bout de papier, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2007) — Fall 2007 // Automne 2007, pp. 23–25
BORDERLESS DECEIT by Adriaan de
Hoog, Breakwater Books Ltd., 359 pp.
2007, $22.00
I begin reading a book with a sense of wonder. Wonder for what is to be expected. For many, authors’ experience has shown what I can expect. Wayne Johnson’s books will always have a combination of geography, climate and character as central features; Ian Rankin can be expected to deliver a whodunit where the detective deduces largely from the inside of a decent whisky bottle; and Robertson Davies could be trusted to detail the human condition in any of its many frailties and hopefully an occasional success.
A new novelist, as is Adriaan de Hoog, has a more limited track on which to judge what to expect. His first novel Berlin Assignment published last year, capped a 30-year career in Canada’s foreign service, and following the advice of all handbooks to write about what you know, de Hoog’s first novel detailed aspects of Canada’s foreign service against the destruction of the Berlin wall and the reunification of Germany. If that was all it was, it would still be a most readable and insightful book.
It was much more; it was fine satire in the great traditions of that style. His new book, Borderless Deceit is very much the same style.
There are not many novels extant that deal with the foreign services of the countries of the world. What there is largely deal with secret missions carried out by people with cloaks and daggers in total disregard for the Reviewed by Gar Pardy structures and protocols that give some measure of order to today’s often chaotic world. The only exceptions of any note are the four delightful books of Lawrence Durrell (Esprit de Corps, Stiff Upper Lip, Sauve Qui Peut and Antrobus Complete) detailing his experiences in a British embassy in central Europe after the Second World War. His was satire of a rare high order.
This lacuna is surprising since a constant theme of today’s world is the need for vision and action to create a world where the worth of the individual far exceeds, hopefully, the needs of the nation state; after all the UN charter begins “We the peoples of the United Nations… “ No one, despite the heaving and sighing of many (for example the fascination of a former prime minister for the New York Times), has been able to create a world where national and international diplomats do not have a central and unique role. The increasing flabbiness of the military muscle of the United States in the face of unique opposition merely demonstrates the point even more strongly. Even North Korea and Libya succumbed to the blandishments of diplomats.
All the more reason to welcome de Hoog’s literary light into the recesses of Canadian diplomacy. Borderless Deceit is the story of four diplomats, three of whom haunt the halls of the “Service” in Ottawa. The fourth, Rachael, a “high flyer” in the language of the “Service,” moves from the mission in Vienna to Geneva and finally is appointed as the Ambassador to Romania, the youngest in the history of the “Service.” Two of the three in Ottawa are timeworn caricatures of any diplomatic service, and all the more accurate for that. One is a “Czar” of various foreign “Operations” while the other is a brilliant analyst of arcane intelligence working closely with the Americans.
The third one in Ottawa is a computer geek who is brought in to save the Service when a foreign-sourced virus (from a refused immigration applicant) invades and in seconds wipes out the departmental records and its ability to communicate with its far-flung foreign empire. She is sui generis and her generational uniqueness provides freshness and flip that add new features to the characters of her two Ottawa colleagues. The book plays the interactions of these four characters with humour, depth and sensitivity and, in that alone, it is of considerable value.
However, while the characters are signiticant, the satire that permeates de Hoog’s writing is what gives the book its lasting and unique value. The Canadian foreign service is not known for its openness or frankness in dealing with the public and for many there is an ancient religiosity about its work and processes. de Hoog picked up on this aspect in his first book and now in his second, he again provides his own titles for the various offices of the foreign service in Ottawa. For the most part these are taken from the world of the church, convent and monastery. The author’s deputy minister, Étienne des Étoiles and head of the “High Council” is characteristic of the many around Ottawa who know less and less about more and more and have a shorter shelf life than a piece of pop music.
The collapse of the communications network brings its own religiosity and Mr. de Hoog shows unusual command of its arcane nature.
The bug arrived in stealth, without warning. And it was virulent, so bad that some – the closet mystics amongst us — supposed it spring from the occult. A visitation?
Cyberspace velocity and a voracious appetite for ruination – these were the overt symptoms. But the bug also possessed an inner wizardry, because it was precisely targeted, like a smart bomb.
Vital spirits gushed from the Service as water through a burst dam. Ten thousand linked computers scattered over all the diplomatic outposts were sabotaged with one stroke…. Our shocked techies stood by, helpless and slack-jawed. Outside in the rest of the world all the other networks went about their business in robust good health. Why us? Why no one lese?
Of course the diplomat outside of Ottawa, Rachael, continues her work and search for personal salvation, seemingly indifferent to the cataclysmic events in Ottawa. For those in Ottawa, the world stopped for a few weeks and it was only with the restoration of the network through the display of technical artistry that is only available in a good novel that life returns to normal. However, for the four characters it is a new life and the ending provides the surprise that can be expected only from a good novelist.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2007) — Fall 2007 // Automne 2007, pp. 23–25. Read the rest of this issue →
