Customer Reviews

Charity

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Bernard Samson is one of the great characters of modern popular fiction. The three trilogies are, collectively, in my opinion, the greatest piece of spy drama ever written, with the singular exception of le Carre's great trilogy (Tinker, Tailor; Honourable Schoolboy; Smiley's People), the high water mark of the genre. Actually, it's really not fair to compare them. Despite what the jacket tells you, the Samson epic shouldn't be read out of sequence. Start with Berlin Game and work your way through, grateful that there are nine of them (ten, if you read Winter, which probably should be read first to understand Samson's family history). Action buffs may be disappointed because the thrill is in the characterization and the mystery: nothing is as it seems and the intrepid Samson soldiers on, perhaps the last man standing on the battlefield of the cold war. When I finished Charity I was sad, and envious of those that would discover Berlin Game and have the whole journey ahead. That, to me, is the true measure of a book or books. Bravo, Mr. Deighton. Well done.

I approached Len Deighton's final entry in the Bernard Samson series with some degree of sadness. In the 10+ years that I have been reading the books, my empathy with the character has become more and more pronounced.( As a measure of my devotion...my wife and I named our firstborn daughter Fiona...even though we did not like the character, we loved the name...) This particular novel was decidedly elegiac; Bernard muses on growing old, losing friends and family and trying to retain his hold on what is really valuable, all while he doggedly pursues many unsavory truths. While I was very disappointed with the resolution of the Bernard/Fiona/Gloria triangle- the marriage is clearly beyond help, and Gloria is MUCH more appealing than Fiona - I enjoyed the book quite a bit,mostly due to Deighton's masterful portrait of Bernard Samson as a tired, cynical, middle-aged seeker, tilting with windmills that all too often turn out to be monsters after all. Bravo, Len and Farewell Bernard. I'll even miss Dicky.

What now, Mr. Deighton? I for one have always been intrigued by the legendary Samson Senior...might we ever get a peek at his own career exploits...?

Bernard Samson is one of my favorite espionage characters. I was delighted by this excellent completion of the Faith, Hope and Charity trilogy.

The hard part about Deighton's trilogies is that they leave the reader hanging between books, dying for the next one. Charity does not resolve everything, but it certainly takes care of a lot of the dangling questions.

The plot complications invite paranoia. It seems like nothing is ever what it appears to be. The only constant is that Bernard continues to play the role of the unwitting dupe in others' ploys. Since he is a good and thoughtful person, that pulls us away from having sympathy for the spymasters who dream up the plans to go awry so often. It raises the rather nice question of how far the means can and should go to justify the end.

Will we ever have enough of the Cold War and its espionage? Perhaps not. If so, we are fortunate that Len Deighton has written this book.

If you have not read the earlier Bernard Samson novels, I strongly urge you to begin at the beginning with Winter. You'll have two advantages that way: You will appreciate the plot development better, having known of the prior complications; and you won't have to wait for the next book to come out. If you follow this advice, I envy you. You have a lot of fun reading ahead!

Charity marks a number of ends.

First, it marks the end of the Faith, Hope and Charity trilogy which saw Bernard Samson achieve his life-long desire to succeed his father as the Berlin Head-of-Station for MI-6.

Second, it marks the conclusion to the trilogy of trilogies (Game, Set and Match; Hook, Line and Sinker and Faith, Hope and Charity) which saw Samson take on both STASI (the East German Intelligence Service) and MI-6, both of which organizations saw him as nothing more than what he was: a pawn of those in political and social power.

Third, it marks the conclusion of the Samson family saga in which the notional sins of the father are visited upon the son.

Finally, it thus far marks the end of Len Deighton's writing career, as no other fiction or non-fiction has been published.

This last point is the most sad for me, as I believed Mr. Deighton to be an extremely gifted writer of thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable fiction and non-fiction. As regards the spy genre, with the exception of only The Spy Who Came In From The Cold - maybe the best such novel ever - I believe Deighton had it in leaps and bounds over LeCarre. But, I digress.

Charity brought a resolution to the story of Bernard Samson, the son of a spy who suffered for his father's errors and his own self-destructive boorishness driven by parental love and class-envy. At virtually every turn - maybe even including the last - he is deceived and bertayed by all and sundry. His wife is an adultress and possible turncoat; his best friend betrays him for money; his girlfriend betrays him with his superior and his mentor instigates most of the problems that afflict him. And those are only the most obvious issues. At the same time, all of these characters (and others!) seem to rely on the axiom of "Bernard can deal with it!" to fix everything.

And, what is the end? As a sop for having his extant and possible lives demolished, he is given the only thing he ever really wanted; namely the aforementioned position in Berlin. It should come as no surprise that "this bone to a starving dog" occurs on the cusp of the collapse of Communism and German reunification.

Why was I disappointed? The ending is bland by Deighton standards: people go their separate ways as T. S. Eliott said "not with a bang but with a whimper." For Bernard Samson - like all versions of Deighton's protagonist - life goes on amidst duplicity and ignorance of the true facts. Read it, but - as mentioned by another reviewer - start at the beginning with Berlin Game and take the entire journey.

Charity wraps up the Faith, Hope and Charity triology and concludes 10 books with Samson/Samson/Volkmann/Gloria et al. However, all the questions are not sufficiently answers which makes me hope that there will be further books in this exciting series. As a hint to those who are somewhat disappointed in the finish of this book (I wasn't), re-read Sinker. I particularly admire the characterisation in these books; most actions books have, at most, two interesting characters. This series has many.

Len Deighton's Spy series feels a little like watching Episode 1 of Star Wars - absolutely compelling but not finished. In fact as Lucas has shown, you can pick up a story 4/9ths of the way through, film part 5 and 6, wait 15 years and then film part 1. All Deighton fans know that Bernard has not fulfilled his role in spy literature because the communist evil empire still exists. I hope Mr. Deighton is still fit and well because the resolution in this book is not going to satisfy the millions who have galloped through the other 9 (including Winter). I loved this book, and I can't wait for more. If Dicky Cruyer doesn't cop another beating and Bernard doesn't get to play dad again in the fourth trilogy, I guess I'll be hanging out for the fifth.

Mr Deighton is one of my favourite writers, and I have all hisproduction on my shelves. Sense of the plot and of humour, the rightdose of skepticism in human nature, tongue-in-cheek, mastery of the language, eclecticism can all be found in his books. He is capable of different styles of writing: the one in the initial "Harry Palmer" series is different from the ones found in the Bernard Samson trilogies and in the other books. That trek of a group of South American rebels through the jungle in "MAM-ista" has an epic value. The only difficulties for the reader lie in a somewhat cryptic writing, where several in-between passages are left to his powers of interpretation and recollection, and ability to decode; and the tendency to jump in time - real time warps, back- and forwards, which may leave the reader disoriented and trying to remember where he's already met this or that character, seen (from another angle) this or that situation, in a succession of deja vu's. This is especially evident in the 3 Bernard Samson trilogies, which this book concludes: it took me several weeks of re-reading the whole saga, and many sheets of yellow foolscap paper, to establish their chronology. The autor himself found it necessary to wrap up the Berlin background of the first trilogy in "Winter"; and it cannot be casual that another writer, Edward Milward-Oliver, felt the need to publish 2 books (The Len Deighton Companion, and - - - Annotated Bibliography, 1954-1985) to sort out for the perplexed average reader who's who in L.D.'s books. One of the best traits of the writer is that he can hint at existing erotic/sexual situations without dwelling on them for pages. The non-fictional books on WW2 are also masterpieces. Mr Deighton, with John LeCarré, is one of the best espionage writers of this century and he deserves a mention in the history of English literature of this period. He is of my same age and, I presume, personality ("crafty, nasty,suspicious and irritable", from Horse under Water) and he also is a draftsman! I always look for new production of his whenever I enter a bookstore. I hope to find more of it well into the next century. He is one of the most entertaining writers I ever found.

I eagerly awaited the conclusion of Deighton's 10 book Sampson saga. While it is understandable that the titles of the last two books should have been predictable as soon as "Faith" was published, it is perhaps unfortunate that the rest of the story should have dragged out to such a foreseeable conclusion.

I hate to nitpick, but there are a number of details about this book that bother me: Rudi Kleindorf's completely unexplained return from the grave being foremost in my mind. Why was he "killed" earlier, only to reappear in this novel? Gloria's relationship with Brett Rensellaer serves only to give Bernard some reassurance that he didn't completely screw up her life. Lastly, the image of the DG, hiding in a back corridor of Frank's house, secretly listening in to Brett's meeting seems ridiculous.

I'm glad Deighton wrote "Charity", but perhaps his story has gone as far as it could be taken. I don't much relish Bernard dodging through the streets of Baghdad or shooting it out with the Cali Cartel, so maybe it is time (as another reviewer has suggested) to explore some of the exploits of Samson Senior.

Let me start by saying that this whole series is best suited to be read in order. I picked one up here and there and in doing so mixed the order up. What that meant is that I had to do a little extra thinking at times and on some books the light bulbs went off for some of my earlier questions. I also think these books are best suited to someone that is looking for a real characters driven spy story and not a action packed James Bond shoot em up. Deighton is a writer, therefore he spends time getting to know the characters, their personalities - what they are thinking, not just when they are reloading their gun. This being said I did think this end of the line book could have used a bit more action to punch it up, get the pace up a notch or two. Overall it is a good, solid book that gives a satisfying ending to the series.

Bernard seems more in control in this novel and this is more along the lines of the first three novels as far as action and suspense go. We do need a more closure to the saga of Bernard Sampson than this.