« The Vermonter | Main | Merlot »
July 06, 2005
Menace Lost
When the Cold War ended -- when the Berlin Wall came down -- the west lost an enemy. By most arguments, this was a good thing. But for those who write spy novels -- and, more important, those who read them -- another loss was incurred. A loss that from all indications was grave . . . if not fatal. No, it wasn't just the Soviet Union that fell -- that clang we heard, the sound of the iron curtain dropping to the floor, kept echoing, and resonating, and if you listened closely enough, real closely, you know what you heard?
You heard the plots of international thriller novels shattering into a thousand pieces, fading away into vapor, and blowing away in the wind.
What the hell were the likes of Robert Ludlum, Fredrick Forsyth, Tom Clancy, John le Carre, or Ross Thomas to do? Horribly, we've lost a couple of these lads since. But once Gorbachev and his perestroika, his glasnost, and maybe even Reagan and his containment took hold and shifted the balance of power, the spy novelist's art perished too.
Or so it seemed.
It's not that there aren't always bad guys, evil intentions, and -- sometimes -- weapons of mass destruction to work with in constructing plots that race to the end of stories with relentless aggression. But what you had, as a spy novelist, during the Cold War, were the secret ingredients destined to make every dish a delicacy: two parts menace, and one part fear. You see, back then, it wasn’t just cops, or spies, or secretive administration spinmeisters who knew who the bad guys were -- everyone knew. Nearly every soul in the western world had been conditioned to fear the menace that lurked behind the curtain . . . theirs was a totalitarian regime, one that controlled its people, a dark, oppressive alternate universe we knew intrinsically to be vigilant against. Every day of our lives, we, the reading populace, faced the very real prospect of nuclear annihilation, potential imminent takeover, and totalitarian domination by an evil foreign empire.
That was a time when spies had something to do.
Hell, if you think about it, working as a spy novelist during such a time of menace must have resembled the work routine of a staff writer on "Law & Order": Here, writer -- take this headline I just ripped out of the paper and give me an episode!
But those days are gone.
Crime fiction, on the other hand, has always been a rich genre in its own right, and in my "layman fiction reader's" view, it was the mystery novel that took the place of the horrible void left by glasnost. If you’re a gearhead like I am, you’ll get the analogy I'll draw to NASCAR and the Indy Racing League: the former took over while the latter just plain died. Michael Connelly, Robert B. Parker, Robert Crais, Elmore Leonard, and Carl Hiaasen now race to the top of the charts -- where before, they or their predecessors had been busy fighting for the delightful scraps you can find if you creep around below the radar of the all-powerful New York Times Best Seller List.
But for me, as a reader -- a reader, mind you, hooked on the candylike heroin of flavor, depth, authenticity, quirkiness, and character found in the works of the mystery greats -- I have missed the menace. The page-turning, sleep-deprivation-inspiring, walk-around-thinking-it-could-very-well-happen-to-you, pervasive ferocity of the classic spy novel.
Some have dared to enter the space, even fared incredibly well -- Baldacci and Silva come to mind -- but what I yearn for . . . what the kid inside me who stayed up late reading those classics through high school, college, and the years afterward when I pretended to be awake at work . . . what I crave is the next generation of menace.
And fear.
Not the real-life kind -- that we can do without. No -- what I seek are plots that bring back that dread . . . the threat . . . the dark, oppressive enemy lurking in the alternate universe behind the curtain.
Maybe Lee Child, or Vince Flynn, or somebody else new to the scene can feed this long-starved addiction of mine. Maybe Michael Connelly will try his hand at a classic espionage thriller for today. Maybe I'll write one myself. (Confession: I did.) But I'll tell you this . . . once that wall went down, and the regime that lurked behind it collapsed, I knew immediately, as a reader of spy novels, the bounty I'd be spending the rest of my late-night reading sessions searching for. You know what I'm looking for?
I'm looking for some menace.
Some good old fashioned dread, oppression, and fear.
Got any ideas?
Bring 'em on -- I've got all night.
Posted by sjbmt at July 6, 2005 03:23 AM