material; although he had published a handful of earlier novels (now out of print, some of them fetch hundreds of dollars) Furst hit his stride with 1988’s Night Soldiers , his first book to concentrate on the decade that would forever change the world. Furst had found his niche. As Salon rhapsodized in a 2001 review, "...to talk about one of his books is to talk about them all. He is writing one large book in which each new entry adds a piece to the mosaic of Europe in the years leading up to the war, as created by a partisan of the senses."
Furst's books are grounded in their author’s extensive research of the period, and are written in an almost newsy prose broken occasionally by beautiful, lyrical passages describing, say, a Paris morning in the 1940s, or night at the Czechoslavakian-Hungarian border. History buffs will find much to love here; while the books are fiction, some of the details are factual. In Night Soldiers, for example, immigrants arriving at Ellis Island exchanged their clothing for new outfits; in reality, the American government often bought clothing from immigrants to use as costumes for its spies.
And while Furst’s novels are entertaining and, often, elegant, they are not easy reads: the books traverse through a wide swath of Europe (an important character itself in Furst’s fiction), and characters duck behind corners and sometimes stumble into the continent’s more remote regions (while not partying in Paris, that is). Though his male protagonists manage to find and sometimes lose lovers, Furst’s books are primarily concerned with the moral slipperiness involved in fighting off Hitler's advance, where even the best intentions could produce regrettable results.
Furst's books have grown leaner and tauter over the years, the result of a conscious effort "to say more by saying less." Notwithstanding this paring back, or perhaps because of it, the praise for his books only seems to multiply, and Furst’s writing has lost none of its veracity or suspense. Furst, who many critics consider literature’s best-kept secret, may not be a household name yet, but with such buzz, his low profile won’t last much longer.
Good to Know
Night Soldiers originated from a piece Furst wrote for Esquire in 1983. He was also a reporter for the International Herald Tribune and wrote a biography of cookie entrepeneur Debbie Fields.
Furst wrote in a 2002 essay, "For me, Anthony Powell is a religion. I read A Dance to the Music of Time every few years."
Feature Interview
From the September/October 2002 issue of Book magazine For years, Alan Furst suffered that most backhanded of author compliments: He was a critical darling. With a series of elegant espionage thrillers stretching back to 1988 (when the New York native published Night Soldiers), Furst was beloved by reviewers, but for more than a decade -- in America, at any rate -- an all-too-small cadre of devotees was left asking why more people didn't read his books.
The answer may have to do with timing. While Furst's work -- set in Europe just before World War II -- remains immersed in the same romantic, meticulously researched atmosphere, over the past year his relative anonymity has all but vanished. Now, the popularity he has enjoyed in Europe has spilled over to his native land.
"They are so much more popular since 9/11," says Furst, who was working on his latest -- Blood of Victory, due in September -- at his Sag Harbor, New York, home last September 11. "People have said to me, 'There's something about your books that has to do with us, although I can't put my finger on exactly what it is,' and I can't either."
Maybe it's the air of anxiety, even dread, that fills Furst's stories. EM>Blood of Victory, for instance, follows émigré author Ilya A. Serebin as he navigates occupied Europe -- with the threat of Nazi domination increasing -- and strives to block Germany's access to its Romanian oil fields.
Furst's reluctant heroes are not fists-and-whiskey gumshoes or hard-nosed marine sergeants. Surrounded by old money, Pernod and creamy-skinned women, they are men of means and education who are thrust into action by German aggression and forced to deal with the consequences. And this resonates with his readers.
"We see [World War II] as the period of our best selves, when we rose to confront evil," says Furst. "Researchers asked people who had been in the resistance, 'Why did you do it?' And again and again they got the same answer: 'Because I was asked.' I had that same response after 9/11. I said to myself, 'Half the population in America would love to be asked to do something. They would only need to be asked and they would be so happy to help.' " That, finally, is what Furst's stories are about: people responding to evil.
Furst is at work on his next book, to be set in the Baltic. While the locations change, the premise doesn't. "I'm writing about people who are attacked, who are damaged by the kind of people who damaged us on 9/11, people to whom human life is not valuable," he says. "The idea that I would write something else never occurred to me. I have greater conviction than ever."
From the Publisher
Paris, 1940. The civilized, upper-class life of film producer Jean Casson is derailed by the German occupation of Paris, but Casson learns that with enough money, compromise, and connections, one need not deny oneself the pleasures of Parisian life. Somewhere inside Casson, though, is a stubborn romantic streak. When he’s offered the chance to take part in an operation of the British secret service, this idealism gives him the courage to say yes. A simple mission, but it goes wrong, and Casson realizes he must gamble everything—his career, the woman he loves, life itself. Here is a brilliant re-creation of France—its spirit in the moment of defeat, its valor in the moment of rebirth.
Booklist
With deft texturing and tight storytelling, Furst puts film producer Jean Casson into perilously exciting jams in German-occupied Paris. So complicated are Casson's problems, yet so clearly and cleverly constructed his extrications, that Furst never forces solutions, demonstrating that he wields that authentic literariness essential to the better espionage titles.
Publishers Weekly
With uninspired plotting, Furst makes disappointing use of a vividly evoked wartime Paris in his latest WWII espionage novel (The Polish Officer; Dark Star; Night Soldiers). Hedonistic Parisian film producer Jean Casson thrives in Paris's active film industry, enjoying the colorful social scene, the posh restaurants and the beautiful, available women. But this world he knows so well all but disappears when Germans march into France and seize the city. At first, Casson strives merely to survive, but he's soon drawn into duty as an amateur intelligence operative and finds himself in a precarious position, buffeted by British Intelligence, resistance forces and the Gestapo. In the process, Casson discovers two powerful forces within himself-his patriotism and his consuming passion for an old lover, the beautiful actress Citrine. Furst brings this fascinating, historic Paris to life with his usual masterful use of period detail. But while Casson makes an intriguing protagonist, his relationships with other characters are presented rather schematically-in particular, his affair with Citrine, which ultimately proves so influential, is never satisfactorily developed. More importantly, Casson's career as a spy, marked by mixed success on missions that seem insignificant, is anticlimactic and a bit confusing. In the end, the novel never attains the dramatic pitch of Furst's recent The Polish Officer. (June)
Library Journal
Jean-Claude Casson lives a hedonistic Paris existence as a low-budget film producer until the Germans invade France in 1940. Casson's need to continue working almost leads him into collaborating with the enemy. He is saved, temporarily, by the intervention of a group he thinks is British intelligence. He decides to work for the French Resistance only to have the Gestapo try to coerce him into betraying them. Furst, who has written several other World War II espionage tales, masterfully conveys a sense of daily life in occupied Paris, where even finding a newspaper was an ordeal. While the atmosphere is strong, Furst's storytelling skills are weak, shifting uneasily among the novel's many strands without always making the connections necessary for following the convoluted, often arbitrary, developments. The author also spends too much time on the producer's complicated love life, though he paints a vivid picture of the casualness of sexual relations in wartime. Stephen Thorne reads with a genteel English accent when a more earthy narration is called for. Recommended only for collections where Furst's works are popular.--Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\
Library Journal
While working undercover for the British in Paris during the German occupation, film producer Jean Casson finds that he has become an unwitting accomplice in a plot to rob the British Secret Service of a great deal of money. The British pressure him to work for them to prove his trustworthiness; the Germans turn him into a double agent. A friend laments: "We're toys to them, Casson-if we don't sing and dance, we're broken." Casson drifts without hiding place in a world of exceedingly nasty actors, his only anchor his love affair with an aging actress. "We all thought...life would go on," muses a colleague of Casson, "But it won't." A novel of mood as much as action, this is worth reading. Recommended for public libraries.-David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus
Kirkus Reviews
The throes of masculine existential torment are an unquestionable specialty for Furst (The Polish Officer, 1995), whose WW II fiction combines so much broad historical erudition with such genuine humanity that they ought to be made required reading.
Once again, Furst loads the entire burden of an aspect of the war on the shoulders of a single character, then scrutinizes that character as he changes. It's the old rat-in-the-maze game, played for very high stakes. Jean Casson, at the outset, is a slightly libertine, slightly dissolute, slightly bankrupt film producer with several moderately successful but unremarkable movies under his belt. Above all else, Casson is French, and above being French, he's Parisian. Though his tastes may be definitively bourgeois, his heart is restless, a condition typified by his extremely Gallic womanizing. On the verge of developing his first real hit—a project called Hotel Dorado—his life is shattered by the Nazi drive through Belgium and into Paris. Inhabiting an occupied city filled with repulsive Germans and ready collaborators, Casson's long-brewing crisis of purpose gets him embroiled in an elaborate double-cross that involves the British Secret Service, furtive trips to Spain and to the French countryside, and a host of shadowy minor characters, each perfectly captured in Furst's lacerating prose. A terrified, reluctant spy, Casson survives mainly on panache and dumb luck. There's plenty of sex amid the rubble of a wrecked Continent, but Casson's heart truly belongs to Citrine, the beautiful young actress who's set to star in Hotel Dorado. At times, the author seems more concerned with atmosphere than action, but fans will recognize his gift for making every gesture an expression of character and allow him to get away with it. The payoff is worth the wait.
Furst has somehow discovered the perfect venue for uniting the European literary tragedy with the Anglo-American spy thriller. Nobody does it better.
Product Details
- Pub. Date: January 2002
- Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
- Format: Paperback, 288pp
- Sales Rank: 64,410
- ISBN-13: 9780375758584
- ISBN: 0375758585
- Edition Description: Reprint
Reading Group Guide
1. If you asked Jean Casson to define the word honor, what would he say? Which, if any, of the following would be included: Loyalty to friends? Loyalty to country? Loyalty in love? Loyalty to self?
2. After his meeting with Simic, in which he is first offered the chance to work for British intelligence, Casson thinks to himself, "You think you know how the world works, but you really don't. These people are the ones who know how it works.". How would you say Casson's understanding of the world has changed by the novel's conclusion? Has he become one of the people who know how the world "really works"?
3. To what extent is Casson culpable for the death of his friend Langlade?
4. During the early years of the German Occupation of France, a common question, which Langlade poses to Casson, was this: "If your barber cuts hair under the Occupation, does that make him a collaborator?" How would you respond? What would you have done in similar circumstances?
5. Alan Furst has said that his books are written from the point of view of the nation where the story takes place. Describe the French point of view as it appears in The World at Night.
6. Critics praise Furst's ability to re-create the atmosphere of World War II-era Europe. What elements description make the setting come alive? How can you account for the fact that the settings seem authentic even though you probably have no firsthand knowledge of the times and places he writes about?
7. Furst's novels have been described as "historical novels", and as "spy novels." He calls them "historical spy novels." Somecritics have insisted that they are, simply, novels. How does his work compare with other spy novels you've read? What does he do that is the same? Different? If you owned a bookstore, in what section would you display his books?
8. Furst is often praised for his minor characters, which have been described as "sketched out in a few strokes." Do you have a favorite in this book? Characters in his books often take part in the action for a few pages and then disappear. What do you think becomes of them? How do you know?
9. At the end of an Alan Furst novel, the hero is always still alive. What becomes of Furst's heroes? Will they survive the war? Does Furst know what becomes of them? Would it be better if they were somewhere safe and sound, to live out the war in comfort? If not, why not?
10. How do the notions of good and evil work in The World at Night? Would you prefer a confrontation between villian and hero? Describe Furst's use of realism in this regard.
Read an Excerpt
10 May, 1940Long before dawn, Wehrmacht commando units came out of the forest on the Belgian border, overran the frontier posts, and killed the customs officers. Glider troops set the forest ablaze, black smoke rolling over the canals and the spring fields. On some roads the bridges were down, but German combat engineers brought up pontoon spans, and by first light the tanks and armored cars were moving again. Heading southwest, to force the river Meuse, to conquer France.
In Paris, the film producer Jean Casson was sleep. His assistant, Gabrielle Vico, tried to wake him up by touching his cheek. They'd shared a bottle of champagne, made love all night, then fallen dead asleep just before dawn. "Are you awake?" she whispered.
"No," he said.
"The radio." she put a hand on his arm in a way that meant there was something wrong.
What? The radio broken? Would she wake him up for that? It had been left on all night, now it buzzed, overheated. He could just barely hear the voice of the announcer. No, not an announcer. Perhaps an engineer--somebody who happened to be at the station when news came in was reading it as best he could:
"The attack...from the Ardennes forest..."
A long silence.
"Into the Netherlands. And Belgium. By columns that reached back a hundred miles into Germany."
More silence. Casson could hear the teletype clattering away in the studio. He leaned close to the radio. The man reading the news tried to clear his throat discreetly. A paper rattled.
"Ah...the Foreign Ministry states the following..."
The teleprinter stopped. A momentof dead air. Then it started up again.
"It is the position of the government that that this agresssion is an intolerable violation of Belgian neutrality."
Gabriella and Casson stared at each other. They were hardly more than strangers. This was an office romance, something that had simmered and simmered, and then, one night. But the coming of the war turned out to be, somehow, intimate, like Christmas, and that was a surprise to both of them. Casson could see how pale she was. Would she cry? He really didn't know very much about her. Young, and slim, and Italian--well, Milanese. Long hair, long legs. What was she--twenty-six? Twenty-seven? He'd always though that she fitted into her life like a cat, never off balance. Now she'd been caught out--here it was war, and she was smelly and sticky, still half-drunk, with breath like a dragon.
"Okay?" He used le slang Americain.
She nodded that she was.
He put a hand on her neck. "You're like ice," he said.
"I'm scared."
He went looking for a cigarette, probing an empty packet of Gitanes on the night table. "I have some," she said, glad for something to do. She rolled off the bed and went into the living room. Merde, Casson said to himself. War was the last thing he needed. Hitler had taken Austria, Czechoslovakia, then Poland. France had declard war, but it meant nothing. Germany and France couldn't fight again, they'd just done that-- ten million dead, no much else accomplished. It was simply not, everybody agreed, logique.
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Hear our exclusive audio interview with Alan Furst (8:58).