THE OUTSIDER
My Life in Intrigue
Frederick Forsyth
Penguin Random House;
367 pages; £7.99
Bagley rarely touched great heights but Maclean (Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra, Where Eagles Dare and Fear is the Key) and Mr Forsyth (The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War) saw their best-sellers turned into memorable movies. Bagley and Maclean died young - at ages 59 and 65 respectively - and their books went out of vogue, overtaken by writers attuned to the shifting dynamics of global politics and the digital age.
At 77, Mr Forsyth has had the good fortune to live long enough to write more contemporary books (though to diminishing acclaim) and now this autobiography. It is certainly a story worth telling. The Outsider reveals a life as fast-paced and stylishly versatile as his novels. Mr Forsyth's experience as an RAF pilot and journalist were evident in his well-researched page-turners; the fact that he was also an occasional spy, as he reveals here, explains the authenticity of his plots.
The retro cover photo of the pinstripe-suited author, a cigarette in a holder negligently wedged between long fingers sets the tone. Mr Forsyth lived in interesting times, as they say, coming of age in the half-century of decolonisation and the Cold War.
He had his doting father to thank for his serendipitous future careers. Owner of a furrier's shop, he sent his son on exchange programmes with families in France and Germany (he didn't suffer Britain's chronic post-war Germanophobia) during the school holidays. The result was that the English schoolboy learnt to speak two major European languages like a native (slang, curses and all), skills that proved immeasurably useful in his stints as a reporter in France and East Germany.
The senior Forsyth was also responsible for the writer's RAF wings; he provided the drummer of the air force band with a leopard-skin poncho, a "donation" that got his underage son into the service. But he decided against a career there after he was told he wouldn't get to fly a Hunter, then the RAF's frontline fighter. It was possible to make such casual career switches in a post-war Europe enjoying an economic boom.
His career in journalism started quietly with a Norfolk-based weekly, before Reuters hired him in London on the basis of his knowledge of where Bujumbura was located (it is the capital of Burundi, a fact he was lucky to read in the paper on the train). Later, he was posted to Paris, the job that led to his first book The Day of the Jackal.
Ironically, Mr Forsyth's story would have been hard to believe had it not been for his novels; you can spot him in most of them. His wry, self-deprecating humour does him no harm either. There's one hilarious account of a misreading of a May Day parade practice that almost led to World War III and an enthralling chapter on a spy mission across the Berlin Wall.
An account of endless adventure - he seems to attract it even on holiday - may have palled had Mr Forsyth not been a thoughtful writer. The title of his memoir reflects his belief that that being an outsider is an essential quality for a journalist. "A journalist should never join the Establishment, no matter how tempting the blandishments. It is our job to hold power to account, not join it." He explains his decision to act as a spy for "The Firm", as the Secret Intelligence Service is informally called, as a moral choice.
This was at the height of the Nigerian civil war when the oil-rich province of Biafra sought to secede. Initially working for the BBC, Mr Forsyth quickly realised that this "independent" agency was toeing a Foreign Office line that supported the corrupt government, creating one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. When he returned to Nigeria as a stringer, he agreed to feed "The Firm" with information to show that White Hall was fighting on the wrong side of morality. We assume his services as a courier for spies across the Iron Curtain were similarly motivated.
Mr Forsyth's political instincts are not always acute. His uncritical support for Israel is one example. It was understandable since the sixties were when the term Holocaust gained currency. Indeed, The Odessa File played a role in tracking down one of the Nazi regime's more bestial representatives in Argentina. Still, it is strange given his wide experience in Africa, that Mr Forsyth never came to question the Israeli state's treatment of Palestinians after all these years.
The account begins to falter as Mr Forsyth enters middle age as a best-selling mogul. Sure, he earns his parachute wings, escapes a hurricane and goes big game hunting but the prose acquires the hasty quality of a man trying to cram in every detail of a full life. It is salvaged by the last chapter when he fulfils a childhood dream and gets to fly a Spitfire. It's a simple pleasure expressed in prose as inspired as his beautiful novella The Shepherd and it proves a fitting addendum to an adventuresome life.
My Life in Intrigue
Frederick Forsyth
Penguin Random House;
367 pages; £7.99
Also Read
Before Robert Ludlum, three writers in the seventies defined the popular thriller for me: Alistair Maclean, Desmond Bagley and Frederick Forsyth. By then Fleming's novels had morphed into the flourishing movie property and John Le Carre was, well, in a class by himself.
Bagley rarely touched great heights but Maclean (Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra, Where Eagles Dare and Fear is the Key) and Mr Forsyth (The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War) saw their best-sellers turned into memorable movies. Bagley and Maclean died young - at ages 59 and 65 respectively - and their books went out of vogue, overtaken by writers attuned to the shifting dynamics of global politics and the digital age.
At 77, Mr Forsyth has had the good fortune to live long enough to write more contemporary books (though to diminishing acclaim) and now this autobiography. It is certainly a story worth telling. The Outsider reveals a life as fast-paced and stylishly versatile as his novels. Mr Forsyth's experience as an RAF pilot and journalist were evident in his well-researched page-turners; the fact that he was also an occasional spy, as he reveals here, explains the authenticity of his plots.
The retro cover photo of the pinstripe-suited author, a cigarette in a holder negligently wedged between long fingers sets the tone. Mr Forsyth lived in interesting times, as they say, coming of age in the half-century of decolonisation and the Cold War.
He had his doting father to thank for his serendipitous future careers. Owner of a furrier's shop, he sent his son on exchange programmes with families in France and Germany (he didn't suffer Britain's chronic post-war Germanophobia) during the school holidays. The result was that the English schoolboy learnt to speak two major European languages like a native (slang, curses and all), skills that proved immeasurably useful in his stints as a reporter in France and East Germany.
The senior Forsyth was also responsible for the writer's RAF wings; he provided the drummer of the air force band with a leopard-skin poncho, a "donation" that got his underage son into the service. But he decided against a career there after he was told he wouldn't get to fly a Hunter, then the RAF's frontline fighter. It was possible to make such casual career switches in a post-war Europe enjoying an economic boom.
His career in journalism started quietly with a Norfolk-based weekly, before Reuters hired him in London on the basis of his knowledge of where Bujumbura was located (it is the capital of Burundi, a fact he was lucky to read in the paper on the train). Later, he was posted to Paris, the job that led to his first book The Day of the Jackal.
Ironically, Mr Forsyth's story would have been hard to believe had it not been for his novels; you can spot him in most of them. His wry, self-deprecating humour does him no harm either. There's one hilarious account of a misreading of a May Day parade practice that almost led to World War III and an enthralling chapter on a spy mission across the Berlin Wall.
An account of endless adventure - he seems to attract it even on holiday - may have palled had Mr Forsyth not been a thoughtful writer. The title of his memoir reflects his belief that that being an outsider is an essential quality for a journalist. "A journalist should never join the Establishment, no matter how tempting the blandishments. It is our job to hold power to account, not join it." He explains his decision to act as a spy for "The Firm", as the Secret Intelligence Service is informally called, as a moral choice.
This was at the height of the Nigerian civil war when the oil-rich province of Biafra sought to secede. Initially working for the BBC, Mr Forsyth quickly realised that this "independent" agency was toeing a Foreign Office line that supported the corrupt government, creating one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. When he returned to Nigeria as a stringer, he agreed to feed "The Firm" with information to show that White Hall was fighting on the wrong side of morality. We assume his services as a courier for spies across the Iron Curtain were similarly motivated.
Mr Forsyth's political instincts are not always acute. His uncritical support for Israel is one example. It was understandable since the sixties were when the term Holocaust gained currency. Indeed, The Odessa File played a role in tracking down one of the Nazi regime's more bestial representatives in Argentina. Still, it is strange given his wide experience in Africa, that Mr Forsyth never came to question the Israeli state's treatment of Palestinians after all these years.
The account begins to falter as Mr Forsyth enters middle age as a best-selling mogul. Sure, he earns his parachute wings, escapes a hurricane and goes big game hunting but the prose acquires the hasty quality of a man trying to cram in every detail of a full life. It is salvaged by the last chapter when he fulfils a childhood dream and gets to fly a Spitfire. It's a simple pleasure expressed in prose as inspired as his beautiful novella The Shepherd and it proves a fitting addendum to an adventuresome life.