Len Deighton Remembered

Another one of those odd incidents of synchronicity we sometimes encounter:  I just started one of my periodic re-rereadings of favourite early Len Deighton novels last night and I wake up today to the news that he had died.  Now, there are those who would try to read something into this coincidence, prattling on about how 'the Universe' or 'fate' was trying to tell me something.  But the fact is that it is hardly surprising:  Deighton remains a popular writer whose works I re-read every so often (and still enjoy), but he was 97 years old, so the odds of his passing coinciding with me reading one of his novels were actually pretty low.  Anyway, the Deighton novel I'm re-reading at the moment is his second, 'Horse Under Water' (1963), which is less well known than the other three books in the sequence involving his unnamed agent, (called 'Harry Palmer' in film adaptations), because, unlike the others, it was never filmed.  (There is an argument that his fifth novel, 'An Expensive Place to Die' is also part of the sequence. But there are significant differences from the earlier novels and Deighton himself once admitted that while it had started out as another sequel, while writing it he made sufficient changes to turn it into a standalone novel featuring a nameless protagonist who was similar to the hero of the previous books, but wasn't actually him).  It is, nonetheless, a highly enjoyable novel in its own right.

But what is it about those early Deighton novels that keeps bringing me back to them?  I know that all the obituaries for Deighton keep coming back to the fact that the distinguishing feature of his novels was that his protagonists were, in contrast to the likes of public school educated James Bond, essentially working class.  More often than not the only grammar school boys in the midst of echelons of Old Etonians from privileged backgrounds.  While that does chime with many of my own personal experiences, the thing about the novels which really rang true for me was that they recognised the fact that the UK's intelligence services were basically an extension of the civil service and, as such, were bastions of bureaucracy.  The amount of form filling his protagonists have to go through, the amount of time they have to expend on getting legitimate expenses claims paid and the seemingly endless committees required to decide anything, echoes my own experiences in the civil service, both as an intelligence analyst at the MoD and in other, more regular, roles.  The attention to detail - the grotty offices with frayed carpets, faded paintwork, obsolete furniture and inadequate heating - was admirable and highly accurate, even thirty tears on, when I worked in Whitehall.  Indeed, I remember how 'The IPCRESS File' endeared itself to me with its descriptions of the War Office Building's (where I worked for several years) 'long lavatory-like corridors'.   On top of all of this, these early novels evoke brilliantly the sheer essence of their era - a grimy early to mid-sixties London, caked in soot thanks to the prevalence of coal fuelled home heating and steam locomotives still working into London termini, where the pre war world of traditional pubs and street markets jostles shoulders with coffee bars and supermarkets and the emerging youth culture.  It taps into all my childhood, early seventies, memories of visiting relatives in London - the run down Georgian houses sub-divided into flats or converted into cheap hotels for travellers to and from Heathrow, it's all there.  Most importantly, of course, Deighton's books remain a great read, clever, witty and authentic feeling, with sharp characterisations and some still pertinent observations on politics, class and society in general.