Mick Herron, Slow Horses

Except when it's chosen for me by a member of the Beer & Books intelligentsia, I stay pretty firmly in my lanes when it comes to book selections. I've got several lanes, mind you, so genuinely I do get some diversity in my reading (SOME, though at heart I'm more of a specialist), but when I encounter something like Mick Herron's acclaimed spy novel Slow Horses, well, I'm reminded that sometimes, I'm better off staying in one of my various lanes.

I mean, it's fine. I appreciated a doofus politician in this 2010 novel being told, "With you at the helm, this country [the UK] can be great again" (p199), even if he's more Boris Johnson x Nigel Farage than he is Trumpy. I liked the concept of flawed spies being thrown together into forced collaboration as a result of their isolation (HR being loathe to see salary lines terminated through outright firing, so it's better for HQ if such people could be made desperate enough to quit instead). I appreciated the sense of humour in how some of the characters see themselves or the world around them, and the occasional humour with which Herron depicts their situations.

It's fine, so no, I don't agree with the hagiography that you can find in some places: "Sometimes you have to read the sentences a few times because you are in awe that they are so good" is not an experience I shared. I'm not the first person to feel underwhelmed, but that reader said they were excited to pick up the next one, so.

At this point in history, I'm kind of feeling that "fine" isn't good enough, but I recognize that I'm at risk of becoming dangerously ascetic in how judgy I'm getting about wasting time on escapism. (Actual quote from me at book club last night, on a downtown restaurant's patio during a discussion about wealthy parents ensuring that their children constantly meet The Right People: "That's what guillotines are for." Which felt ungenerous even at the time.)

Anyway. I don't read spy novels unless book club directs me so to do, so I'm not remotely qualified to comment here. But it did seem odd when a character called another character by the name only ever used inside another character's head: the kidnapping victim refers to his three captors as Larry, Moe, and Curly, and at one point Curly shouts after one of them who's walking away, "Get back here! ... Larry! Get fucking back!" (p308). Plus there were clear copy-editing issues that should never happen in (per the cover) a deluxe edition with new preface and exclusive short story, like missing terminal punctuation and missing paragraph breaks, both beginning to occur late in the novel.

Like I say, I'm judgy. But how else should one feel about opiates of the masses?

It's a more engaging novel than I'm making it seem, I confess, and the sentiment I'm stuck with here is mostly about the world at large, not Mick Herron or this novel. Feel free to enjoy the novel without a hint of self-loathing. I'm just not going to encourage you.