The fourth book in the "Night Soldiers" series of World War II-era spy novels by Alan Furst evokes the feeling of what I assume is close to how it felt to live in Paris in 1940 under German occupation. Furst is a master of description and detail and with this book that is evident as ever. But is the book good? Can description and feeling be enough to carry a novel?Set almost exclusively in Paris in 1940, in the time leading up to, and during, German occupation the book tells the story of French filmmaker Jean Casson. Let's get out of the way quickly the discussion about Furst's technical skill when it comes to creating atmosphere. Reading his books I can almost feel the streets beneath my feet and the smoke hanging over a crowded Paris nightclub. The details are not to be missed: "A cast of characters well beyond Jean Renoir. Adèle, the niece from Amboise. Real nobility- look at those awful teeth. Washed-out blue eyes gazed into his, a tiny pulse beat sparrowlike at the pale temple."The man knows how to paint a picture in your mind.The problem is it can't carry a book. Unlike "The Polish Officer" there just isn't much story here. The character of Casson is likable enough. The other characters are also well written. The problem here is that we're always waiting for something to happen. I understand that he's trying to show the uncertainty of what was going to happen. The Germans had ran through Poland and even though there were indications that a treaty would be signed there was a huge amount of uncertainty of what Hitler was planning to do. Of course we know now that even while there were hopes of French acquiescence Hitler was also planning an invasion. The book is mostly effective showing this uncertainty but I can only take the scenes of parties and sexual encounters so much. These are supposed to be spy novels but there isn't much spying going on. I also understand that Furst is trying to show that common people can do extraordinary things in extraordinary circumstances. But what we see is Casson bumbling through encounters, being played by various sides. The problem here is that if I wanted normal I wouldn't be reading a spy novel set in World War II. I don't want ordinary characters. I want characters that are going to shoot first and ask questions later. Historical fiction or not reading a spy novel I want some action with my parties and sex.The story flows as such, it just isn't flowing very fast. The previous novel, The Polish Officer, was quickly paced and there as a lot going on as we followed, Captain Alexander de Milja's exploits following the fall of Warsaw, and Poland, to German forces. The book covered a lot of territory; not quite as much territory as Night Soldiers but it also didn't exhibit any of the problems that book had with story flow. We have none of that with The World At Night.What we do have is a moderately enjoyable read solely due to Furst's ability to create a lush atmosphere in which to place his characters. World War II certainly wasn't lacking in story lines which is why it is so difficult to understand why this novel moved so slowly. All that being said I did enjoy the book but after reading 4 of the Night Soldiers novels I'm getting to the point where it's clear that I'm not going to get much variety. I hope, with more novels to go, that I'm wrong but so far these stories have become pretty predictable.
Here's what you should listen to while reading this review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slHjk...If you scratch at the gold of Furst's evocative books, some of the plating inevitably flakes off... on nearly every page, alas. And if you knock here and there to sound the depths of his imagination and the depths of insight, one finds tinny, hollow sounds here and there. Perhaps more than 'here and there'. And so, it is not without cause...that many readers write Furst off as little more than a literary hack. Yes, perhaps. Who could argue. And yet..., reading him is much like sitting in the living room of your fancy U.S. apartment, watching Saving Private Ryan, listening to Edith Piaf on your smooth hi-fi, a cognac on the table... while flipping through a large volume of the photos of Brassäi. And it is not unappealing. There is little plot in Furst's novels, something he talks about, in fact, in this book: "Yet, a mystery. Hotel Dorado [a script that Jean Casson is producing] was luminous. Not in the plot -- somewhere in deepest Fischfang-land there was no real belief in plot. Life wasn't this, and therefore that, and so, of course, the other. It didn't work that way. Life was this, and then something, and then something else, and then a kick in the ass from nowhere...." ( -- and there, in that last, sad cola, is the flaking, alas... of the gold plating....).But there is mood in Furst -- and for those who are fascinating by the period -- that mood is wonderfully sustained. And there is also character. Furst's leading characters -- like the Polish officer, and Jean Casson in this novel, are very appealing men...handsome, intelligent, humble, moral, but not simplistically so... attractive to women and to men both... -- and much the same can be said for many of his other characters... they are marvelously well drawn and vivid. And quite individual. Essentially good men and women, most of them.... Trying to survive in a world of moral ambiguities.Even the Nazis..."They chatted for a time, nothing all that important, a conversation among men of the world, no fools, long past idealism. Poor Europe, decadent and weak, very nearly gobbled up by the Bolshevik monster. But for them. Not said, but clearly understood..." (231)The prose is often lovely -- though always with that final undertaste of lead... In both senses of that word, of that metal... For it is lead that underlies the golden sheen, and lead that defines the moment... Europe at war...And then, of course, there is that train... from Paris to Barcelona, via Lyons and Port Bou -- resonant Port Bou...! -- which I myself took at the age of 17 -- and that suitcase -- I have an exact replica of it! -- cobbled tan, with green and red stripes.... So this is a book I'd have to love...!Anyway -- for those who like Furst (as I do, for all his flaws), this is one of his best.(rating always relative only to genre, of course...)
What do You think about The World At Night (2002)?
I always like Furst's books. To a certain extent, they are all similar. A conflicted man, with some noble underpinnings gets drawn over his head into a world of intrigue that he only vaguely understands it. This time its a minor film producer just after the occupation. Furst has a wonderful way of making spying seem simultaneously noble and mundane, even a bit tawdry. For most of the book, its not quite clear whether Casson is a spy. He seems to have mixed views on the subject. But both the British and the Germans are determined to make him a spy, and he is left with little choice in the matter. What is clear is that little, or none, of his spying has any impact on any great events. The largest impacts they have are on Casson's love life, and his chance of survival. As always, the atmosphere is good, the characters interesting, the plotting slow but engaging. I especially like the part of the book that involved a purported plot to assassinate Franco. And as always, I'm left knowing that I will read more by him, but not feeling in any particular rush to do so.
—Duffy Pratt
I wanted to read a spy novel about WWII and this book by Alan Furst seemed like a good choice. It was interesting in that it depicted the German occupation of France, and how the French coped during the occupation. In this book, a film producer's small act of espionage against the Germans goes wrong He is subsequently forced into working for the Germans but...well I won't give away the story. I thought the first part dragged--I wasn't interested in the main character's many amorous affairs, and lots of characters were introduced but had not much to do with the plot. Latter the book became more interesting when I realized how terrifying it would be to be manipulated into working with the enemy while you were just trying to get by in occupied France. I was surprised and a bit disappointed by the ending. But this is the first book in a series, and from what I have read, the subsequent novels get much better.
—Diane
The novel is about the tribulations of a French film producer, Jean Casson, during the German occupation of Paris. It is a "spy novel" in the loose sense of the term, as are all of Alan Furst's novels that I have read so far. This is not the silly Robert Ludlum type of spy novel, in other words. You truly can FEEL Paris during the occupation. Where a Ludlum or (these days) a Patterson gives you a clunky, dropped-in sentence of superficial "color," which, if you have half a brain in your head, you feel sure his assistant dug up on Google in two minutes of research, Furst gives you a whole world of both emotional and physical detail, a world that is the result of painstaking research into primary sources.Furst novels are not about plot. The hero always survives, so in that sense they are genre-complying. But other than that, they meander, they dip, they back-track. Here, for example [plot spoiler, note], Casson goes on his first spying mission after he is recruited, but it turns out it was not a spy mission at all -- he was simply the patsy of a wartime profiteer seeking to steal money from British intelligence. And yet, Casson becomes a spy. This sort of thing almost always works. (Imagine The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, but a spy novel set in Paris, and not nearly so boring as that "classic" is.) Where it doesn't work here is in Casson's relationship to Citrine, a young interracial actress. Casson is a great character, and totally believable. But here is a philandering forty-year-old, and suddenly he is in love with an old fling, and you never really understand why. And really her character is so sketchily drawn that you REALLY never know why she is in love with him. Oh sure there is an Occupation, people seek comfort, young girls seek security, but it's not meant to be about that; Furst really means you to think they are in love. It just doesn't work. Not enough basis for the love. Furst tries to get you to buy it with some poetic language, but in the end the relationship with Citrine "fails" as a writerly endeavor for the inverse of reason Furst's description of Occupied Paris succeeds: a dirth of facts.Furst's attempt to buy your belief in their love with 'poetic' writing highlights another error he makes, which is that he gets a bit too mannered with his prose sometimes, trying to evoke too much meaning by using too many deliberately incomplete sentences, that sort of thing. But these are minor quibbles. The guy is an amazing writer, and this is another hugely entertaining and fast-reading novel that nonetheless feels weighty and important.
—Kenyon Harbison
