An Officer and a Spy: A novel

Because I read a lot of history, fictionalized history is not my favorite genre. Too often the artistic license taken is so broad that it interferes with my reading. It's like dissonance of the brain or alarms clanging in the background. However, once in a while I get wind of a well-researched well-written novelized history, and then I enjoy it immensely. "An Officer and a Spy" is in the latter camp. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is like a thriller. Even though I knew how the story ends, I could not put it down. Our narrator is Major Picquart, a real person originally in military transport. In 1895, the year after Dreyfus' conviction for treason, Picquart is promoted to Colonel in the Statistical Section of the Ministry of War. The Statistical Section is the intelligence/counter intelligence arm of the War office. It is a grubby shady operation. That it can require the individual's suspension of morals morays and sense of fair play is impressed on Picquart fairly quickly, He has to sign off on the monthly reports on Dreyfus' solitary confinement on Devil's Island. The conditions in which the prisoner is held are grotesquely cruel. Picquart writes, "Gradually over the winter I discern that we do in fact have a policy with regard to Dreyfus, it has simply never been explained to me in so many words, either verbally or on paper. We are waiting for him to die." The true story of how Picquart uncovers evidence of Dreyfus' innocence is interesting. The true story of how Picquart is pole-axed to find out that the army has no intention of admitting it made a mistake is dismaying. The story of how Picquart discovers the true traitor is riveting. The trials at the end, where the army actually helps the real traitor get an acquittal in exchange for helping them frame Picquart as Dreyfus' confederate, again, only to keep from admitting its mistake with Dreyfus, had me near foaming at the mouth. That invoking the name Dreyfus Affair now means an excruciating miscarriage of justice is no sleight of hand. This is an extraordinary tale from start to finish. Robert Harris does an excellent job of marshaling a lot of dates and data into a story that has only a few places where it gets a bit bogged down in detail. His characterizations are rich, "Gribelin is an enigma to me: the epitome of the servile bureaucrat; an animated corpse. He could be any age between forty and sixty and is as thin as a wraith of black smoke, the only colour he wears. Mostly he closets himself alone upstairs in his archive; on the rare occasions he does appear he creeps along close to the wall, dark and silent as a shadow. I could imagine him slipping around the edge of a closed door, or sliding beneath it." Before the denouement, for his refusal to let go, to shut up, to not bend, Picquart is cashiered from the army and those closest to him are harassed: "For the first time in my life I carry hatred inside me. It is an almost physical thing, like a concealed knife. Sometimes, when I am alone, I like to take it out and run my thumb along its cold, sharp blade." Robert Harris admits that he opted to make small additions/alterations to the real plot keep the flow of his fictional story. But overall, he stuck very much to the truth. In particular, the named people are real people. I haven't read anything else by Harris, but I'll have to put him on my "newly discovered" list and see if I appreciate another of his works. I very much enjoyed "An Officer and a Spy" and recommend it! Happy Reader

"An Officer and a Spy" is a rather incredible story, one that you feel can't possibly be true. And then you discover that it is true, at least most of it. As I read the book, I consulted a fairly lengthy Wikipedia article. The Wiki article has photos of many of the principal characters and does a nice job of summarizing what happened. So I recommend both the book and the Wiki article but just skim the article before you read the book just to get a general sense of where you are going. Actually, as I finished the book and read the very last sentence of the story (before the epilogue) I thought to myself "No, no, that can't be true, that must be made up for the movie version to come". Then I jumped back to the Wiki article and incredibly the last sentence is absolutely and totally true. Incredible, blew my mind. What a story! So, yes I recommend "An Officer and a Spy". It is about the infamous Dreyfus case in France just prior to WWI. In an nutshell it is a "one man against the world" story about a French Army officer accused of spying for the hated Germans, the victim is Jewish, his rescuer is a French intelligence officer with a conscience, and......the story is quite good. Lots and lots of characters, well done. Feels like it captures the French of the late 1800's but how would I know? I guess my only deduct for this book is that I would read 40-50 pages most days and then put it down. For whatever reason, I was not glued to this book, don't know why but it was never a "can't wait to pick it up again". Very good, but not 5 star material. Here's an interesting thought for those that choose to read this....do you think anything like this ever happened here/could happen here? I say "no" but I wish I were more sure.

It has been said that truth is often stranger than fiction and I believe mostly makes for more interesting reading. The intriguing truth of Robert Harris’s new book is his use of only real life characters in service of a historically actuate account of the 1895 French Dreyfus affair. Harris’s non-fiction novel* is told in the first person not from the perspective of Alfred Dreyfus but from that of a Colonel Georges Picquart (who really did in real life the things depicted in the novel). This first person narration provides the reader with a personal perception of suspense in a style similar to a Hitchcock thriller. Only in this case these events actually happened. We find we follow Picquart into a perfect storm as France is torn apart over conflicting views of the government’s case and by Picquart who like Dreyfus also becomes a man accused. When coming to Harris’s book it is probably best that you know or remember little of the actual details of the Dreyfus affair. A simple overview is that the affair was a major French scandal that lasted some eleven years beginning in 1895 when a rich, aristocratic, Jewish Army Officer, Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly charged and convicted of treason via the use of secret government evidence. Dreyfus is disgraced and sent to Devil’s Island off the coast of South America as its lone prisoner. Colonel George Picquart who in actuality is just a minor bureaucrat transitions slowly into what we would regard today as a “whistle blower” as he happens upon proof that Dreyfus is innocent and no one listens. Overlay this with anti-Semitic French popular opinion which stereotyped Dreyfus as that guilty Jew. The fun of the book is that it is both true and a remarkable story. The intrigue and historic significance of the affair becomes apparent as the many characters slowly come into clear focus. This not an action driven plot but more of an investigative procedural where clues are nothing but bits of paper, intercepted letters and listened to conversations. Picquart journey in a way becomes a metaphor for Frances views on the issue of Dreyfus’s guilt and it’s anti-Semitism. It begins with Picquart being a participant in the arrest of Dreyfus and then when selected to head the Army intelligent section Picquart begins to discover who the actual traitor might be. I say… might… because for a while we don’t know if Picquart is right or just misguided. The twists and turns of the case are extraordinary and make one page turn with surprises along the way. You come to feel Picquart’s frustration, self-doubts, and are often surprised like him by learning of some new event. It is apparent that many in a position of power whom should have known better interpreted facts to support opinions they already held. Something that seems to happen far too often even today. All in all a very unique approach to Historical fiction and I found the book a must read. (*FYI, I think I first heard the term non-fiction novel applied to IN COLD BLOOD.)

O livro é excelente, tanto do ponto de vista da reconstituição histórica quanto do desenvolvimento da trama. Vale muita leitura!

I like the Robert Harris novels: I started in Germany's "Munich" (ex-Hitler), moved immediately to Russia's "Archangel" (ex-Stalin), and now to Paris to experience "An Officer and a Spy" (ex-Franco-Prussian War of 1870), all in a short time. O&S is somewhat different to the two former I mentioned, in that its is a reflective narration (of the Dreyfus Affair) and the life of the lead protagonist within the Army's Intelligence Department, not an imaginary novel. Nevertheless, it absolutely demands to be read, not to be put aside, it amazes with the trickery and treachery of the French Army leadership, and the reader will always wonder how the story will end. Whether or not you like the tale and its ending, it is true to life and a spectacularly successful telling of history. You like a good history story, with twists? Experienced Paris? If yes to either, "An Officer and a Spy" is highly recommended for you.

Fast ein bisschen Highsmith. Da wird ein winziger Stein losgetreten, zu viele haben davon einen Vorteil und dann folgt Schritt auf Schritt, zwangsläufig. Sehr schön beschrieben ist die fehlende Empathie. Das Rudel rückt zusammen, einer wird geopfert, zum Vorteil vieler. Recht und Gesetz sind manipulierbar. Am besten hat mir gefallen, daß nur der Reichtum Dreyfus letztendlich rettete. Ein armer Mann wäre chancenlos gewesen. Auch aktuell.

I was not, as a rule, very fond of historical novels until I discovered, many years ago, Robert Harris’ "Fatherland", which I read in one sitting. A few years later, "Enigma" came out and I got hooked. I was a little disappointed though with his subsequent (Roman) novels. Now, Harris is back with "An Officer and a Spy", a novelization of the Dreyfus affair, and he manages an extraordinary feat: To relate a story with a well-known ending and still do it in a riveting way that keeps you turning pages all night long. Written in the first person by one of the protagonists, the story takes us from the moment of Dreyfus’ conviction and degradation in 1894 to his final exoneration and rehabilitation in 1906. The narrator, an officer in the French Army, gets involved in the case when he is sent to observe the degradation ceremony by the Minister of War who may not attend it. In recognition of his performance, he is promoted and appointed Head of the French intelligence agency. It is in this capacity that he starts discovering that the conviction of Dreyfus was based on very flimsy and, as he later realises, fabricated evidence. From then on, torn between his duty as an army officer and his sense of justice, he conducts his own secret enquiry, without the consent of his superiors and, in the end, against their explicit orders, with great risk to his professional career and, even, his physical integrity. Along the way, we are treated to the exposition of what must have been one of the greatest miscarriages of justice and subsequent cover-ups in history. Harris’ writing is brilliant. His presentation of detail makes the reader feel as if he were participating in the scene described whereas his description of the characters, be they major or minor, brings them wonderfully to life. However, this is historical novel, not a philosophical essay, and, at the end of the day, we are still faced with the age-old question “Where does military duty end and where does moral indignation take over?”. Countless innocent victims of all the wars from the dawn of time onwards would have liked an answer.

One of the best books I have read in some time. An excellent review of history told with fine descriptions of the contexts, events and characters in the drama. I highly recommend this book as entertaining reading, as an insight to an actual historical event, and as a clear view of the social context in which the events took place.