The World at Night (Isis)

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Summary: "The World At Night" by Alan Furst: A Complex Pleasure
Review: Review: THE WORLD AT NIGHT by Alan Furst

Reading Alan Furst's novels about Europe circa 1937-42 is an experience like no other. Immediately the reader is drawn into a world that is, for an American, a revelation. Europe during that time was watching as Hitler marched, with steadily increasing strength, through Germany and then, one by one, through neighboring countries, shifting boundaries and political alignments throughout a Europe that was still exhausted and smarting from the ravages of WW1, the global flu epidemic that immediately followed the war, and the Great Depression. For centuries Europeans have endured through variations of this experience, and there is a sort of cultural memory and mindset that informs European behavior as they feel the ground shifting under them yet again. They are stoic, they are disheartened, they begin to adjust to whatever the new regime may be, and in this case, they sense that it is going to be a particularly ugly one.

M. Casson is Furst's man for this season. He is a Parisian, a film producer with offices in Paris, a wide network of business friends and associates, a wife with whom he has "an understanding" - they live apart, each of them takes lovers as they wish, but they are friends - and a tendency to fall in love with each woman who crosses his path and attracts his attention, and he is indeed a man who loves women, whether or not they are pretty, shapely, sexy, whatever. Each woman he spends time with fascinates him in her own way, and he is attuned to their complexities and fascinated to learn who they are, and to share their world (and their beds).

As The World At Night opens, it is May 10, 1940, and Hitler is making his way through Belgium, headed for France. How will the French react? With deft strokes, Furst conjures the French sensibility for us. The French will wait. They have declared war, but fighting the Germans never was worthwhile. They will live with the Germans, hating them as they watch their insensitive occupation of everything French, and specifically for Casson, Parisian.

Casson's life has been deliciously Parisian; a relaxed approach to business, a love affair now and then, periods of ennui, parties with old friends and lovers. His life has been interchangeable with his art movies, filled with complex women and naive men, all done in shades of gray. Casson's life is about to change.

Casson is approached by the Resistance to do a job for them - but wait, it turns out this is a fake, an entrapment; fortunately he has declined, and escapes a potentially nasty situation. He is approached by the real Resistance, and because of his circumstances, feels he is ready to make a commitment and indeed, he recognizes that he has little choice, so he agrees to do a job for them. Besides, it involves a journey to southern France, and may offer him the opportunity to search for Citrine, his lost love. Casson has reason to think she may have returned to Marseilles and this is his chance to avoid travel restrictions, find her, and offer her his heart.

His effort fails, on both counts. And now Furst takes us down with Casson, into the depths of an ancient, dimly-castle, as it were: we go together with Casson as he descends the uneven stone steps lit by smokey torches into a dark, damp, unknowable and ultimately compelling underworld: Paris under siege. Jewish colleagues are banished to America or stay in Paris secretly, fearfully. Nazi businessmen and SS elite take over the restaurants and nightlife, the heartbeat of Paris. Friends align themselves, some with the aggressors, some with the resistance.

Casson begins to learn his new life. He passes on love affairs - or at least, promising sexual attractions - as he carries his torch relentlessly for Citrine. Very little in his life is under his own control. He accepts assignments for the Resistance, he really has no choice.

Casson's life becomes that of a stranger, an unwelcome stranger. His world, formerly so gentil, is no longer. Furst draws us into Casson's Paris, a city full of heartbreak, an existence that is uncertain. His world can no longer be seen by looking directly at it. It can be perceived only the way things are seen at dusk, in the early dark. To see anything in the world at night, looking directly at it will not work; you will not see it. You must look beside it, beyond it, and you will see it on the edge of your vision, and capture its image in your peripheral vision only. As Furst etches in the lines of his portrait of Casson, we hold our breath, daring only to look at the story of this man's life from a difficult perspective, as it were, at night.

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Summary: Disappointing plotting from an over-rated author
Review: The mystifying critical acclaim attending Alan Furst makes more of his efforts than he deserves even at his best, and this is his absolute nadir. His writing is hailed as "cinematic", apparently because the chapters are chopped into short, incoherent set pieces that are clearly meant to be visually evocative, but succeed only in being disjointed and telegraphic. There is no complexity or depth to his characterizations, and he has created a hero so unsympathetic that you wouldn't mind seeing the Nazis catch him. As for his vaunted ablility to evoke war-time Europe, the flat and lifeless descriptions here are particularly disappointing. An intelligent teen-ager with a thesaurus, a map of Paris, and the Michelin green guide could do just as well. Readers interested in evocative pre-war suspense would be better served sticking to novels of the period. Compare Mr. Furst's writing with Eric Ambler's (eg, "Journey into Fear" or "Cause for Alarm"), and decide for yourself.

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Summary: The world at night isn't dark
Review: The one feeling that pervades all of the work of Alan Furst is HOPE...despite the political terror going on all around his characters, one nevers feels that they have reached the realization that the only future remaining is one of despair. In the case of the World at Night, Jean Casson (who continues his adventure in Red Gold) attempts to continue a somewhat normal life despite the Nazi Occupation of France and an ever increasing political vortex from both the right and the left pulling him in and away, constant reminders that he cannot continue his normal existance in abnormal times. He is ultimately compelled to make a choice and follow his conscience which nearly leads to disastrous results. The characters are well drawn and the story is exciting and like all of Furst's books, difficult to put down. This and the other books in the series are highly recommended.

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Summary: Furst's first as a series
Review: This book is the first in a series of books by Alan Furst about men caught in the turmoil of the early days of Wrold War II in Europe. This one is the first to consider Jean Casson, a French film director, who scrambles to stay alive and fight the Germans in the game of espionage. Furst uses his story to draw a picture of how it was then, and this is as interesting as one can be in the events of that time in that place. Two other of his books, The Polish Officer and Kingdom of Shadows, take this approach further East, and are much the better for it. Worth reading as a beginning to his other books

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Summary: Who said he has to be Graham Greene?
Review: This is the only Alan Furst novel I have read. I've just started Red Gold. I like the way this novel created a mood of a city just beginning to realize the hardships of occupation. Jean Casson was a sympathetic character even though some might think he was a bit feckless in his lifestyle. I learned a fair amount about the relation between the French authority and the occupying German forces. I had a preconception that this book would be centered around the operations of the French resistance. I came to realize that this book was about one man and his ability to cope with a world that had suddenly come undone.