Mozzarella

Jake silently reloaded his Beretta while his experienced ears attuned even to the sound of a mouse scuttling across the floor, listened carefully, trying to gauge Brenner’s next movement. He heard a silent click. Brenner had reloaded as well. And his was a Luger with a larger magazine. Eight bullets to his six.

Which didn’t really matter, of course. All Jake needed was two shots. And so did Brenner. It was Geneva all over again.

Sound familiar? It could be something you’d read in the latest Archer or Ludlum. Tom Clancy, perhaps. The quintessential spy confrontation. Just one glance at these words can make me remember years of my life spent in reading stuff like this.

Yup, spy thrillers and their like. There was a time when I used to gobble up 3 books like this in a week. A time when Ludlum was my favourite author, Noel Holcroft my idol and the CIA my calling in life. Allright, maybe not as bad as that. But it was close. While most of this is not pulp per se, it is the prevailing view amongst several people that it is, so ‘pulp’ it shall be referred to as. There are a few people who’ve never passed through this phase in their lives and indeed some who are proud of this. And though I hardly read books like these nowadays, I don’t really regret having ‘wasted’ my time on them.

In those years, it was all about escapism. A yearning for a life more than an ordinary student who just went to school and did his homework. It is an impressionable age, the age of 13 or 14. A couple of years past puberty, when a boy realises that he is a man and wants to assert himself in some way. And of course, urban India offers few such opportunities and hence the boy has to turn to ‘pulp’ fiction to satiate these desires.

The phenomenon, of course, started in the West. The ‘pulp’ thriller offers a lot to the average Joe. This was and still remains the central reason for their popularity. Imagine the average American (though it’s not very likely that you or I have met one) with a boring job, bogged down with responsibilities concerning his wife and kids. He who drives downtown in a beaten down Mercedes. And while he’s stuck in the traffic, I’m sure there must be some point of time when he wishes he had a Maserati. And that’s where it starts. He wishes to get out of the drudgery of his white-collar job and live a life less ordinary. Guns, thrills, chases. He wants them all.

Notice how the ‘pulp’ thriller plays upon these emotions. The protagonist in many American novels is an ordinary guy with an ordinary job. This is of course, his ‘cover’. In reality, he’s usually one of the CIA’s (or equivalent agency’s) hotshot agents or alternatively someone on the run from it. And there is definitely a point when he leaves his job and family to assume his true identity. See how the transformation of the hero from an ordinary guy to super-spy parallels the fantasizing of the reader, be he an adult or a high-school boy.

Then the guns. Guns are described in such vivid detail in ‘pulp’ fiction, no-doubt serving as an effective lure for the reader. Technical descriptions about the magazine, muzzle velocity, piercing power and silencer action only serve to give a masterful illusion of power to the reader. Indeed, he is already visualizing himself reloading and shooting the gun, which surely is a welcome momentary diversion from operating something mundane like a lawn mower.

Further seduction of the reader results from phrases like ‘his trusty Walther PPK’, ‘his ever-dependable Beretta’ and so on. These give a sense of belonging, control and total mastery over the weapon. Ever noticed how James Bond always drives the same car and uses the same gun all the time? Though it is highly unlikely that a spy would even use one unless he absolutely has to. This feeling of power is even more pronounced in a schoolboy who’s often denied certain privileges by adults though he feels he is entitled to them.

The setting comes next of course, hand in hand with the plot. This usually concerns situations of international intrigue involving one or more intelligence agencies battling it out. In the 70s and 80s it was almost always the CIA and the KGB with the MI5 and Mossad making regular appearances. Of course, the novels that come out nowadays are more focussed on terrorism, in tune with the situation in the real world today, though many feel that the falling of the Iron Curtain has deprived several authors of their pet playground.

Note that the extremely meticulous research that goes in to the descriptions of these agencies is a mere smokescreen to mask how unrealistic the situations actually are. For instance, the work of a spy is almost always portrayed to be glamourous while in reality it involves more paperwork and long waits than the authors will have you believe.

The setting is usually in several exotic places, which yet again play upon the escapist nature of the reader. Geneva, Zurich and other Swiss locations are a favourite of several authors citing the relatively relaxed international laws there as a perfect reason for all sorts of monetary transactions taking place there. I can’t recall any spy thriller I’ve read, which didn’t involve a Swiss bank in some way or the other. Other popular locations include the bleak, snow-ridden landscape of Russia, the autobahns of Germany, the streets of Paris, military bases on islands, in forests etc. Very often, the quiet, charming English/French/German village or American town also makes an appearance. It is quite clear that, while it is the goal of most authors to make the reader relate to whatever they’ve written, ‘pulp’ authors aim for the exact opposite. And yet, ironically their greatest strength is that the readers do actually fantasize and try to relate themselves to it.

The character of the hero is of course that of a person who is generally on the high moral ground. In fact, most novels try to bring in an element of ‘realism’ by portraying the hero as a person who has to kill people sometimes in his line of work and feels a terrible sense of remorse as a result. This hooks in the reader in two ways. One, the sense of approval that results from the fact that the hero is ‘human after all and a victim of circumstance’. And the other at a very subconscious level, is the sense of power. An undercurrent that makes the reader feel that he holds the keys of life and death over people.

As is true with most movies and books, the hero lives his usual life in the beginning of the novel and as it progresses, faces several problems some of which might even be personal. The odds seem unsurmountable, but in the end, the hero triumphs over them. Which brings us to the antagonist. In general the antagonist is a powerful figure and often absent for large parts of the book, the author successfully playing upon the fear of the unseen here. Not fear, but more of a sort of apprehension. The antagonist is often an equal of the hero as far as physical and mental abililities go. He’s often a ruthless cold-blooded killer and it is through the subtle use of adjectives like these (describing immorality) that the author ensures that the reader doesn’t end up identifying himself with the antagonist.

There is of course another type of antagonist that is popular in many novels and this is that of the organization. An omnipotent, omniescent and yet unseen organization working behind the scenes to effect several international incidents like embezzlement, assassination and so on. This is very popular with authors like Ludlum. And indeed, a vast powerful organization against a single hero is a powerful reel for the reader, although some are more attracted by the one-on-one fight dynamic of the lone antagonist versus the lone protagonist.

And where would 'pulp' thrillers be without the women? Reality is clearly ignored here because the chances of a woman coming near a spy operation, much less get intimately involved with the spy are very small indeed. But if there is one universal common thread in all spy thrillers, it is – if there’s a major female character, she had better be as beautiful as possible. And descriptions of love scenes are usually, though not always, there. For the red-blooded male absolutely cannot resist anything like this. A couple of additional points worthy of mention here. One, that if a female is a double agent then she is almost never killed by the hero. She either commits suicide or is killed by some other woman. A typical example of the latter being in The Guns Of Navarone (the movie atleast, don’t remember if the book had it). Two – in spite of the woman generally being able to take care of herself, the hero always assumes a protective attitude towards her and his whole family (if it exists). This is something that resonates very clearly with the reader’s personal life. For at the end of the day, in spite his flights of fancy, the reader always feels a sense of responsibility towards his wife and kids and so does the hero, making the illusion all the more complete.

And of course, one of the most important things of all. The twist. Most book have a twist (sometimes predictable) in the plot. The author always banks his success upon the ‘unputdownability’ of the book. A book like this is almost always devoured in a maximum of three to four sittings. Any more and it’s failing its purpose. The slow release of crucial information causing curiousity and eagerness in the reader to flick those pages faster and faster is an art, which some ‘pulp’ authors have nearly perfected.

Of course, no ‘pulp’ thriller carries all of these characteristics. It would be called a manual of cliché if it did. But nevertheless, these are some of the common techniques used by authors to pull the reader into their web. It is notable that British and American authors differ in several ways. The British protagonists are usually young bachelors and are not tied down by family and other bonds. The American is however a more sensitive sort of fellow with several responsibilities on his shoulders. In American novels, the women are usually romantically involved with the hero and often play an important part in the plot. Whereas women are either a distraction (Ian Fleming) or not significantly present (McLean) in the works of British authors. I’m not sure if these differences are representative of the cultural differences between the British and the Americans.

So, if you have indeed waded through this long post, you’ll know why these novels were irresistible to me and to most teenagers in their high school days. And though I may have grown out of these novels it still doesn’t prevent me from reading the blurbs on the latest Ludlum or Forsyth at the AH Wheeler bookstalls. I still rank the Bourne Identity as one of my favourite books, because I have nothing but pleasant memories of it. The thirst to read ‘pulp’ is no longer there, but it’s impossible to forget the time when it was there. Deep in the recesses of my memory, there is a world inhabited by spies, guns, fast cars, beautiful women and international intrigue. A world where ‘pulp’ culture still lives on.

# posted by Ashish : 2:20 pm