The Russians had been their enemies and then they were their allies, and then they were enemies again. The Germans the same -- the great enemy, the worst of all of them, and now they were our friends, one of the mainstays of Europe. It was all such a waste of breath. War and peace. Peace and war. It would go on forever without end.Atkinson opens the novel with Juliet's death in 1981. But time in an Atkinson novel doesn't always run in a straightforward linear fashion. Transcription is no different. We are immediately transported back to 1950, when not-quite-30 year-old Juliet is a producer of children's radio programming for the BBC, and then even further back to 1940 when a very young Juliet is recruited to work for MI5, Britain's domestic counter intelligence agency.
Juliet, still recovering from her mother's death, doesn't particularly like the man who interviews her for the MI5 job and doesn't seem to particularly care if she gets the job. The answers she gives to many of his questions are out-and-out lies mostly because she doesn't think it is any of his business but partly because hiding the truth seems to come naturally to her.
Later she learned that Miles Merton (for that was his entire name) knew everything about her - more than she knew herself - including every lie and half-truth she told him at the interview. It didn't seem to matter. In fact, she suspected that it helped in some way.Being able to lie with a straight face is a good talent for a spy, but at first Juliet is not given any spying duties. Working for MI5 may sound exciting but Juliet's principal job is typing transcripts of meetings of "fifth columnists" - British citizens sympathetic to the Nazis - whom Juliet and her MI5 team refer to as the "neighbors." (The fifth columnists meet in a flat in Pimlico while MI5 is right next door listening to everything they say.) Juliet makes tea, cleans things and types. She wants to do more. She is also somewhat enamored of her boss, Perry Gibbons, whom everyone except Juliet seems to know is gay. The lynchpin of the operation is an MI5 operative named Godfrey Toby. It is when 1950's Juliet runs into Godfrey Toby on a London street, and he pretends not to know her, that she begins to think back about that operation and her life during the war. Then she receives a mysterious message warning her that she will "pay" for what she did. What exactly did she do?
Atkinson has written an old fashioned spy novel, combined with a 1950's paranoid thriller all wrapped up in a post-modern novel. (Actually, not being an English major I have no idea if post-modernism is the correct term, but it seems right.)
In some ways the novel is an homage to John Le Carre and his George Smiley novels. Godfrey Toby even looks a bit like Smiley:
It was him, she knew it was him. The same (somewhat portly) figure, the bland, owlish face, the tortoiseshell spectacles, the old trilby.As George Smiley is breathtakingly ordinary, so is Godfrey Toby.
Juliet used to think that someone who seemed as ordinary as Godfrey Toby must be harboring a secret -- a thrilling past, a dreadful tragedy -- but as time had gone by she'd realized that being ordinary was his secret. It was the best disguise of all really, wasn't it?In some ways, the novel reminded me a bit of the (unfortunately cancelled) BBC television show The Hour: a bright, woman producer dealing with red tape and bureaucracy and sexism of the BBC during the paranoid 1950's.
But, as with all Atkinson novels, this novel is its own unique self and not a replica of anyone else's work. This is, as with Atkingson's other novels, a novel of ideas. The "true self" is a theme of this novel. Not just Juliet's true self but also the other people that Juliet encounters during her life. In the 1950s Juliet thinks about this:
She fingered the strand of pearls at her neck. Inside each pearl there was a little piece of grit. That was the true self of the pearl, wasn't it? The beauty of the pearl was just the poor oyster trying to protect itself. From the grit. From the truth.Also, as with other Atkinson novels, this is a novel about women and how they must deal with a world in which they must often hide their true selves. Especially from their bosses, who are inevitably men. Here, Juliet is listening to Perry, her boss, ramble on:
A girl could die of old age following a metaphor like this, Juliet thought. "Very nicely put, sir," she said.Juliet is never what she seems and she constantly reminds herself that means no one else is what they seem. She has a "long-held belief that appearances were invariably deceptive".
In the 1940's Juliet is given the opportunity to take on false identities and actually be a "spy" for a short time as part of one of Perry Gibbons' operations. As "Iris Carter-Jenkins" Juliet is asked to infiltrate a right wing group. As "Madge Wilson" Juliet pretends to be a bereaved sister. Juliet is a natural at this but in the 1950's, looking back, she thinks that she has been "too many people" and wonders about her true self:
And then there was Juliet Armstrong, of course, who some days seemed like the most fictitious of them all, despite being the "real" Juliet. But then, what constituted real? Wasn't everything, even this life itself, just a game of deception?As a snapshot of life in two of Britain's oldest establishments (MI5 and the BBC) and a snapshot of life during the war and immediately after the war, this is a fascinating novel. I did think, however, that the plot slightly got away from Atkinson at the very end..
However, all in all, I greatly enjoyed this novel. For me, the best parts (as with all Kate Atkinson novels) were the touches of humor that Atkinson brought to an otherwise serious story. Juliet's private thoughts can be very funny. For instance, here is the first time that Juliet eats a lobster and is instructed to pull the legs off and suck out the meat:
Despite some reluctance, she followed his instructions. After all, it seemed a shame to be boiled alive for nothing.Or Atkinson's description of the miniature schnauzer, Lily, when one of the MI5 bosses informs Juliet that the dog is to be looked after by Juliet until her owner returns:
The dog, which had been gazing uneasily up at Oliver Alleyne, now turned its attention to Juliet. She hadn't realized that a dog could look doubtful.Any Kate Atkinson novel is to be savored for the writing and this one is no different.
