Espionage in British Fiction and Film since 1900: The Changing Enemy/Espionage and Exile: Fascism and Anti-fascism in British Spy Fiction and Film

• Published in: Twentieth century literature 2018, Vol.64 (1), p.111-119
• Main Author: Kaufman, Mark David
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: 21st century; Anti-fascism; Authoritarianism; Cold War; Espionage; Fiction; Genre; Ideology; Intelligence; Intelligence gathering; Intelligence services; International relations; Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936); Literary criticism; Modernity; Motion picture criticism; Motion pictures; Narratives; National security; Novels; Plot (Narrative); Politics; Sexuality; Thrillers
• ISSN: 0041-462X; 2325-8101
• DOI: 10.1215/0041462X-4387749

What unites these, as well as the two studies under review, is a refusal to treat spy fiction as a genre in a vacuum, as an escapist medium divorced from the concerns of the "real world"; rather, contemporary critics recognize that espionage narratives have something important to say (and show) about culture, history, politics, race, gender, sexuality, and the experience of modernity in general.[...]our understanding of international relations, global conflicts, and competing ideologies is, to some degree, a product of fantasy.If intelligence agencies are, by their very nature, secret, the covert sphere, which includes novels, comics, movies, and video games, fills the information gap and provides a necessary "theater for the deliberation of clandestine policy from the Cold War to the present."[...]his spy fiction offers "a dystopian warning that the sacrifices demanded by political ideology erase historical memory" (166).