The Enormous Shadow

by Robert Harling

HARDBACK

Genres: Fiction

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Robert Henry Harling was a British typographer, designer, journalist and novelist.

Reviews

[Juliette · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recommend the book, especially if you’re looking for something light, undemanding and non-committal.

It’s 1954, and a prominent journalist (name never mentioned, I believe) returns to the UK from the States, to do a feature on how young Members of the British Parliament get shafted in favour of the Old Mushrooms, who hold all political power.

During his many interviews, Mr Journalist meets Labour MP Matthew Chance, who seems like a brilliant fellow, but also, regrettably, seems to be a spy for Soviet Communists. Mr Journalist beings a rather leisurely investigation, and far from enduring the hardships of post-war austerity, we see him bask in the relative comforts of weekends at country estates, Bentleys driven by chauffeurs and lunches at The Savoy.

This is perhaps because the author, Robert Harling, was friends with Ian Fleming, and James Bond washed down lobster with champagne, travelled to France and did all sorts of expensive things, while his compatriots subsisted on snails, and I mean the garden variety.

There are two weak points to the novel. First, we’re treated to the unconvincing, bland and unnecessary love affair between Mr Journalist and a Mrs Julia Lewis. It seems like a poorly executed plot device, intended to push matters along; perhaps introduce a bit of tension. My personal view on plot devices is that they should be like electric wires in a house – hidden in the walls; completely invisible to plain sight.

My other issue is with the characters’ delusional view of the USSR – as though it was a viable place to defect – with your wife and child, and dog as well – and enjoy a long, happy life.

I don’t mean Professor Lewis, the mathematician recruited by Mathew Chance to prostitute his mind to the Soviets. No, Professor Lewis, that part-time coward, part-time social idiot, seems like a man who has no opinions, and can be easily swayed left or right with the use very basic threats. I’m certain that’s how Mrs Lewis got him to marry her.

I mean MP Mathew Chance, the villain mastermind himself. It’s implied, he’s been to the USSR before. Even if he spent his entire trip on one of those trains with blacked-out windows, which prevented you from seeing famine in the countryside, he must have got a glimpse of Stalinist Russia. He must have noticed many of his Comrades disappear.

Chance’s seat in the Parliament, his Regency furniture, his love of Italian architecture, his fancy cocktail parties, as well as his imported American wife, all tell me that Chance is a man capable of independent thought. Surely, he must realize what happens to men of independent thought in the USSR.
He must know, he will, all too soon, find himself on his hands and knees, searching for his jaw bone in a bucket of faeces, while the gangrene developing in his frozen-off feet competes against the typhus he contracted from drinking water with human shit, because there’s no sanitation in the gulag.

Perhaps the problem is, Robert Harling didn’t know that, when he published the novel in 1955. Apparently, before Solzhenitsyn, many Westerners were quite clueless about the real state of affairs in the Soviet Bloc. Perhaps Harling could have spent an afternoon or two chatting to one of the Former People, who managed to escape to the UK. That would have set him straight in no time.

[Judith Gunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a 1955 copyright that takes you back to the days when there were Communist spies who got people to sign on because they promised peace when the capitalists promised war. This is a complex tale set in Britain. There is a hint that one of the men who signed on to defect doesn't really want to go to Russia, especially as his wife has rejected his choice of life (she's reported him) and has no intention of parting from their child. There is no gunfire among the major characters, only abductions.

[GhostofMyrtle]

The Enormous Shadow is a novel set in the newspaper industry written by Robert Harling, who himself worked in the business. The plot follows a newspaper reporter who is asked to return to England from the States to look into the disappearance of a top scientist and the communist leanings of a rising MP.

Robert Harling several non fiction books, including two on sailing, and one about Ian Fleming, with whom Harling was personally acquainted, as well as novels, mostly set in the newspaper industry. Fleming recruited Harling to work Inter-Service Topographical Department.

This was a very enjoyable read. If you like cold war thrillers this is a book for you.

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good mystery but not particularly gripping. A nice soft read.