Gutbrain Records

Wednesday, 04 April 2007

I've just read W. Somerset Maugham's Ashenden or The British Agent. It's considered a novel but is more a series of short stories based on Maugham's experiences as a spy during WWI. With the exception of a few casually bigoted sentences, it doesn't seem dated at all. The book's main strengths are its lovely prose style and its vivid depiction of the stupidity of war, revolution, violent conflict — history itself.

In one story, Ashenden plays a sort of cat-and-mouse game with a British traitor and his German wife. When Ashenden wins this particular game he feels no triumph, only regret. While they couldn't have been more on the side of the enemy, they were real people with both good and bad qualities, with unique experiences, thoughts and feelings, many of which Ashenden found admirable and touching. The man's death and the woman's sorrow show merely that war is an affliction with which we curse ourselves.

Another story involves an Indian terrorist who has been setting off bombs and killing innocent bystanders in an attempt to cause as much trouble as possible for the British occupation forces in India. Ashenden expresses approval of the man's courage at which point his chief, R., admonishes him not to forget that they're talking about a dangerous criminal. Ashenden has this to say, somewhat startling to read in 2007: "I don't suppose he'd use bombs if he could command a few batteries and half a dozen battalions. He uses what weapons he can. You can hardly blame him for that. After all, he's aiming at nothing for himself, is he? He's aiming at freedom for his country. On the face of it it looks as though he were justified in his actions."

In another story Ashenden has to decide whether to give an order to blow up a German munitions plant in Austria. It will aid the war effort but kill many Polish workers in the plant. Ashenden has been advised by Polish resistance fighters to give the order if necessary, but only if absolutely necessary, as they do not want to sacrifice their own people if they don't have to. Ashenden doesn't know what to do and has no more time to think about it. He has this exchange with his contact, a Polish agent:

"Have you ever read Balzac's Père Goriot?" asked Ashenden suddenly.
"Twenty years ago, when I was a student."
"Do you remember that conversation between Rastignac and Vautrin where they discuss the question whether, were you able by a nod to affect the death of a mandarin in China and so bring yourself a colossal fortune, you would give the nod? It was a notion of Rousseau's."
Herbartus's large face coiled itself into a slow, large smile.
"It has nothing to do with the case. You are uneasy at giving an order that will cause the death of a considerable number of people. Is it for your own profit? When a general orders an advance he knows that so and so many men will be killed. It is war."
"What a stupid war!"
"It will give my country freedom."
"What will your country do with it when it gets it?"
Herbartus did not answer. He shrugged his shoulders.
"I warn you that if you do not take this opportunity it may not recur very soon. We cannot send a messenger over the frontier every day of the week."
"Doesn't it make you a little uncomfortable to think of all those men being suddenly blown to smithereens by an explosion? And then it's not only the dead, it's the maimed."
"I don't like it. I said to you that on account of my fellow countrymen who will be sacrificed we should do nothing unless it was worth while. I do not want those poor fellows to be killed, but if they are I shall not sleep less soundly nor eat my dinner with less appetite. Will you?"
"I suppose not."
"Well, then?"


Perhaps you can guess how this story ends if I tell you that its title is "The Flip of a Coin".

I've heard that Ashenden was an influence on Ian Fleming's Bond novels. There are some definite similarities, the strongest being between Fleming's Bond short story "A Quantum of Solace" and the Maugham chapters — particularly "His Excellency" — that relate Ashenden's encounter with a British ambassador in a city called "X".

Ashenden was sort of made into a movie by Hitchcock in the 1930s. The film was based on a play that was based — loosely, if the movie is any indication — on the book. I really liked the movie before I read the book but now I find the movie worth watching only for Peter Lorre's performance — particularly the tantrum he throws in Ashenden's bathroom — and for Hitchcock's wildly enthusiastic use of sound: the church organ and bells, the agitated dog, the Swiss chorus and the excitingly symphonic chocolate-factory scene.

One difference between the book and the movie involves an agent called the "Hairless Mexican". In both book and film Ashenden asks R. why he calls this character the Hairless Mexican. R.'s answer in the book is, "Because he's hairless and because he's a Mexican." His answer in the movie is that it's because he's got a lot of curly hair and because he's not a Mexican.