BOOKS
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place-and as the intrigue develops in all its awfulness such sentiments
seem reasonable though not startling. The divine Clara, who reads
"sex-in-the-head" books with titles like
Priapus-A Study of the Male
Impulse
(somehow this good idea doesn't come off as well as it should)
asks Hillier, who has fallen in love with her, what it all means: "Agents
and spies and counterspies and secret weapons and dark cellars and
being brainwashed. What are you all trying to do?" He replies,
'Have you ever wondered . . . about the nature of ultimate
reality? What lies beyond all this shifting mess of phenomena?
what lies beyond even God?
'Beyond God' • . . 'lies the concept of God. In the concept
of God lies the concept of anti-God. Ultimate reality is a dual–
ism of a game for two players. We-people like me and my
counterparts on the other side-we reflect that game. It's a
pale reflection. There used to be a much brighter one, in the
days when the two sides represented what are known as good
and evil. ... But we don't believe in good and evil any more.
That's why we play this silly and hopeless little game.'
Eventually Hillier refuses to play the game; as Clara's brother says to
her at the end of the above speech, "'Everything he's told us is reli–
gious,' " and the telling has its consequence. But is this "idea" or daring
theological thesis much more than
The Spy Who Came In From The
Cold
fancied up a bit and made comparatively agile through the
presence of Burgess' lively mind? Perhaps this is enough; yet I found
myself happier when the eschatology didn't advertise itself somewhat
nervously, but emerged inevitably from the madness of events.
For example, the great mad event of the book is an eating contest
aboard the luxury liner between Hillier and Mr. Theodorescu (for
£
1000 stakes) to the accompaniment of an aged orchestra: ("they
made a virtue of the slow finger movements that arthritis imposed on
them: Richard Rodgers became noble, processional"). The world exists
to be eaten, from lobster medallions in a sauce cardinale through
pheasant with pecan stuffing, spinach and minced mushrooms, forkfuls
of onion and gruyere casserole ("Was it imagination, or was he having
difficulty with the forkful of onion and gruyere casserole?") and tons
of comparable dishes ending with dessert:
They got through their sweets sourly. Peach mousse with sirop
framboise. Cream dessert ring Chantilly with zabaglione sauce.
Poires Helene with cold chocolate sauce. Cold Grand Mamier
pudding, Strawberry marlow. Marrons panache vicomte. 'Look,'
gasped Hillier, 'this sort of thing isn't my line at all. ... I think
I shall be sick.'
