{"id":11226,"date":"2024-10-07T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11226"},"modified":"2024-10-06T11:42:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-06T15:42:03","slug":"precipice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11226","title":{"rendered":"Precipice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the best books I\u2019ve read this year is Robert Harris\u2019s new political novel, Precipice<\/a><\/em>. He has a penchant for looking at historical fact through the lens of fiction, and in this instance has a fascinating trove of detail to work with. The book begins in July 1914, when 27-year-old Venetia Stanley receives one of her frequent letters from UK Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith, 35 years her senior. The story isn\u2019t a thriller in the conventional sense, but the stakes are so high, the risks so great, and the potential for serious crimes no more than a hair\u2019s-breadth away that it earns its place in that category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the story begins, Asquith has been Prime Minister for six years. The country\u2014is mere weeks from the beginning of the military catastrophe of World War I. Not only is the world \u201con the precipice\u201d of disaster, Asquith himself is courting political calamity, with many, many tough calculations and decisions looming. Yet he finds time and mental energy to devote to this astonishing epistolary romance. It isn\u2019t terribly surprising that a charismatic, handsome politician would have an affair. Goodness knows, political leaders are hardly models of marital fidelity. The surprise is the degree of his obsession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The public first learned of this correspondence when about half the letters were published in 1982, and history buffs may be familiar with this story, but it was new to me. Thus, I was particular struck by Harris\u2019s assurance that all<\/em> the Prime Minister\u2019s letters quoted are authentic, as are excerpts from other official documents. On his last day at Number 10, after being ousted by ambitious David Lloyd George, Asquith burned Venetia\u2019s letters to him. Now Harris has created her half of the conversation in this book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asquith writes Venetia not just an occasional letter, but an astonishing 560 over a three-year period, at times as many as three a day. He writes them during deliberations of the war council, when he should be writing speeches, during cabinet meetings, and he sends her copies of telegrams and other official and secret correspondence. At critical points in the government\u2019s deliberations leading up to and during the war, he is severely distracted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may start out with some sympathy for them both. He is under almost unbearable pressure, surrounded by officials whose motives are partially or wholly self-interested. He cannot confide in his wife, as Harris describes her, because she is highly opinionated and indiscreet. She wants so badly to be an insider, but her behavior assures she cannot be. When he first became Prime Minister, she referred to herself as the Prime Ministress, but he soon put a stop to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris invents a fictional Scotland Yard operative, Paul Deemer, who\u2019s assigned to read their correspondence, which is being intercepted, and determine whether it\u2019s being leaked to German spies. It\u2019s filled with endearments, but also contains war plans, troop movements, and political maneuverings. Venetia knows more about what is going on at the top of British government than almost anyone else. Plus, she\u2019s privy to the PM\u2019s take on things, which in his hands-off, wait-and-see management style, plenty of other people would like to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Venetia, as Harris portrays her, justifies her closeness to Prime, as she calls him, because she serves a unique role as his confidant and safety valve. He relies on her judgment and loyalty. If that were the extent of their relationship (the full extent is unknown, but if you read between the lines of his correspondence, you may have an opinion)\u2014it would be irregular, possibly traitorous, but understandable. Gradually, however, his preoccupation with her becomes oppressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As wartime events mount in their seriousness, the burden of all her special knowledge becomes almost unbearable, and she resolves to create a life of her own. She takes up a nursing course with an eye to tending wounded soldiers in France, a move the PM finds almost intolerable. She can no longer be available to him as often as he would wish and his letters take on a whining, wheedling tone, that you may find more appropriate to a fifteen-year-old boy, not a mature, successful man in his sixties. You may have to keep reminding yourself that these are his actual words<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an experienced writer of historical fiction, Harris has a good eye for period detail and the telling anecdote that will create believable, almost overpowering drama. In a great many thrillers, you may not care all that much about the characters, but in Precipice<\/em>, you do and you must. It\u2019s a terrific book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Order from Amazon here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the best books I\u2019ve read this year is Robert Harris\u2019s new political novel, Precipice. He has a penchant for looking at historical fact through the lens of fiction, and in this instance has a fascinating trove of detail … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"This historical novel about UK leaders at the start of the Great War may be hard to believe, it's all the more shattering because it's grounded in tragic reality. An amazing story of obsession.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61,40,266,126,32],"tags":[2242,2241,2243,427],"class_list":["post-11226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character","category-fiction","category-history","category-reading-2","category-thriller","tag-precipice","tag-robert-harris","tag-uk-prime-minister","tag-world-war-i"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2V4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11226"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11230,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11226\/revisions\/11230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}