Now it is immediately obvious to most people that if we could all get long nice and proper then the world would be a much better place. I have periodically waxed eloquent on how we should disarm, etc etc. But reality tells us something quite different.. that people will always settle differences with fisticuffs and so will nations. We have been relatively lucky in that the last fifty years has not seen the great powers go to war (at least against each other... yeah I am being horribly cynical here). They have, however fought a silent war which has been waged in the darkness of total obscurity. The only time when this silent world intersects the overt one is when something goes frighteningly wrong down there. Of course, this war has been fought because our political masters have deemed it expedient to do so. It may occur to us to blame the pettiness of current leaders.. but note that the necessity of an intelligence network was first advocated by Chanakya, the Prime Minister of Chandragupta Maurya in the fourth century BC.
So these people whom we have mandated to fight a war silently and obtrusively, but viciously, nonetheless; have done so and we have all called their preoccupation- the 'Game'. The Game, like every one of our creations has taken on a life and purpose of its own, one sometimes, perhaps inevitably viewed as malignant to its political masters. That was always meant to be, because we have asked these men to pass judgment and dispense justice within the shadows, and not let anyone pass through the murky, suspicious night; least of all, ourselves. They have done so. They have pursued monsters down labyrinthine pathways and found the masters of these monsters to be men like them. Sometimes they have introspected, and found horrifying beasts of their own creation straining at the leash. They have played the Game in all its subtlety and its dark grandeur; and in the end they have all been played by the Game itself.
Harry Palmer is never actually mentioned by name in any of the books. He simply is: a smart alecky and somewhat unprepossessing exterior concealing a very capable agent. For one who deals in lies, the borders frequently become hazy. The few loyalties that exist are those from person to person.. and our protagonist shares much more with his opposite number, Colonel Stok, the Red Army chief of security for East Berlin. Johnny Vulkan is the other person trying to navigate the quagmire of broken loyalties and forgotten alliances that his life is. Berlin is the only city where darkness is safer than light. The city shifts in its sleep, throwing up human flotsam in a manner so uncaring that one wants to cry out in protest. A rush of feet in the sand followed by a quick burst of machine gun fire.. in the morning, a corpse lies tangled in the wire before the wall. For Palmer, negotiating the treacherous line between Vulkan and Stok, the Game has to be played out till the last stroke. Len Deighton crafts an amazing book with layered complexity, each layer peeled away to reveal one below, infinitely rich and subtle. This is a style markedly different from the moody darkness of the Bernard Samson novels and equally far from the lyricism of Bomber. This is the Game at its best.
So these people whom we have mandated to fight a war silently and obtrusively, but viciously, nonetheless; have done so and we have all called their preoccupation- the 'Game'. The Game, like every one of our creations has taken on a life and purpose of its own, one sometimes, perhaps inevitably viewed as malignant to its political masters. That was always meant to be, because we have asked these men to pass judgment and dispense justice within the shadows, and not let anyone pass through the murky, suspicious night; least of all, ourselves. They have done so. They have pursued monsters down labyrinthine pathways and found the masters of these monsters to be men like them. Sometimes they have introspected, and found horrifying beasts of their own creation straining at the leash. They have played the Game in all its subtlety and its dark grandeur; and in the end they have all been played by the Game itself.
Harry Palmer is never actually mentioned by name in any of the books. He simply is: a smart alecky and somewhat unprepossessing exterior concealing a very capable agent. For one who deals in lies, the borders frequently become hazy. The few loyalties that exist are those from person to person.. and our protagonist shares much more with his opposite number, Colonel Stok, the Red Army chief of security for East Berlin. Johnny Vulkan is the other person trying to navigate the quagmire of broken loyalties and forgotten alliances that his life is. Berlin is the only city where darkness is safer than light. The city shifts in its sleep, throwing up human flotsam in a manner so uncaring that one wants to cry out in protest. A rush of feet in the sand followed by a quick burst of machine gun fire.. in the morning, a corpse lies tangled in the wire before the wall. For Palmer, negotiating the treacherous line between Vulkan and Stok, the Game has to be played out till the last stroke. Len Deighton crafts an amazing book with layered complexity, each layer peeled away to reveal one below, infinitely rich and subtle. This is a style markedly different from the moody darkness of the Bernard Samson novels and equally far from the lyricism of Bomber. This is the Game at its best.
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