Red Gold (Paperback)

Well, smack by snobby self, I liked "Red Gold" by a fair margin over "The Innocent" and a wide one over "Last Orders" (disappointing compared with "Waterland"). Alan Furst is no "writer" like McEwan or Swift or Graham Greene. But he knows his stylistic limits enough to stick to short, often elliptical sentences and, in so doing, is much better at evoking 1941 Paris than McEwan 1955 Berlin. A New Yorker by birth and residence, Furst spent enough years in Paris to know well his story's milieu. He conveys not merely the sights and sounds of Vichy, but also the shifting smells and tastes, temperature and humidity of the streets, bars and hotel rooms, and he blends them into a kind of sentient soundtrack that underscores the treachery, paranoia and heroism of the day.

"Red Gold" tells about Jean Casson, a former film producer and reluctant participant in the French resistance against Nazi occupation of Paris. In reading this book, I learned-though I guess I should have guessed-that the principal drivers of the resistance movement, at least in 1941, were the pro-Stalinists. Casson's compatriots include Communists, Gallists and at least one syphilitic Nazi eager to avoid the eastern front. As a result, "Red Gold" features the kind of vivid characters that make you cast the movie version in your head. And Casson himself (this is the second novel he's appeared in) is a wonderful creation, street-smart enough to be agent provocateur and book-smart enough to be a reader's perfect cicerone.

I am recommending "Red Gold" to just about everyone I know who reads. It has enough setting and character for lit lovers, enough sex, booze and violence for pulp people and enough historical interest for non-fiction nabobs. I am also buying Furst's four other paperbacks (he has a sixth book just out in hardcover)... That's America's problem--too many guns, not enough Furst.

I have to say I found "Red Gold" a bit hard going. The whole novel reeks of the despair and shattered hope that is the lot of a proud nation in defeat. It is relentlessy dark, and very atmospheric and often very depressing. All the characters are described principally in terms of their negative traits. Even the sacrifice of some of the resistance fighters is described in a self-serving light.

But then this is espionage and double-dealing and the threat of instant "liquidation", is on every page. "Red Gold" is a cracking novel that really draws you into the seedy world of espionage and underground warfare. The historical side is well done, especially the social geography. Who would have thought that a New Yorker could write so convincingly about Paris street life?