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Sep. 7th, 2010 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsWhen I was in DC, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gramarye1971 recommended me The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington. Then when I was at D*C, I read it! Or, more specifically, on the way to and from D*C (after my friends told me "Becca, STOP CARRYING AROUND HEAVY HARDCOVER BOOKS IN YOUR PURSE. There is no chance you will get unexpectedly trapped in a subway at this con!" Which is very wise even if it goes against all my usual habits.)
Anyway. If you are interested in a.) spies, b.) WWII politics, c.) lolarious British playboys who think they are smooth-talking agents, d.) Roald Dahl being a jerk, e.) Ian Fleming coming up with hilariously over-the-top ideas for secret agent operations while his superiors facepalm, f.) sneaky propaganda skullduggery, g.) FDR's terrifying car chases, or h.) gremlins, this may be a book that is relevant to your interests. And if you are not interested in any of the above, I am kind of judging you a little.
Roald Dahl's spy career appears to have gone something like this:
BRITISH EMBASSY: We need a real live injured pilot to come be a junior embassy attache and look impressive in front of all the nice American ladies. Roald Dahl, we choose you!
ROALD DAHL: This is really boring, and I'm going to spend all my time mocking my superior officers.
SUPERIOR OFFICERS: . . . . >:|
ROALD DAHL: . . . and making friends with high-up American newspaper people, and becoming a minor literary prodigy, and making a Gremlins movie with Disney, and sleeping with half of Washington? :D
SUPERIOR OFFICERS: . . . >:|
ROALD DAHL: . . . it is looking like I will soon need a new job if I wish to stay in Washington. I think I will become a SPY. If Ian Fleming and Noel Coward can do it, it can't be all that hard, right?
BRITISH SECRET SERVICE: Okay, Roald Dahl! We have a job for you!
ROALD DAHL: Does it involve breaking into top-secret places and stealing official documents? Do I get a gun? Do I get a LICENSE TO KILL?
BRITISH SECRET SERVICE: Actually, it involves continuing to go to parties, pick up gossip, and sleep with everybody important you can manage. That gorgeous heiress seems to like you a lot! And look, there's a pretty Congresslady who's anti-British! GO GO GO!
ROALD DAHL: . . . I can live with this.
BRITISH SECRET SERVICE: Roald Dahl, you have done well for your country. But your stories are still not going to seem all that impressive compared with that time Ian Fleming's BFF faked up a map that made the entire country think the Germans were trying to take over South America.
ROALD DAHL: Oh, come on, I totally surreptitiously photocopied a document that one time, I don't know what more you want from me.
THE AUTHOR: And then Roald Dahl got chronically ill and kind of depressed, and married an actress essentially out of convenience, and wrote a lot of fascinatingly dark chidren's books and kind of was an anti-Semitic racist, but we're not going to go much into that.
In between the lolarity, there's a lot of interesting discussion of the politics of the time, and the fight for postwar air control, and the power struggles within FDR's cabinet, and the influence of the press and the scandal papers. But if you're not interested in that, you can still read it for all the gleefully gossipy anecdotes. (Another non-Roald Dahl-centric story I really enjoyed involved one of the Bright Boy Young Agents who was sent to secretly pick up another agent at a bar when he spotted his cousin Bunny. He then spent half an hour skulking about trying to avoid being recognized . . . until he realized that the other agent was, of course, cousin Bunny. And the carefully worked out code phrase - "the only time I came here before was March" - became "March, you fool!" before they both scuttled off, enormously embarrassed. This sounds so much like something that would happen in a Jeeves and Wooster novel I almost think it can't be real, but I HOPE IT IS.)
And while we're talking about secret identities - I know in the wake of the LJ/Twitter/Facebook OT3 that everyone is busy vehemently anti-shipping, a lot of people are moving more and more towards dreamwidth. I do not have plans to move over or crosspost at this time, but I do have a super-secret dreamwidth account at skygiants that I use to read and comment, so if you are switching over or crossposting or would prefer comments there or what have you, drop me a comment and let me know where you are? I will happily stalk you in the medium of your choice.
gramarye1971 recommended me The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington. Then when I was at D*C, I read it! Or, more specifically, on the way to and from D*C (after my friends told me "Becca, STOP CARRYING AROUND HEAVY HARDCOVER BOOKS IN YOUR PURSE. There is no chance you will get unexpectedly trapped in a subway at this con!" Which is very wise even if it goes against all my usual habits.)Anyway. If you are interested in a.) spies, b.) WWII politics, c.) lolarious British playboys who think they are smooth-talking agents, d.) Roald Dahl being a jerk, e.) Ian Fleming coming up with hilariously over-the-top ideas for secret agent operations while his superiors facepalm, f.) sneaky propaganda skullduggery, g.) FDR's terrifying car chases, or h.) gremlins, this may be a book that is relevant to your interests. And if you are not interested in any of the above, I am kind of judging you a little.
Roald Dahl's spy career appears to have gone something like this:
BRITISH EMBASSY: We need a real live injured pilot to come be a junior embassy attache and look impressive in front of all the nice American ladies. Roald Dahl, we choose you!
ROALD DAHL: This is really boring, and I'm going to spend all my time mocking my superior officers.
SUPERIOR OFFICERS: . . . . >:|
ROALD DAHL: . . . and making friends with high-up American newspaper people, and becoming a minor literary prodigy, and making a Gremlins movie with Disney, and sleeping with half of Washington? :D
SUPERIOR OFFICERS: . . . >:|
ROALD DAHL: . . . it is looking like I will soon need a new job if I wish to stay in Washington. I think I will become a SPY. If Ian Fleming and Noel Coward can do it, it can't be all that hard, right?
BRITISH SECRET SERVICE: Okay, Roald Dahl! We have a job for you!
ROALD DAHL: Does it involve breaking into top-secret places and stealing official documents? Do I get a gun? Do I get a LICENSE TO KILL?
BRITISH SECRET SERVICE: Actually, it involves continuing to go to parties, pick up gossip, and sleep with everybody important you can manage. That gorgeous heiress seems to like you a lot! And look, there's a pretty Congresslady who's anti-British! GO GO GO!
ROALD DAHL: . . . I can live with this.
BRITISH SECRET SERVICE: Roald Dahl, you have done well for your country. But your stories are still not going to seem all that impressive compared with that time Ian Fleming's BFF faked up a map that made the entire country think the Germans were trying to take over South America.
ROALD DAHL: Oh, come on, I totally surreptitiously photocopied a document that one time, I don't know what more you want from me.
THE AUTHOR: And then Roald Dahl got chronically ill and kind of depressed, and married an actress essentially out of convenience, and wrote a lot of fascinatingly dark chidren's books and kind of was an anti-Semitic racist, but we're not going to go much into that.
In between the lolarity, there's a lot of interesting discussion of the politics of the time, and the fight for postwar air control, and the power struggles within FDR's cabinet, and the influence of the press and the scandal papers. But if you're not interested in that, you can still read it for all the gleefully gossipy anecdotes. (Another non-Roald Dahl-centric story I really enjoyed involved one of the Bright Boy Young Agents who was sent to secretly pick up another agent at a bar when he spotted his cousin Bunny. He then spent half an hour skulking about trying to avoid being recognized . . . until he realized that the other agent was, of course, cousin Bunny. And the carefully worked out code phrase - "the only time I came here before was March" - became "March, you fool!" before they both scuttled off, enormously embarrassed. This sounds so much like something that would happen in a Jeeves and Wooster novel I almost think it can't be real, but I HOPE IT IS.)
And while we're talking about secret identities - I know in the wake of the LJ/Twitter/Facebook OT3 that everyone is busy vehemently anti-shipping, a lot of people are moving more and more towards dreamwidth. I do not have plans to move over or crosspost at this time, but I do have a super-secret dreamwidth account at skygiants that I use to read and comment, so if you are switching over or crossposting or would prefer comments there or what have you, drop me a comment and let me know where you are? I will happily stalk you in the medium of your choice.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-08 03:47 am (UTC)And excellent! :D