Books

[cdybedahl]

I just finished reading Tim Powers' Declare, which I've been working my way through for far too long. It's a strange book. That's pretty much expected from Powers, but this one is a little more so than most. It's set entirely in this century, and it's a Cold War spy thriller. With, since it's Powers, supernatural elements. What's odd about it is that he's managed to inject the supernatural bits unusually smoothly, and that the line between known historical fact and invention is a very blurry line indeed. Some things I'd heard about before. That there used to be an English military intelligence organisation that had a very vaguely described function and was led by a Roman Catholic priest. That the infamous spy Kim Philby (who is one of the main characters in the book) had a framed aerial photograph of Mount Ararat hanging on the wall of his flat in Beirut. Some other things I didn't know. For example, that after Philby's father died Philby got a pet fox which became known to chew on pipe stems and lap up whisky, and that when said fox was killed on the second anniversary of the father's death Philby was just as distraught as he'd been when the father died.

Powers has taken lots and lots of facts like these and woven them together to a strangely believable and very enjoyable whole. If you like spy thrillers and weird stuff, Declare is a must-read.

And gives a reason for the fall of Soviet Union that is far, far stranger than anything I could ever have imagined.