WW II Spy Novels discussion

I'd like to have a really good, juicy, meaty, discussion about Alistair M. Have you read all his works? When did you cease? Where do you feel he jumped-shark? What are your favorites? Where does he excel? Movies adaptations perfectly permissable here.

Somehow MacLean got past me, but he appears to have been a colorful chap. His son and biographer dismissed as drunken ravings his claim to have been captured and tortured by the Japanese. Interestingly, he is buried a few feet away from Richard Burton, another man who punished the bottle pretty well. I'll check out one of his early novels, which appear to have been the best of his work.

P.D. wrote: "I started reading Maclean way back
..."

Eh? Sorry? Wtf do you mean, 'way back'? Did you mistype that sentence? Let's keep it real here. MacLean has been publishing books since '55.

Jerry wrote: "I'll check out one of his early novels, which appear to have been the best of his work. ..."

Actually this is what mystifies me. His early work is some of the worst shyt he wrote. When I explored his early stuff, I was expecting gold. I was hoping that he started out 'grand' and gradually 'slid', slowly 'lost his chops'--that would be the natural trend afflicting any writer. But with MacLean, his earliest efforts are just as disgraceful as the worst slop he stitched together, decades later. That's why his career is so odd. It runs contrary. 'Guns of Navarone' is a transcendent thriller. It elevates a mere action-er into higher art. How did he do it?

The only 2 I have read by him were Ice Station Zebra, and Where Eagles Dare, read them in the late 60's, I thought they were pretty good but some how I just couldn't get into his other stories.

He is 'hard going'. Its a case of a potentially talented writer enslaved to a wheel--like Ixion--forced to constantly churn out formulaic dross. Why?

He tried to escape the wheel, running a hotel for three years in the 'Sixties; but it seems his destiny was fixed however much he struggled.

Thanks for that tidbit of info.

At some point I figured he would have amassed enough clout and power and money to 'go further' than the formula he perfected. I mean, after he saw what a good screenwriter could do with one of his scripts, (Navarone) he should have been trying to match that caliber of storytelling. Why not? What would it have cost him? Mysterious.

HMS Ulysses is his first and by no means shyt as you labelled it, I thought it was a well written and tense novel about being a sailor during WOII.

No, it really was hilariously bad. Hey, when I read a thriller, I'm ready to give wide leeway for melodramatic writing but this was just too much even for me to swallow. I even got drunk once, to see if it would read any better...nope. Its the kind of book that gets tossed across the room. Some of MaCLean's worst stylistic traits as an author--ones which I figured could only appear later in his career--were immediately on display in the very first chapter. I was appalled. Its clear to me that he simply never had any restraint or temperance in his handling of men and situations. You would think that having had real-life experience on wartime ships that he would have just written the straightforward, prosaic reality and let it speak for itself. I'm sure it would have been wonderful. Instead, he gives us lugubrious, superhuman, otherworldly men; statues; demi-gods, paragons of virtue and stoicism. These figures are written with such an absurd distortion--with such a hoary, stiff, bombastic style--they quickly become self-parodying, caricatures-of-themselves, and hokey. That we ever got a superb movie from one of his books, ('Navarone') is a miracle. I really, really wanted to like this book (HMS Ulysses) and instead I would up giving it away for free to a thrift-shop bin. Can you imagine how disappointed I was? I love sea tales. But 'Ulysses' was so friggin' unpalatable I had to abandon it. The officers are unbearable and the scenes are hammy; painfully ham-handed and histrionic. Just augh.

which Navarone would that be Guns of Force 10??

I take not a big fan of Ice station Zebra, Where Eagles dare, Caravan to Vaccares?

No, I like all those films, but I take them for what they are: mere action films. They don't deserve any especial respect or esteem other than being workmanlike actioners. 'Where Eagles Dare' is an exemplary action movie.

However, 'Guns of Navarone' is much more than that. Its a film which transcends the very genre it springs from; its just a great war movie period; as well as a great human story, period. It explored--with restraint, sensitivity, and modesty--all sorts of compelling, human themes. I trust that was all George Foreman's doing. Those adjectives do not describe Alistair MaClean's typical style.

That's why I wish he would have seen what Foreman did with 'Navarone' and written more just like that--to follow suit. If MaClean had written ten more awesome books as fast-paced and riveting as "Eagles" they still would not stack up to one "Navarone" (movie).

I always liked Breakheart pass as well but it is a western, one of the few I liked.

but have never attempted to watch both movies back to back, simply because the difference between them as you did write quite well about.

That's what makes me sad. MacLean had the tools to do so much better; but he kept on running in the same narrow track. 'Guns of Navarone' had great raw story material latent inside; and when it was extracted and lifted out into a screenplay it became one of the most mature and wonderful tales of all-time. Meanwhile, "Where Eagles Dare" is simply a technically proficient but otherwise un-enlivening actioner, fit for 'escapism' only.

We oughta do a title-by-title rundown of all of MacLean's works and see how they stack up. Who's up for this?

HMS Ulysses...WWII
The Guns of Navarone...WWII
South by Java Head ...WWII
The Secret Ways ...Hungary
Night Without End ...crime
Fear is the Key ...crime
The Black Shrike ...nukes
The Golden Rendezvous ...heist
The Satan Bug ...terrorism
Ice Station Zebra ...nukes
When Eight Bells Toll ...heist
Where Eagles Dare ...WWII
Force 10 From Navarone ...WWII
Puppet on a Chain ...drugs
Caravan to Vaccarès...spies
Bear Island ...somewhat WWII
The Way to Dusty Death ...car racing
Breakheart Pass ...Western
Circus ...iron curtain
The Golden Gate ...terrorism, heist
Seawitch ...terrorism, heist
Goodbye California ...terrorism, heist
Athabasca ...terrorism, heist
River of Death ...neo-Nazi
Partisans ...Yugoslavia
Floodgate ...terrorism
San Andreas ...terrorism
The Lonely Sea ...short stories
Santorini...nukes

Never cared much for Bear Island, as the pretext that the norwegian gold stacked away on that arctic island is, at least for every norwegian of my generation, so totaly wrong. Why is that so? Because the story how a few patriotic and industrious indivuduals saved gold from the invading Germans in 1940,- by loading it on two lorries (..yes, it wasn't that much gold), driving it to the West-coast, and sending it with the Royal Family on the HMS Devonshire to England -, that story is firmly embedded in the national WWII-lore. The gold was shipped to The States at a later stage in the war, and where it still is stored at Fort Knox (- when it's not busy being stolen by Goldfinger and his likes....).

Karl wrote: "Because the story how a few patriotic and industrious indivuduals saved gold from the invading Germans in 1940,- by loading it on two lorries (..yes, it wasn't that much gold), driving it to the West-coast, and sending it with the Royal Family on the HMS Devonshire to England -, that story is firmly embedded in the national WWII-lore..."

Ah! I see. MaClean instead posits that it was secreted away on an island; when Norwegians know that it was really sent to England all the time. The story falls apart when confronted with the facts. Thanks for the tip.

p.s. from the above list of titles, I would say MaClean *jumped-shark* beginning with 'The Golden Gate'.

The British Commando actions in the Aegean that insprired 'The Guns of Navarone' is well covered in Barrie Pitt's book 'Special Boat Squadron'. After WWII the MI6 continued the somewhat ill-fated M.O. in their infiltration actions in Albania.

Thanks dude

Its so odd how its the one tale of MacLean's which really became transcendent. The only one that climbs above all the usual fodderol of thriller 'busy-ness'. At least, in the movie adaptation.

I agree that the movie adaption is superior to the book, but in The Guns of Navarone, somehow MacLean manages to create a few charachters that are more than cardboard cup-outs, characters that linger with the reader after the book is finished. (The reader wants to know more, but what did we get? Force 10....)
Another thing that I think contributed to it's success, is that The Guns of Navarone also has that armchair millitary historian nerdiness, with the maps and explanoratory texts. This device is also used to give a certain flair of gravitas in the movie adaption.

The first novel I ever read way back at the age of 11 was When Eight Bells Toll. I loved it! The dashing spy on the boat, scuba diving and knifing. What 11 year old wouldn't love that. Hated Ice Station Zebra which was the next one I read, couldn't believe it. Then The Guns of Navarone, which I agree was his best and I love that movie. Always watch it when it comes on. Also loved the movie Force 10 from Navarone but not the book so much. I think the others I read, I just did so because it was MacLean except for HMS Ulysses which I thought was great. LOL! Sorry Felix. Just loved the ending and would like to think that is how one should go down fighting. I know, too melodramatic but hey is was 13 when I first read it.

Interesting site contains facts and figures about convoys
conwoyweb.org.uk

Look up PQ17 - The convoy that is said to be the inspiration for Maclean's 'HMS Ulysses'...

Some Goodreader on the 'South by Java Head' book page had a great comment about MaClean's writing:

"Surving hurricanes, bombings, being picked up by an oil tanker, then attacked by a submarine, then a fake U.S. PT Boat, rowing to Java where they are finally captured by the Japanese, only to escape. There was so much action that it became boring."

So how about some more Alistair MaClean chatter? I know you guys are holding back on some MaClean opinions. Speak freely! We're all friends here..how about some thumbs-ups or thumbs-downs on his lesser-known works?

I grew up thinking MaClean was the cat's pajamas. As an adult I can hardly stand him. I think the only work I truly trust is 'Golden Rendezvous' or 'Navarrone'. I still like what he was trying to do...I'm all for slaughtering the enemies of good, clean living..but I'm much more critical and demanding as a reader, nowadays.

Hello again everyone. After six novels I can honestly say it is still MacLean's writing that has what it takes to inspire me to write. I don't think 'Navarone' is his most popular style of writing. He hits the mark for readers of charismatic thrillers with 'Ice Station Zebra', 'Where Eagles Dare', 'Night without End', 'Fear Is the Key', 'Goodbye California', 'River of Death' and 'Caravan to Vaccares'. For more 'arty' writing-lovers, 'Ulysses' and 'Navarone'. I advise anyone who wants to write well for the less arty but more sophisticated to read 'Ulysses' and then hone its style cross-genre into the likes of the most popular thrillers Maclean ever wrote, such as 'Where Eagles Dare'. With the rise, over the last few decades, of so-called realism in the main media including fiction books, dilutism of the written word has flourished along with appeasement of inferiority complexes, much to the ostracism of MacLean's best style. I would say readers of MacLean have been denied their preferred reading-material accordingly, as the writing industry tends to pan his style for no other reason than false self-adulation in line with certain of political ideals, namely the self-described 'Left'. Which is unfortunate. But MacLean's writing will prevail, just as common sense does. Or, that is, I hope it will do so. For example, imagine trying to learn to write via reading 'Fifty Shades' and to stay sophisticated at the same time... MacLean's writing is infinitely better than that. Here in Australia we are the most drug-addicted country in the world, with literacy at the lowest among all developed countries. This has happened while MacLean's writing style has been back-shelved. Let's bring it back.

Well. That was quite a declamation. I will gladly let it stand as hopefully it might provoke some rambling MaClean-based chat.

At least I got what I asked for. Thanks for speaking up, Michael. You sure are a MaClean fan, eh?

Feliks wrote: "Well. That was quite a declamation. I will gladly let it stand as hopefully it might provoke some rambling MaClean-based chat.

At least I got what I asked for. Thanks for speaking up, Michael. You..."

Thank you, Feliks. I think everyone is a fan of MacLean's work in one way or another, just like they would all agree that beauty is only in the eye of the beholder up to a certain degree, beyond which level beauty is undeniable to all.

Feliks wrote: "p.s. from the above list of titles, I would say MaClean *jumped-shark* beginning with 'The Golden Gate'."

I agree that "The Golden Gate" marked a sharp downturn from the earlier books.

I need to re-read AM's books as all of my opinions come from reading him when I was a teenager (i.e. when knighthood was in bloom). I did get through "Ice Station Zebra" last year and found that I wasn't nearly as gaga over it as my younger self had been.

Aye Mike. Maclean is so 'uneven'. Perplexing. If you see my reviews, you can tell that last year I made an effort to dig back through some of his earliest titles. I wanted to discover if he had 'started out strong'--and then later, allowed himself to dissipate. That at least would be *some* explanation. But it wasn't so. His first few books (to my eyes) are of the same quality as some released during his 'peak'.

Furthermore, the reasons why one book might be better than another, are rarely the same from title to another. They slant this-way-and-that-way. Some readers (for example) claim that MaClean writes better stories about the Nazis than he does Japanese. Or, they chafe at his handling of females. Many more issues like that.

Me, I'm starting to think his best works just kept emerging haplessly, at random. Its almost as if, he never learned from his own mistakes. Every new title was simply left to chance--seems like despite whatever 'macguffin' he happened to devise for the frame of the story, he just crafted everything else the exact same way. Bombastic dialogue, excessive action, unrealistic behavior.

The titles I really admire from him therefore--I have no principle to cite, which explains why I like them. That annoys me! I want to be able to point to a string of works and say 'this period was better than this other period'. But with him, I can not.

Feliks, I think you're right on about Maclean. But however well or poorly written his books are, they really translate into movies.

For fans of Where Eagles Dare, my understanding is he wrote the screenplay before the novel.

Is that right??? Well, blow me down!

This is gossip I hadn't heard. Thanks James man