Mission to Paris

Allan Furst’s WWII-era espionage novels are always entertaining and “Mission to Paris” is no exception. In the tradition of the author’s previous work, there is a male protagonist working against the Nazis in a European setting (Paris and Berlin mostly this time), with a supporting cast of interesting characters (friends, lovers, collaborators and conniving opponents with vicious intent). Fans of the genre know that Furst’s books are a kind of literary comfort food–this one is French bistro cuisine all the way.

More specifically, the focus of “Mission…” is film actor Fredric Stahl, an Austrian-born emigre who has built a successful career in Hollywood and finds himself, in mid-1938, loaned out by his studio to a French film company to star in a “Beau Geste” kind of flick that ironically is a commentary on the tragedies of war. Arriving in Paris, Stahl soon finds himself the center of attention for a group of German sympathizers bent on keeping France from opposing Hitler’s ambitions in Europe. Stahl’s own nascent political views are very much in the other direction and he is gradually dragged into a propaganda war that is heating up in Paris and elsewhere. All of this happens, while he undertakes the demanding work of making the film, “Apres La Guerre”. Eventually, and very much against his own will and inclination, Stahl’s position as a highly visible public figure leads to increasingly dangerous involvement with the Nazis.

While “Mission to Paris” is a good read, I found it to have less edge and dynamic tension than most of its predecessors. The protagonist, for example, is a decent and interesting guy, but doesn’t come across as the brightest bulb in the chandelier at times. He’s a bit jaded and ambivalent about most everything in his rather soft life, but is definitely committed to maintaining his creature comforts which include wine, women and food, more or less in that order. Stahl’s anti-Nazism is instinctive but not especially active or passionate, even at the end of the story when the situation becomes increasingly dangerous for him and his nearest and dearest.

The opposition (Nazis mostly) doesn’t didn’t seem that compelling either. The Paris-based German spies and operatives are often bumblers and/or cartoonish. The most dangerous among this crowd turns out to be a bit lazy in the end. Secondary characters and their connections with protagonist Stahl are not always convincing (for me, at least).

Despite my qualms, I should add that author Furst has provided an interesting context for the book–the cafes, hotels and boulevards of Paris, and the backdrop of pre-WWII filmmaking is extremely interesting–engrossing even. Overall, this is a pleasant and enjoyable read, even if it doesn’t always stir you.
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Every time I read an Alan Furst novel, I’m struck by three things in conflict, and MISSION TO PARIS is no exception:

First-rate research. Alan Furst knows pre-World War II Europe as only a person who lived in it in it could, only he hasn’t. That is a testament to his immersive passion for this time and place, and to his patient sifting for the best narrative-worthy nuggets from what must be an intimidating wealth of resources on it. For not only does he know his time and place, he knows what belongs and what doesn’t in order to make his stories work.

Flat atmosphere and dialogue. For all Alan Furst must know about this time and place, he rarely rises above the mundane in his efforts to evoke it. Beyond stick descriptions of cigarettes and coffee and sidewalk cafes and greatcoats and the like, there’s little that fully engages the cerebral center that controls our five senses. He just doesn’t have that extra literary gear. And when he occasionally comes close “Walking slowly, looking at everything, he couldnt get enough of the Parisian air: it smelled of a thousand years of rain dripping on stone, smelled of rough black tobacco and garlic and drains, of perfume, of potatoes frying in fat” such moments only serve to throw a spotlight on the many attempts at scene-setting that don’t rise to that level.

And his purveyance in the pedestrian is proven through the on-the-nose limpness of his dialogue prose. There’s no shortage of flat expositional deliveries like this: Being in the movies, Kiki, doesnt shield you from what goes on in the real world. And the people shes talking about are very much from the real world, where politics is a game with no rules, and theyre determined to make me help them” and “When my husband and I were struggling to get out of Germany, Paris was my dream. Just get there, I thought, and everything will be perfect. But it turned out that this wasnt so, not for my husband, wherever he is tonight, and not really for me either, until I met you. Then it, the city, kept its promises.

Yick. The characters, alas, are composed from the same cardboard; their job is to serve the strictures of the plot, not live and breathe of their own agency.

Alan Furst’s high regard as a literary, even transcendent, trafficker in genre fiction. First is a favorite of The New York Times book critics and journalists, and it’s difficult to see why he alone has been accorded a status that could just as easily and perhaps should have gone to eminences like the late Philip Kerr.

At any rate, MISSION TO PARIS is fine. It’s well-written, well-plotted, impeccably authentic and authoritative, and yet leaves me after the last page with the same overstuffed but unsatisfied feeling I get from reading a Jack Reacher novel. Something that traffics in so much stylized exquisteness somehow should have led to a more exquisite reading experience. Instead, it’s merely top-shelf slick, commercial, genre fiction. Which is OK. But only just OK>

When I started this book, I immediately noticed how much more juvenile the writing is, compared to Furst’s usually well-researched plots. Oh well, an easy read. But there are a number of flaws: 1) character development: although the main character is attempted with depth, we only get skin deep by his reactions to situations, not his true beliefs, 2) a number of irrelevant side stories of characters, objects and incidents that have no bearing on the plot, 3) introduction of major players very late in the book, 4) non-resolution of major players who, after bearing the (limited) action, simply disappear, 5) a sudden teenager-like diversion of the main character late in the book to pursue purient interests 6) a rushed, condensed, unsatisfying ending. After such good novels like The Foreign Correspondent, The Polish Officer, The Spies of Warsaw, and even Spies of the Balkans, I concluded this was either written by a different author, or was meant as an outline for a screenplay, since it’s about the film industry (who loves making movies about itself). There is very little of historical relevance. This book belongs in the juvenile section.

Alan Furst writes today like it was written when it was set, in this case in 1938 when the Nazis were just a foreign populist movement in Germany…. or more, much more. Through the device of a diplomatic thriller set in Paris he gives us an international cast of characters who, one by one, get caught up in the gradual pernicious creep of Nazi influence in Europe. Very clever reminder of how a past ignored can become a past relived.

I really enjoyed this book, it was refreshingly different. The menace of living in this period in France seemed very authentic. If you are expecting car chases and heroic gunfights then look elsewhere but although it is not particularly exciting, it is intriguing and beautifully written. My own feeling was that the end seemed a bit rushed, this could have been an opportunity to ramp up the tension and added a fitting climax to the story and certainly would have been worth an extra star from me.

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