Dark Star

On the anniversary of the day America was transformed from an interested observer to a direct participant in WW2, we''ll visit another aspect of that conflict.

I've just finished rereading Dark Star, the second of Alan Furst's evocative series of 15 novels, published between 1988 and 2019*, and set in Europe during the years from 1934 through 1942 (the only exception is the first, Night Soldiers, which extends its story until 1945).  Furst's tales are all set in a murky, twilight world of spies, provocateurs, and those caught up in their machinations, all facing terrible choices, during the era when "Europe is dying".  Though the settings of the novels cover much ground, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Greece and, of course, the Soviet Union, each one spends time in Paris, a city in which Furst lived, recreating with precision the sights, sounds, and smells of the streets, apartments, and cafes.

While British, French and Polish intelligence services make frequent appearances it is the rivalries and interaction within and between the German and Soviet services that are a constant presence.  Above all, until June 22, 1941 there is the "romance" as Furst refers to it, between Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin as they seek, in fits and starts, to build a relationship.  Within the German service we see the tension between the intelligence services and elements in the foreign ministry opposed to Hitler, while the situation is even more complex on the Soviet side, with Stalin skillfully using different groups to eliminate each other during the Purges to aid in his consolidation of power and removing those elements likely to oppose his rapproachment with Hitler.  Many of the characters in the novels try to survive by maneuvering themselves through this labyrinth, at times not even sure which side they are serving.

Night Soldiers and Dark Star are big and sprawling, both in chronology and geography, setting the terms of reference for the rest of the novels which are more constrained in time and space.  Terms of reference also fits as those first novels indulge us with more exposition and backstory than the later books where so much is implied or very lightly sketched.

Night Soldiers tells the story of a Bulgarian teenager recruited by Soviet intelligence, trained in Moscow where he is introduced to the brutal ways of Stalin's system and then embarks on a series of missions across Europe.  Spanning from 1934 to 1945, one of the last scenes in the book takes place in April 1945 with a battle near Nitra, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia).  I visited Nitra in 1994, shortly after the breakup of Czechoslovakia.  There was virtually nothing left of the pre-WW2 city but what was left were the only decent looking and constructed buildings in the city.  Everything post-war was "communist concrete" construction; shabby looking buildings, even more shabbily constructed. 

Dark Star takes place between 1937 and 1940.  It's the story of Andre Szara, a Jew from those land fought over for centuries between Poland and Russia, and foreign correspondent for Pravda, who occasionally assists Soviet intelligence and receives a request from his "friends" to do a little errand in Ostend, Belgium.  The errand plunges him into the middle of a life and death struggle between Jewish elements in the Soviet apparatus and the Georgians, linked with Stalin, who are preparing the final stage of the purges.  And that is only the beginning of the intrigues.

The novels that follow Dark Star are more detailed studies of characters and locales, almost pointillist in technique, each sentence and description indelibly placed to reveal a full portrait when complete.  Beautiful written episodes of a terrible and tragic time.  Furst's characters are not Americans or British with time and space to make decisions, for these characters the only options are bad or less bad.  Reading the books one constantly is confronted with the question - how would I act in these circumstances?

* The exception is Furst's latest, Under Occupation, published in 2019 after a much longer than usual period since his prior novel.  The reviews, of both critics and readers, have been disappointing.