Night Soldiers: A Novel
by Alan Furst
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Book Summary Information
Author: Alan FurstEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-07-09
ISBN: 0375760008
Number of pages: 462
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Night Soldiers: A Novel
Book Review: An overview of Alan Furst's novels
Summary: 5 Stars
I have read seven of Alan Furst's eleven (as of 2010) spy novels in rapid succession, so I think it useful to offer these general comments on them as a group, not on "Night Soldiers" per se. But I link this review to "Night Soldiers" because I consider the latter to be the best of Furst's spy tales. It was his first, and it is the longest. That gave him scope to write not just a good spy story but a great novel portraying the deformation of human character entailed in the making of a Soviet KGB (actually then an NKVD) agent. In that regard, the novel draws inspiration from Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon," a defining novel of totalitarianism published 70 years ago, which Furst acknowledges as deeply influencing him. "Night Soldiers" is a worthy successor to "Darkness at Noon," and that is major praise, indeed.
But after "Night Soldiers," Furst began to write books not 450 pages in length but 250-300, and has done so in fairly rapid succession. In sum, I suspect he "went commercial." And thus the later books are not really compelling as literature. But, they ARE tremendously entertaining and beautifully crafted. I've gotten "hooked" on them, even though I almost never read fiction.
Their theme is the same: Furst writes about people who, by accident or profession, are caught up as spies or resistance agents in the maelstrom of Europe (especially France and Eastern Europe) during the late 30s and the WW II era. His books offer many pleasures. First, he has the settings and details of pre/trans-war Europe down cold, and so the atmosphere he creates is totally convincing and enveloping--it's rather like "seeing" the movie "Casablanca" in print. I was first introduced to his books by "The Spies of Warsaw," which centered on a pre-war military attache there and his exploits. As a retired US diplomat, I was mightily impressed by how well Furst had "gotten" the workings of an embassy and the bureaucratic squabbles of its relationships with the "home office." That told me he really had absorbed and understood the background context of his novels.
Second, Furst is a master of plot and of interweaving several different chains of human stories towards a final end, and he is deft in bringing even minor characters to life with a few vivid strokes. It is a pleasure to see that craftsmanship at work. Third, he is understated, often implying facts rather than hurling them in one's face, which is to say he respects his readers' intelligence. There is an elegant economy to his writing style.
So Furst's novels are generally highly entertaining and a "good read," even if lacking in the kind of deep "message" he delivered in "Night Soldiers," other than the message that human beings sometimes act with quiet heroism and do so for a variety of reasons.
Furst does not like to repeat himself, so the books are not a series depending on one character. Indeed, he has repeated a leading protagonist in only two of his books, that of Jean Casson in "The World at Night" and "Red Gold," and those novels should be considered together as one, because the first spends about half its length setting up the character and context of Casson, whose plot potential "blooms" most fully in the second novel.
If Furst's books have a (minor) weakness, it is in his portrayal of sex. One has the impression he feels compelled to include such episodes as part and parcel of the spy novel genre, or as a humanizing or human interest element in his characters. These scenes are done with taste and discretion, but I am rarely convinced he is comfortable with them or that they really "fit" into the novels other than as a felt obligatory inclusion. They often feel awkward, if not gratuitous. But they usually are over rapidly (which heightens my suspicion that they are "by the numbers" episodes), and then one re-embarks on the intricate, but very realistic spy plot twists and turns which make the books a joy to read.
As noted, I've read seven of Furst's spy novels (and eventually will read the others). Here are my recommendations as regards those I've read:
Best: Night Soldiers
Next best: Dark Voyage; The Spies of Warsaw
Still good: The Polish Officer; The World at Night; and Red Gold (the latter two achieve their full potential only if read as a pair)
Less recommended: The Foreign Correspondent (less engaging because there's not enough happening and the stakes don't seem that high).
Summary of Night Soldiers: A Novel
Bulgaria, 1934. A young man is murdered by the local fascists. His brother, Khristo Stoianev, is recruited into the NKVD, the Soviet secret intelligence service, and sent to Spain to serve in its civil war. Warned that he is about to become a victim of Stalin?s purges, Khristo flees to Paris. Night Soldiers masterfully re-createsthe European world of 1934?45: the struggle between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia for Eastern Europe, the last desperate gaiety of the beau monde in 1937 Paris, and guerrilla operations with the French underground in 1944. Night Soldiers is a scrupulously researched panoramic novel, a work on a grand scale.
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