The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service

Dettagli prodotto

Casa editrice

PENGUIN GROUP

Pubblicato

2011

Lingua

English

Pagine

336

Info

336 Pagine
199 mm x 131 mm
ab 18 Jahre

ISBN

978-0-14-310632-6

Recensione

This is a book of great renown. . . . Its beautifully sustained atmosphere . . . adds poetry, and . . . real mystery. Ian Fleming

Kurztext / Annotation

Childers' lone masterpiece, "The Riddle of the Sands", considered the first modern spy thriller, is recognisable as the brilliant forerunner of the realism of Graham Greene and John le Carre. Its unique flavour comes from its fine characterization, richly authentic background of inshore sailing and vivid evocation of the late 1890s - an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and intrigue that was soon to lead to war.

Textauszug

CHAPTER 1

The Letter

I have read of men who, when forced by their calling to live for long periods in utter solitude save for a few black faces have made it a rule to dress regularly for dinner in order to maintain their self-respect and prevent a relapse into barbarism. It was in some such spirit, with an added touch of self-consciousness, that, at seven o clock in the evening of 23rd September in a recent year, I was making my evening toilet in my chambers in Pall Mall. I thought the date and the place justified the parallel; to my advantage even; for the obscure Burmese administrator might well be a man of blunted sensibilities and coarse fibre, and at least he is alone with nature, while I well, a young man of condition and fashion, who knows the right people, belongs to the right clubs, has a safe, possibly a brilliant, future in the Foreign Office may be excused for a sense of complacent martyrdom, when, with his keen appreciation of the social calendar, he is doomed to the outer solitude of London in September. I say martyrdom, but in fact the case was infinitely worse. For to feel oneself a martyr, as everybody knows, is a pleasurable thing, and the true tragedy of my position was that I had passed that stage. I had enjoyed what sweets it had to offer in ever dwindling degree since the middle of August, when ties were still fresh and sympathy abundant. I had been conscious that I was missed at Morven Lodge party. Lady Ashleigh herself had said so in the kindest possible manner, when she wrote to acknowledge the letter in which I explained, with an effectively austere reserve of language, that circumstances compelled me to remain at my office. We know how busy you must be just now, she wrote, and I do hope you won t overwork; we shall all miss you very much. Friend after friend got away to sport and fresh air, with promises to write and chaffing condolences, and as each deserted the sinking ship, I took a grim delight in my misery, positively almost enjoying the first week or two after my world had been finally dissipated to the four bracing winds of heaven. I began to take a spurious interest in the remaining five millions, and wrote several clever letters in a vein of cheap satire, indirectly suggesting the pathos of my position, but indicating that I was broad-minded enough to find intellectual entertainment in the scenes, persons, and habits of London in the dead season. I even did rational things at the instigation of others. For, though I should have liked total isolation best, I, of course, found that there was a sediment of unfortunates like myself, who, unlike me, viewed the situation in a most prosaic light. There were river excursions, and so on, after office-hours; but I dislike the river at any time for its noisy vulgarity, and most of all at this season. So I dropped out of the fresh air brigade and declined H s offer to share a riverside cottage and run up to town in the mornings. I did spend one or two week-ends with the Catesbys in Kent; but I was not inconsolable when they let their house and went abroad, for I found that such partial compensations did not suit me. Neither did the taste for satirical observation last. A passing thirst, which I dare say many have shared, for adventures of the fascinating kind described in the New Arabian Nights led me on a few evenings into some shady haunts in Soho and farther eastward; but was finally quenched one sultry Saturday night after an hour s immersion in the reeking atmosphere of a low music-hall in Ratcliffe Highway, where I sat next a portly female who suffered from the heat, and at frequent intervals refreshed herself and an infant from a bottle of tepid stout.

By the first week in September I had abandoned all palliatives, and had settled into the dismal but dignified routine of office, club, and chambers. And

Loosely based on the author's own experiences, The Riddle of the Sands takes readers back to the early days of the twentieth century, when Britain shared a tense rivalry with the Kaiser's Germany. Tempted by the idea of duck shooting, Carruthers is lured by his friend Davies into a yachting expedition in the Baltic, only to discover that the itinerary involves more than killing fowl. Soon they're on a wild journey of intrigue, meeting danger at every turn, and ultimately unraveling Germany's secret plans to invade England. Tautly written and full of unexpected twists, this is a timeless work of espionage fiction.

Informazioni sull'autore

Erskine Childers (1870-1922) was an expert yachtsman whose sailing experiences were fictionalized in The Riddle of the Sands. An Irish nationalist, he was executed by the authorities of the nascent Irish Free State during the Irish Civil War. Bernard Knox is director emeritus of Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C.