should read this book
All who love spy novels
All who love mysteries and thrillers
All who are interested in the Dreyfus affair
All who are interested in issues concerning antiSemitism
All who enjoy GOODhistorical fiction
All who would enjoy a book set in Paris in thes
All interested in Émile Zola or his essay sitelinkJ'accuse !
All who want books that deliver historical facts in an engaging manner
All who need a book that focuses on people that are willing to place themselves in danger for a cause they believe in.
Keep in mind that Georges Picquart was a real person and of course Dreyfus and Emile Zola and, Picquart wanted justice to achieve justice he was willing to put himself in danger, sacrifice his own career and even life, How many people do that This book is an antidepressant when you are you are feeling downand out,
and for those of you who love audiobooks with excellent narration David Rintoul's reading is simply superb! The icing on the cake.
You do not have to meet all the criteria above any one of the criteria above is sufficient reason to choose this book.
Do you hear my enthusiasm I absolutely loved this book,
I have a new hero Georges Picquart, What an amazing man. The topic of the book is interesting, The author turns historical figures into people you feel empathy for, The author presents historical facts, and never are they dry, He starts the book with a brief explanation of what is fact and what fiction, He draws the feel of Paris in thes, And of course there are love affairs, soirées, the gas lights and the ever present stench of the sewage, rats and filth.
It is all here. To top it all off David Rintoul speaks French as the French do the names, the streets the buildings, the squares, Men AND women his intonations are perfect for both, You have never heard his narrations That is another reason to choose this audiobook simply to hear the marvelous narration,
I loved this book and it restored my faith in the genre historical fiction which had been going down the drain.
The ending is magnificent too sorry, I keep thinking of things I must mention,
And Georges Picquart I ADORE him, What happened to Dreyfus is a mustknow but it should have been called the Dreyfus Picquart affair,
“There is no such thing as a secretnot really, not in the modern world, not with photography and telegraphy and railways and newspaper presses.
The old days of an inner circle of likeminded souls communicating with parchment and quill pens are gone, Sooner or later most things will be revealed, ”
Robert Harris is such an underrated writer, and in An Officer and a Spy hes written probably his best book though sitelink Fatherland is really great too.
Mr. Harris has taken a true storythe Dreyfus Affair ins Franceand spun it into a gripping tale that reads like fiction, Of course, it helps that the actual events unfurled like a hardtobelieve Hollywood thriller, The main characters are richly drawn, and the plot moves fast, A really outstanding book. Highly recommended. A Masterpiece
“An Officer and a Spy” by Robert Harris is an absolute masterpiece of writing, I loved every page.
In, French Captain Alfred Dreyfus is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil's island, As further investigation begins, the story moves at a very fast pace,
The event is the greatest political scandal and miscarriage of justice in Frances history, The story eventually captivated the entire world,
The writing style is so unique that it just took my imagination and carried it throughout, Harris uses the techniques of a novel to tell a true storythe Dreyfus affair, Very impressive!
Using firstperson narrative draws the reader into the story, At times, I felt the narrative of Picquart was talking directly to me,
The feelings of pain, greed, determination and loyalty are very well crafted into this unique story, Additionally, the evils of ambition, prestige and lust for power are the underlying themes,
As one who served in NATO and had a peek into the European military organizations, I consumed this book like a starving man at a Brunch buffet.
I highly recommend Robert Harrissthriller takes on one of the most famous miscarriages of justice, the Dreyfus Case, While the general lines of the case are known Jewish officer wrongfully accused of treason and the subsequent coverup by the army Harris describes details that are certainly unknown to most people.
The Dreyfus case should be seen as a prime example of how widespread and acceptable antiSemitism was inth century Europe.
Despite the protests that later erupted the fact is that the fanaticism and hatred the case generated from the beginning can only be explained as a consequence of Dreyfuss Jewishness.
And he wasnt just Jewish, He was a Jew of German origin and he had money, We are dealing with a triad of prejudice: nationalism, antiSemitism and capitalism, To divorce the first two in theth century is obviously impossible, The Jew is an alien without a “fatherland”, therefore, without honour, But then there is the connection between the anticapitalist left and antiSemitism which is, even nowadays, a much more acceptable form of antiSemitism.
You see, we do not hate Jews because they are Jews, we hate them because of how important money is for them.
The novel illustrates quite well the first marriage of concepts, nationalism and antiSemitism, But it fails, I think, to portray the second, Harris makes a point of stating that many people were jealous of Dreyfuss wealth, That is undoubtedly true but envy is not enough to explain what lies deeper, While this is a thriller, a form that makes it difficult to deepen certain issues, I feel Harris could have expanded more on other aspects.
Although Picquart was an interesting character, he is also surrounded by much more compelling personalities such as Zola, Jaurès, even Clemenceau.
It seemed a disservice to glaze over these people, barely giving them lines, Then theres the fact that Picquart was a much more controversial personality than Harris made him out to be, He was a clear antiSemite, If the structure of the novel had been different, the story could have gained some unconventional layers, Picquart's problem was not so much Dreyfus but that the army was dishonoring itself by lying and condemning an innocent man, A novel in which the protagonist is genuinely heroic, and suffers personally at the expense of his conscience, whilst still highly prejudiced and despiteful of those he is making a point to defend, would make for an an equally compelling story.
The other main problem is the imbalance between the two parts of the novel, Picquarts investigation and its results, The first is much more detailed and better written, This is why I believe it was a mistake to focus only on Picquarts perspective, To accompany the trials and the judicial battle would have been a worthwhile reading experience, I felt that the second part, which deals with those events, was too rushed,
However, there are plenty of attractive aspects to this novel, Its an amazing fast read, and Harris does manage to convey not only how disgusting but also infantile and primary antiSemitism was.
All racism has something primal in it, the stamp of the fanatic and the uncivilized in the true sense of the word, but antiSemitism in this specific period of History, which then opens to the horrors of theth century, definitely sounds like something out of a spiteful childs journal.
I hate Alfred because he has money, Who cares if he dies if what I want is salvaged The inhumanity of it is really not quite human, And there we were, supposedly in the centre of “civilization”, Harris does portray this very well, You feel vindicated when people like Mercier, Gonse and Boisdeffre suffer,
An Officer and a Spy also perfectly illustrates the main ideological problem adjacent to all organized armed Forces.
An Army can only function on a strict hierarchy, that is, on orders given by superiors to their subordinates, We trust that the orders are necessary to attain a goal that will benefit a large group of people, But what happens when the orders are clearly morally wrong And what happens when the whole of nationalism feeds a blind obedience to orders because they come from superiors who embody the nation I don't think there is a sentence that has been more used to justify atrocities than "I was doing my duty, I was obeying orders".
Whether we like it or not, Picquarts position is not consistent, He did defy his superiors, To save the Army's honour he did go against one of its principles, At the end, in a fictionalized meeting between Dreyfus and Picquart, Dreyfus says Picquart did his duty, No, he didnt. Thats the whole point. Picquart did something far more important than his duty, He obeyed his conscience. The two are not equivalent, Inthe French newspaper LAurore printed an open letter from writer Emile Zola, Under the banner headline Jaccuse!, Zola accused the government of antiSemitism and the unlawful jailing of French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus.
The letter caused a huge a uproar, as Zola pointed out the serious errors in the case against Dreyfus who had been packed off to the notorious Devils Island in French Guyana and a lack of serious evidence to back up the charges.
The Dreyfus Affair, as it became known, was a part of European history that had passed me by up to this point.
But in this dramatisation viewed through the eyes of Georges Picquart, the head of a French clandestine intelligence unit Harris brings events surrounding this famous miscarriage of justice to life.
Dreyfus had been found guilty of passing secrets to the Germans, but Picquart starts to believe theres something seriously wrong when he stumbles across another army officer who he believes is the real spy in the camp.
The dialogue is, of course, simply the authors way of bringing the story to the page, but the events and the identity of the historical players are, we are led to believe, historically correct.
In fact, the whole thing is broken down into what constitutes a forensic examination of all the key components, It's comprehensive and its compelling,
Harris really does this sort of thing so well, I do like a bit of history and when it's served up in this style it really does make the consumption of a protracted and complicated event so much more fun.
Excellent stuff I'm off to seek out more of his work, Classic Robert Harris brilliant historical fiction based on the infamous 'Dreyfus affair', This is Harris at his finest, a gripping fictionalised account of a fascinating true story, Harris brings history to life like no other, Accessible yet intelligent, popular not patronising, Compelling, evocative and thought provoking,
I heard the whip crack twice, The driver shouted a command, The wagon accelerated free of the mob, turned left, and disappeared,
An instant later the order was given for the parade to march past, The stamp of boots seemed to shake the ground, Bugles were blown. Drums beat time. As the band struck up "SambreetMeuse" it started to snow, I felt a great sense of release, I believe we all did, Spontaneously we turned to one another and shook hands, It was as if a healthy body had purged itself of something foul and pestilential, and now life could begin anew, pp.
Both papers have the degradation on their front pagesthe Journal, indeed, has almost nothing else, Its report is illustrated by a series of crude sketches: of Dreyfus being marched into the parade ground, of the plump little official in his cape reading out the judgment, of the insignia being ripped from Dreyfus's uniform, and of Dreyfus himself looking like a whitehaired old man at thirtyfive.
The headline is "The Expiation": We demanded for the traitor Dreyfus the supreme penalty, We continue to believe that the only appropriate punishment is death, . . " It is as if all the loathing and recrimination bottled up since the defeat ofhas found an outlet in a single individual.
pp.
This rendition of the Dreyfus affair recounts how one of those men who at first was as convinced of Dreyfus' guilt as anyone became his preeminent backer and defender after discovering his innocence.
The An Officer and a Spy's main characterthe titular officer and spyis not Alfred Dreyfus but Georges Picquart, who is both that defender and the narrator.
Picquart's character development as well as what will happen next constitutes a big part of the thrill in this historical fiction, since, after all, the reader is likely to have some basic knowledge of the history.
I didn't know, though, about the backdrop of the publicasGreekchorus ravening for Dreyfus' blood because of who he wasthe story with Dreyfusasguiltyparty perfectly meeting society's needs.
I didn't know how to think about the French army in those days, either, Today I heard an American military chief giving a news conference, He was so careful at each turn to defer to the Secretary of Defense, The French army in the last five years of theth century was more like the Egyptian army, the way we think of it today.
No doubt that's a clumsy analogy, but the army was France, The army couldn't have a traitor, and if it did, that traitor had to be someone who was not "really" French, And once the traitor role had been assigned, the needs of the army took precedence over any other truth, So we see what it's like to go up against powerwhy everybody says he or she would have spoken out about the child abuser within the sports or religious monolith, or any other wrong within a power structure, and why, mostly, that doesn't happen.
"You want my advice Well here's a story, When my regiment was in Hanoi, there was a lot of thieving in the barracks, So one day my major and I, we laid a trap and we caught the thief redhanded, It turned out he was the son of the colonelGod knows why he needed to steal from the likes of us, but he did it.
Now my majorhe was a bit like you, a little bit of the idealistic type, shall we sayhe wanted this man prosecuted.
The top brass disagreed. Still, he went ahead and brought the case anyway, But at the courtmartial it was my major that was broken, " p.
Once we think we have the solution to some puzzle or crime, that's all we can see, We have on blinders. We are virtually blind to other possibilities, Especially if part of what we can see has to do with how our bread is buttered,
I'm currently in the midst of another book, sitelinkPlato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away, in which the current topic is morality.
Does politics dictate what the good is That was certainly the overwhelmingly majority opinion in circaFrance,
This book has got me comparing and contrasting scapegoat versus salvific martyr, Intermixed with the expiationofevil theme is Picquart's reference to Dreyfus' degradation as "his Calvary, " Later, after Picquart has become convinced of Dreyfus' innocence, he is reflecting on the heaping on of abuse he reads of Dreyfus experiencing in his solitary confinement on Devil's Island:
I have seen what the chafing of leg irons can do to a prisoner's flesh: cut it to the bone.
In the insectinfested heat of the tropics, the torment must be unendurable, p.
It seems that behind the judges in every court in which Dreyfus is tried is a painting of the crucifixion or the like.
Is the difference between scapegoat and martyr dependent on the perspective of the viewer Is it okay for the needs of a society to trump truth and justice if the role of the martyr is as sacrificial lamb rather than scapegoat In that case do those needs dictate morality Does politics rule Or, as my other author says was true for Plato, is it the other way around: does morality dictate what politics should be
Before I started reading, I felt like avoiding this book.
I had recommendations for some actual histories rather than historical fiction, But after reading a number of Goodreads reviews about those other possibilities, I saw that those other books were heavy historical tomes, and it just wouldn't do to take on another one of those, bogged down in several as I already am.
So An Officer and a Spy it was, And I must say it was quite a read, fast and enjoyable, Thriller lovers will love it, plus it's wellwritten, And, as I say, thoughtprovoking, too,
I'm going to say/and round up to,
For more information, here's Adam Gopnik writing in The New Yorker on Dreyfus from: sitelink newyorker. com/magazine/
August,: sitelinkThis article taken from current events in eastern Ukraine so reflected the feeling from the degradation of Dreyfus as communicated by Robert Harris that I decided to include the link.
September,: An Officer and a Spy won theWalter Scott Prize, a British literary award for historical fiction.
I see from the Wikipedia entry that Robert Harris also won for one of his previous books,
May,: The Springissue of Jewish Books contains three articles dealing with antisemitism in France because of current events: the Charlie Hebdo killings and attacks on Jews there.
One of the articles is about this book, An Officer and a Spy, which recently has been released in paperback.
The other two articles aren't locked, and I'll see about posting them later in appropriate spots, Unfortunately this one is locked, Here's the link, but I don't think nonsubscribers can open it, so I'm going to hit the high points if I can.
Also in the past I've been able to make and email a pdf, sitelink com/articl
The author, Steven Englund, says that postCharlie Hebdo etc, people are looking to An Officer and a Spy for understanding of currentday France, which he says is unfortunate, Also, he says the ordinary understanding of "the Dreyfus affair" boils down to the targeting of a Jewish army officer by an antisemitic society.
He says it wasn't that simple, and it wasn't so much religious as political, He cites three factors: The armyand the republicwere in a sort of reactionary state of bluster and reactionary nationalism after the military drubbing of.
The churchstate rivalry had been ramped up again, with Catholics thrown into a defensive posture, leading to grassroots antisemitism over the affair although not from the Catholic hierarchy itself.
And, finally, the Third Republic was too weak to deal directly with crises, As a result:
The Affair became politicized, then highly politicized, as it became clear that all sides on the contentious French public scene could use it to do their old business destroying each other's reputations.
Englund denies that the Affair and obsession with it
contorted all France, He says Drumont was the sole major French antisemite with a bunch of adolescent and n'er do well followers who have been mistakenly writ large by hisotry.
He says antiJewish riots were small affairs that don't measure up to what we imagine, He says their main success was in projecting the myth that the Army's reputation was tied to that of a few criminal officers.
Eventually, forthcoming disclosures and support "empowered a craven and weak government to act, and presently the Affair ended, "
The preceding paragraph may not be too clear to me, but the following is: The Affair as we think of it was a later construction.
It didn't turn on "the Jewish question" but on the rights of the state raison d'État versus those of citizens civil rights.
It gave the much, much more antisemitic countries of Austria and Russia talking points against France, France was democratic and eventually did the right thing, but also had citizens who took polemical advantage of the freedom of expression there.
All the Christianityderived European countries of that time period where characterized by antisemitism, with far less in the French Third Republic,
I don't think Englund intends his article as an apology for antisemitism in France, so if what you read here looks that way, it could be me.
I think he wants to avoid an oversimplified rendition, and would like to get that straight before piling further analysis on top of what's there.
Steven Englund is the author of sitelinkNapoleon: A Political Life, It is highly regarded, particularly in France and Englund has a Wikipedia page in French but not in English, He's currently working on a book that compares political antisemitism in Germany, AustriaHungary, and France, .