On File
Recently read Frederick Forsyth's classic 1972 thriller The Odessa File. The second hand edition I picked up was a 1974 Bantam US mass paperback which has some vintage comedy moments in its packaging - on the inside cover: "You are about to read The Odessa File - a superb example of the wizardry of Frederick Forsyth's modern master of the thriller." The printing history proudly states that the book has been reset in a new typeface from the hardback, but NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED. And at the book's end, there are adverts for other books, which sadly seems to have died out as a practice in the publishing industry. Who could resist the call to "RELAX! SIT DOWN! And Catch Up On Your Reading!"
There are some comedy moments amongst Forsyth's prose too: describing the hero's girlfriend who works as a stripper, he writes: "...tourists were thick down the Reeperbahn, prepared to buy champagne at ten times its restaurant price for a girl with big tits and a low-cut dress, and Sigi had the biggest and the lowest".
Beyond all that, it is a great thriller - fast-paced and full of historical fact, with real people appearing in its pages alongside the fictional characters. Whilst the Odessa file of the title concerns the organisation which ensured SS officers could disappear and gain new identities to either live abroad or remain in Germany, the key for me to the book's power is the diary of Solomon Tauber, a German Jew who survived Riga, the concentration camp in Latvia where thousands of Jews were executed. Reading Forsyth's reconstruction of Tauber's experiences is extremely powerful, and it sits somewhat incongruously alongside his usual gung-ho hardboiled prose. That said, Forsyth's detailed explanation of how the Odessa organisation worked is fascinating, and his subplot concerning a Nazi-aided Arab attack on Israel makes me want to go back to the history books and find out how much of it is true. (Is there an "Odessa File Companion" that already points out what is fact and fabrication?).
Day Of The Jackal next then.
