the aesthetics of popular fiction and the creative world of...
TRANSCRIPT
Chapter 2
The Aesthetics of Popular Fiction and the Creative World of Jeffrey Archer
Any work of literature, created as i t is w i t h the
kamework of existing social relations, is not only a living
document of the contemporary happenings but also of the
historical processes underlying them. Lterature develops along
with life as writers try to meet the challenges of their time, tell
the readers the truth about the world, current events as also
about themselves and voice their concern about the future-3.
truth without which manlund cannot advance. Jeffrey Archer
has been performing t h s precious service in the field of British
fiction since 1976. He has won enormous accolade as a
successful and convincing writer. We have to reckon with h m as
a pioneering novelist, with a t e h g Merence from others of the
popular genre. But before we touch upon the aesthetics of
popular fiction, it will be appropriate to reflect on briefly the
development of British fiction till the birth of popular fiction.
The emergence of the British novel was associated with
the rising of the middle class who lacked classical learning.
Samuel Johnson in hs Dictionarv (1755) termed the novel as a
small tale, generally of love. Daniel Defoe never referred to h s
own work as novel. According to Arnold Kettle, in novels "the
author is more interested in the public and in private hfe."l It is
only very great novels that seem to combine the two with no
sense of suborha t ion of either. Henry Fieldmg's Tom Jones
(1749) and Samuel Richardson's Clarissa (174'7-48) are typical
examples of t h s genre. There is a large body of fiction whlch fed
the appetite of the readmg public, reflected and shaped their
imagination, and sometimes broke out into experiment and
creative adventure. In t h s process a generation of readers took
their pleasure and hence strictness of dehition of this literary
form would be out of place.
The novel is the last major literary form to have
developed. L te ra tme of some sort was avdable in China as
early as 1000 B.C; the Sumarian E ~ i c of Gil~amesh was
composed about 1400 B.C.; Homer was writing hu epics by the
16th century B.C., but novels, as we understand the term, cl~d
not flourish in any quality until the eighteenth century A.D.
The epic is dead as a literary form, and we hke to feel
that the novel is our modern substitute for it. There was
romance as well as adventure (Cervantes), allegory (John
Bunyan) and fable (John Gay). In the eighteenth century, it was
evident that the novel could be a collection of letters (epistolary)
as in Rousseau, Smollett and fichardson. The nineteenth
century knew a kind of massive stab~lity, with the complicated,
long, but plain moral s to ry tehg of George Eliot, Dickens,
Thackeray and Trollope, but the twentieth century has reacted
violently against the great trahhon. Accordmg to Anthony
Burges:
25 years since the Second World War has produced
more novels than any correspondmg period in history,
but no age has found it more di£6cult to d e h e exactly
what a novel is. The term novel has, in fact, come to
mean any imaginative prose composition long enough
to be stitched rather than stapIed.2
In the eighteenth century the function of the novel was
explicitly educational and its main business was to inculcate
morality by example. Naturally this interest was reflected in the
novels and fables @chardson. Defoe, etc.). The democratic
concern with an interest h the lives of the ordmary people was
the prime characterisric of reahsm of the nineteenth century
(Dickens. Thackeray, etc.). In different ages, popular emotion
has been focused on Meren t types. In the Renaissance it was
the man of wdl, in the early nineteenth century the defiant
rebel, today, perhaps the defeated man: More important to the
popular novel was the cult of passion which was triumphantly
estabhshed during the last years of the eighteenth century and
culminated in the glodcation of defiance.
The forMof the great nineteenth century English novels
of George Eliot, Dickens, Thackeray and Trollope reflect the
nature and requirements of that society. Stdl, in general, all the
forms of novel such as picaresque, epistolary, satirical,
meta6ction, maec realism etc. had their origins in the big
traditional trilogy--the epic, the drama, the lyric. The process
which shunted the literature of the remote past towards the
modern age has been a process of accorhng more homage to
prose and less to verse. In most present day hscussion, the term
novel (used as a synonym for fiction) is applied primarily to
prose narratives. A novelist's range is Limited to his choice of
subject. Here, i t is worthwhde to contrast the opinions of two
stalwarts of the literary horizon. L4ccordmg to Gustave Flaubert:
"The basis of a novel is a story and if you h o w exactly what you
want to say, you wdl say it weU."3 But to attain thls, a novelist
should be an explorer; so says Milan Kundera: "The novelist is
neither historian nor prophet: he is an explorer of e~ i s t ence . "~
The legitimacy of modern fiction is judged by the measure of
t h s exploration. Precisely, popular fiction is pushed into
significance here. The chief form of printed fiction in Britain
today is the novel.
The novel is a long narrative, giving it a new scope, new
possibilities of the language and simply changing many
trachtional laws concerning literature and narrative form. A
novelist's work is basically an individual activity. In the words
of David Dowling:
Novels are essential part of both of man's personal
development (in the reading of novels) and of h s
general cultural achievement (in their creation). Yet
the creation of works of art and the forming of
judgement upon them--and to an even greater extent
upon their creators--are hlghly inhvidual activities.5
But ;LIa.ximibion E. Novak holds a M e r e n t view:
Novel was produced by writers such as Defoe,
Richardson and Fielding, in the first half of the
eighteenth century in hrect h e of descent from the
cheap books and the French fiction of the late
seventeenth century, hundreds of titles of which were
translated into English and published in England at
t h s time."6
The doctrine of artistic independence whch asserts the
right of the artist to treat any subject that to hxn seems good,
has been the breath of life for all great work, the condition of
progress in arts. A good fiction d fad to become part of
literature and to attain its objectives, without having a
convincing story in it. Isaac Bashevis Singer has &med that if
you "take away storytelling from Literature, then literature has
lost everything."7 Books create their own readers. Writers do not
Live in a vacuum. Their readers also share the same world. They
grow together.
The best that the novel can do, it may be suggested, is to
help the reader to interpret the present age in order to prepare
him for the world of future. A creative writer is only capable of
giving an exquisite and original picture of a subject w i t h his
range. His business is not to teach or to reform, but 'to convey to
the world the most thorough knowledge of human nature. Q.D.
Leavis observes: in thls sense a "novel can deepen, extend and
refine experience, by dowing the reader to Live at the expense
of an unusually intelhgent and sensitive mind."8 What is more
interesting in life d not of course be the same for all novelists.
There are few overlaps between Hemingway and Henry James,
Smollett and Virgmia Woolf, even Arnold Bennett and C.P.
Snow; but we can in Me or literature, learn a good deal about
life by discbvering what other people find important in it.
The great and splendid function of a worthwhile fiction is
to strengthen our imagmative sympathies and insights, so as to
make us wiser and better. It can also provide comfort and
amusement through fantasy. These functions are seldom wholly
separated. If i t does not make our Me on thls earth better.
happier and easier to bear, then art is of no use whatsoever.
I d e d y a novel should provide for a reader periods of
anticipation during whch suspense can be bullt most
effectively. Reader's attention is far more easily fascinated
during an action sequence than during any other kmd of scene
in a novel. There is a general agreement that 'fiction' is central
to the novel and its development. Martin Seymour-Smith has
suggested: "the first fiction was mythology and folklore."9
One of the interesting facts of literary his to^ is that the
three most popular works of fiction before Pamela (1740) were
Guhver's Travels (l726), Robinson Crusoe (1719-20) and Mrs.
Haywood's first novel Love in Excess: or the Fatal Enauirv
(1719). In the decades that followed she was t o establish herself
as the most important producer of popular fiction before Pamela.
Today we have to agree to what The Times Literarv Su~ulement
says: "Fiction is probably the most living form of literature in
England at the present moment."l0
When theme or characterization dominates a t the expense
of plot and other elements, we have a self conscious 'literary
novel'. When a strong plot is devised and tightly controlled with
multi-faceted characters, striking backgrounds, powerful actions
revealed through well chosen and polished words, then a
popular mainstream fiction is born. Joseph Warren Beach, a
hstinguished critic and the author of The Twentieth Century
Novel identifies these qualities only in a genius of story telling:
Thus in novelists who show a disposition to develop
their scenes at considerable length to subordinate the
passages hnlung scene-to-scene, and to make the
successive scenes follow upon one another with an
utmost uninterrupted continuity of effort, i t is, I
fancy. the sheer genius of story t e h g rather than
any theoreocal preoccupation with form that has
determined their method. 11
If what the author has to say and the way he chooses t o say i t
are truly deep and of lastmg sigr&cance, then he will be read
by the masses. Not all popular novelists are good, but all good
novehsts are sooner or later popular.
Popular fiction, hke all other cultural creations, reflects
social m e w g s and more and more importantly intervenes in
the Me of society by organising and interpreting experiences.
Thus to understand popular fiction is to examine i t as a form of
cultural production. This offers a particular way of thinlung and
feeling about one's relationship to oneself, to others and to
society as a whole. Tracing out the grom-th of popular literature,
the American critic L.Lowenthal admits:
Since the separation of literature into two distinct
fields of art and commohty in the course of
eighteenth century, they (popular literacy products)
have become a powerful force in the H e of modern
rnan.12
The bestselling novels are particularly important cultural
artd'acts because they are primarily a social rather than a
literary phenomenon. Although they are books, their status as
bestsellers is socially constituted. Two implications of this fact
are particularly important. First, bestsellers have established
resonance with large segments of the reading public. They are
important cultural evidence because of their link to the social
world of readers and their reading. Second, bestsellers are
particularly useful source of evidence precisely because they
present a sort of common denominator of our literary culture.
The difference between the popular novels of the
eighteenth century and of the nineteenth century is that the
new fiction, instead of requiring its readers to co-operate in
sophisticated entertainment, &scovers the great heart of the
public. So because of the new commercial conhtions, the
beginning of a split between popular and cultural taste in fiction
is apparent. The two factors, literacy as a positive force in
society and the progressive growth of reading public during the
eighteenth century, seem crucial to a historical approach to
popular literature. E.P. Thompson wrote in the Times Literary
Sunnlement: "It is one of the peculiarities of the English, that
the history of the 'common people' has always been something
other than--a distinct form--English History proper."l3
The central part of Mary Shelley's thesis (Frankenstein -
1818) is to insist that the hero's (monster) eventful life of
violence and revenge is the direct product of social
circumstances. The hero summarises his own life: "Everywhere I
benevolent and good; misery made me fiend. Make me happy
and I shall again be virtuous."l-l
Depiction of violence in popular novels is only a reflection
of our culture's fascination with guns. Anstotle used to explain
the psycho-social use of the tragehes and their positive value t o
society. Tragehes according to Anstotle and popular fiction
accordmg to its advocates &st produce in audiences, emotzons
which are dangerous to law, order and proper civic behaviour
and then purge them. Leslie Fiedler, an American writer and an
enthusiast of popular literature, maintains the same view:
Lterature whch transgresses social taboos, teaches
that the impulse of lawlessness exists deep in human
psyche. Once these taboos are translated into popular
fiction, the fear of the unconscious and its tyranny
over our bodles and dreams, and by the same token, of
the art whlch simultaneously releases and neutralizes
its darker aspects.15
To unravel the truth some mehum in the form of literature is
vital and pertinent. Therefore, popular fiction is brought to
substantial signLficance. The German poet and playwright
Bertolt Brecht asserts: "You cannot just write the truth. you
have to write i t for and to somebody, who can do somethmg
with it."'&
.Ylmost all stories have been told. There are no new plots.
(Dickens was convinced of that a hundred years ago). We just
keep reusing the old elements in new permutations. The only
thing that keeps fiction fresh and popular is the constant rising
up of new voices, new authors with unique perspectives and
special ways of expressing themselves. Such novelists range
from Agatha Christie to Saul Bellow. The great bestseller
contains a searching appeal to the honest simple feelings and
"all that is best" in the great heart of the great public.
The great bestseller goes straight to the heart of the
public and is actuated by as authentic a passion as that of any
genuine artist. Accordmg to Q.D. Leavis:
This antithesis between a novel of the heart and novel
of the brain and the exaltahon of the former at the
expense of the latter is a noticeable feature of the
contemporary best seller; i t is perhaps not surprising
that the readers should share. 1;
Vibrant story t e h g with adventures began with Daniel
Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe. Lterary values began to
change in the 1880s when those politicians who followed
Benjamin Disraeli's lead began to preach a gospel of proud
imperiahsm. It was then that R.L.Stevenson began to write
adventures with care and skiU which showed that he expected
men of letters to take pleasure in them. Treasure Island (1883)
and Kzdnapued (1886) were aimed at literary readers.
Stevenson was followed by Rider Haggard, Conan Doyle,
Rudyard %piing and after them John Buchan and several
others. This was a sigmilcant literary movement in revolt
against the contemporary system of literature. The boisterous
side of human nature was for the first time being allowed
expression in English literature. Peter Haining holds this view
when he says: "Detective stories are harmless release of an
innate spring of cruelty present in everyone."18
.bother genre w i t h detecbve fiction. created in the
United States just before and particularly after World War I1
and which is pubhshed in France u~lder the rubric 'Serie noire'
(the thllller) is a lund of detective fiction whlch fuses two
stories. It suppresses the f i s t and utdizes the second. We are no
longer told about a crime. We realize that two entirely m e r e n t
forms of interest exist: curiosity and suspense. Todorov, the
critic, masterfully o u t h e s the merence between a detectwe
and a t h d e r :
In detectives the chief characters (the detective and
h s friend the narrator) were, by definition,
immunized: nothing could happen to them. The
situation is reversed in the t h d e r . '9
The study of popular literature in England today is
scarcely accepted as an academic activity. However, the crucial
gain in Britain was perhaps the establishment of
interdisciplinary courses in communication, cultural and media
studies providmg a network of contexts within which serious
analysis could evolve and progress. In France they order things
better. So there are some indications that attitudes are c h a n w g
and the popular fiction is beginning to be accepted as a senous
area of study. Once one begins to examine literature as a
'Communicative Practice' with social and lustorical roots. then
one cannot afford to ignore those fictional worlds which
command the widest public. Only a hspassionate, genuine and
serious study of t h s part of literature can bring out the
novelists, who actually deserve greater recognition by the
Literary world. My research work attempts to remedy the past
negligence in thu area.
J e e e y Archer's novels became popular because they offer
a particularly valuable set of insights into some problems of
wide interest. He has had a knack of getting what he wanted.
Despite the hsastrous errors of judgements that have marred
h s career, he has done not a t all badly. He is a tribute to
resihence, ambition and determination combined with abdity as
a storyteller. Xchele Field confirms, "everyone to conclude that
Archer is a 'phenomenon4."20
Jeffrey Archer is humble enough to declare his literary
honesty. Though h s novels are hugely popular, he claims
himself to be nothmg more than a gxfted story teller. Bill Brvson
reports upon this matter :
I have so Little talent that I make sure it's bloody well
stretched to the last inch ... It's very important to me
that the reader should be turning the page desperate
to find out where they are going, because I'm also
turning the page desperate to find out where I am
going, because I haven't got a bloody clue."l
A rare occasion is built for the reader and the writer to thmk
together. Only a gLfted and talented writer can provide such
resourceful experience to a reader.
Jeffrey Archer writes about thmgs that concern him
deeply. He does not consciously follow a formula and he writes
as well as he can feel about thmgs that are deeply important to
hm. Most of h s books are highly successful works. He is an
energetic researcher and manages to bring together the inside
information about lots of things with great accuracy and
livehess. To mention a few eloquent examples: In the novels,
Shall we Tell the President (1977), The P r o d i d Dauehter
(1982), and First h o n o . E ~ u a l s (1984), Archer probes into such
intriguing topics as power polit~cs, parochahsm and prejubce.
The competitive d e a h s s of the secret agents of Russia and
America, packed with surprises, unravel how they outwit each
other b d a n t l y in A Matter of Honour (1986). Here Archer's
detective mind gets in touch with the secrecy of bank vaults and
the inner dealings of the banking system as a whole. 'Operation
Desert Calm' by Saddam Hussein and the C.I.A's plans t o
counter them are narrated in the novel Honour h o n e Thieves
(1993). Ofcourse, this can be possible only after a close study of
the prevahng systems of the two nations. The rivalry in the
news paper industry is the theme of h s novel The Fourth Estate
(1996). Victoria Glendmmg aptly says: "He (Jeffrey Archer)
includes real Me figures and is probgal with locations and
situations which require research and inside knowledge."22
Archer's novels offer basic narrative interests that run the
gamut of reader satisfactions. He pulls together the different
narrative segments with a mass of background information into
a unSed and relatively coherent whole by the overarching
pattern of poetic justice. He is a bestselling author because he
has been able to develop an effective fictional pattern that
formulates a tradihonal popular Literary genre--that of social
melodrama--in a way that is responsive to the central themes of
concern for the contemporary public. Martin Seymour-Smith
reveals the quahties of JefFrev Archer:
All the stories are slulfully constructed and well-
plotted. This is hghIy professional writing and t h s
writer improves with each book. He has an
exceehngly refreshmg good humour, and h s capacity
to convey deep f e e h g is by no means common."^
Charles Mortiz explains the reason for the worldwide sale
of Archer's books and appeal of h s tales: "The immense popular
appeal of his tale lies in Archer's abhty to devise suspenseful
plots in which wealth and power are central themes."24 Archer
is popular on screen also. In an interview he explains its reason.
"You have got to be first and foremost a storyteller to work on
the screen. The screen is about storytelling."25
Style is personahty transferred to printed page. It evolves
without conscious intent. It is a d m a b l e to strive consciously for
clarity and simplicity. In this context it is meaningful to refer to
the remark of K r i a m Mott:
A style interests when it carries the reader along: it is
then a good style, a style ceases to interest when by
reason of hsjointed sentence, over-used words,
monotonous of jog-trot cadences, it fatigues the
readers mind. Our chief masters in style were
Flaubert and Maupassant. Flaubert in the greater
degree, Maupassant in the less.26
This notion of style assumes considerable s igdcance in
relation to Jeffrey Archer. Blll Bryson observes "His (Jeffrey
Archer's) sentences do n/t dazzle, but neither do they grate, and
they are mercifully free of all tortured syntax and purple
passages (sex scarcely features in most Archer stories) that
characterize so much popular fiction" (Bryson 75). The entire
narrative &splays a graceful but detailed reahsm quite unusual
in popular fiction.
The lack of sex and violence partly explains why Archer
had so little success in getting his books adapted as Bms but
equally i t makes them more suitable for television--especially
for American networks. who are notoriously worried about sex
scenes, though keen on violence. In Archer's own words: "I do
write some scenes where people go to bed together or they fall in
love ... but I've never found it necessary to join the rip-off
knickers brigade."27
Adam Scott, the protagonist in Jeffrey Archer's novel A
Matter of Honour, seems to prefer cold showers to sex, and early
in the book he rebuffs an attractive young woman who tries to
clunb into bed with lum. Clara, a call girl's comment on the
titular hero in Kane and Abel is: "in bed, I can tell you, you are
nothmg"(202). Humiliated, Abel seeks the help of another call
girl to obtain practical knowledge and experience in the field. So
he requests her, "I want to be taught properly. I want lessons"
(203). Such is the monotony of sex as revealed in most of his
novels. Archer has h s own reason for this stance. He seems t o
believe that the age of sex and violence in Literature is over.
Archer's novels are shaped from h s own political
experiences. He has a tremendous potential as a Conservative
politician. While he was a student a t Oxford University, he
established contact with the then U.S President Lyndon
Johnson (in 1964) during the Oxfam (Oxford based charity
organisation founded in 1942 to help people of War ravaged
Greece) fund raising campaign. He has personal and political
intimacy with the es-Prime h h m t e r s (Conservative) and
political stalwarts of England, Mrs.Thatcher and Mr. John
Major. He continues to exert great influence on the Conservative
politics in particular and British political discussions as a
whole, by being a member of the House of Lords. To quote from
The Economist: "Jeffrey Archer, a former deputy charman of
the Tories, and an intimate of lady Thatcher and John Major,
likes to live dangerously."28 Sarace Medma Comments: "The
vicissitudes of Archer's Me have already been put to use in h s
novels."29
His political novels such as S h d we Tell the President,
The Prodigal Dauehter, First Amonv Eauals and Honour Among -
Thieves, reveal the way a given society reacts t o its own political
institutions and practices. Such novels partially, yet accurately,
reflect social reality. Students of politics can draw vital
references concerning political ethos and the intricacies of
politics from these novels.
It is assumed in general that popdar literature
represents an imapnative escape from the drabness of everyday
Lives. But with Jeffrey Archer's works, the line between fiction
and reahty is blurred. HIS novels operate within the parameters
of literary realism. They are built on a set of orhnary
perceptions about the world that are shared with their
auhences. Archer is in command of his hvergent readers by h s
reahstic narrative techniques. Archer's sensitive and versatde
craftsmanshp and awareness of the social problems of his times
a:re the hallmarks of hls grand success.
Before I embark on a critical analysis of Archer's novels, I
would like to give a brief summary of hls important novels. Th~s
may provide an idea of the thematic development of Archer's
novels. A brief reference to Archer's other works--short stories,
plays--is also made towards the end of t h s chapter.
Jeffrey Archer was a member of Parliament in the year
1973. His ambition was to become the prime Mimster of
England. He also planned to become a d o n a i r e before he was
30, but the threats of banhuptcy proceedings looming over hrm,
he resigned his seat in 1974. Based on his experience, he wrote
his first novel Not a Pennv More not a Pennv Less (197G), a tale
about four men, who are collectively cheated out of a mdhon
dollars and who retrieve it to the last penny. Charles J.Keffer
comments: "The story contains some interesting character
development, a clear and plausible story h e and its share of
suspense."30
The first novel was followed a year later by Shall we Tell
the President (1977), a political novel set in the near future and
centered on an attempted assassination of President Edward
Kennedy. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who had not had any
active part in the publication of the book, resigned as a dmector
of Viking shortly afterwards.
In 1985, eight years after the original publication of Shall
we Tell the President, Archer reworked the book, replacing
Edward Kennedy with Florentyna Kane, of the Kane and Abel
sagas. The change had nothmg to do with the earlier
controversy but was made because i t had become obvious by
then that Edward Kennedy was never going to be the President
of the U.S.A. Accordmg to Gene Lyons, the novel's "main
interest lies in its political prehctions ... It mane and Abel) may
be fairly described as a page turner.":jl
The novel Kane and Abel (1979), brings out Archer's
philosophy of Me. It is a super saga about two men, one Polish
immigrant (Abel), an dlegitimate son of a gypsy, the other rich
and priv~leged from a wealthy Boston banlung family mane).
Abel Rosmnovslu survives countless setbacks, emigrates to the
1J.S and builds up a thriving hotel chain. Wilham Kane inherits
a powerful bank and makes i t even more successful. Their paths
cross and they become bitter enemies, each determines to
destroy the other. It becomes a sensational novel all over the
world. With Kane and Abel Archer leapt to an international best
seller. In the words of Michael Crick, Archer's biographer :
"Elements of Archer's own life and character, ofcourse are woven
into both heroes."32
The P r o h ~ a l Daughter (1982) is a sequel to Kane and
Am. It takes up the story of Florentyna Rosnovski, daughter of
Abel, as she bullds up a highly successful fashon shop chain,
takes over her father's thriving business and then goes into
politics to battle for the highest office in the land - the
Presidency of the United States. Xccordmg to Nora Johnson:
Through his primary character, Florentyna
Rosnovslu, .Archer probes into such intriguing topics
as power, politics, pride, parochialism and prejuchce.
He also deals with some old-fashoned virtues--
fidelity, honour and integrity-as they affect this only
child of a Polish immigrant who has amassed a huge
fortune by hard work and canny--but most honest--
business strategy.:j3
Jeffrey Archer's deep knowledge and rich experience in
Parliamentary affairs contributed to the production of the
political novel, First Among. Eauals (1984). Archer again seeks
inspiration from hs own experiences. The novel deals with the
fortunes of the three ambitious new M.Ps, who took their seats
a t Westminster for the first time in the early 60s and all were
hghfliers, destined for the great office - the Prime Minister of
England. For the next thirty years their lives continuously
crossed in the battle for power. The libel episode narrated in the
novel is parallel to Archer's own Me. Archer presents Simon, a
Conservative, as a model politician in the novel. h c h e r
admitted that writing the book was a bitter sweet experience: "It
was the first time I was able to face the fact that I had to give up
what I loved most (polihcs)" (Year Book 22).
Jeffrey Archer combines politics, passion, action and
surprise in a story of inimitable power and immehacy in the
novel A Matter of Honour (1986). Archer is prohgal with
locations and situations whch require research or unequalled
inside knowledge--the geography of K r e m h and of the Swiss
bank, layout of the Icon Room a t the Louvre--are only a few
examples to mention. The novel concerns the battle between an
innocent man, Adam Scott who inherits a priceless Russian icon,
once owned by a Nazi war criminal and a trained K.G.B killer
Alex Romanov. The story is unravelled with breath-talung pace
and dazzling narrative drive. In the opinion of Victoria
Glendining the novel envisages that the ".kcher men are not
principally interested in pleasure. They are interested, hke most
sprinters and school boys, in winning" (1368).
Charlie Trumper, the protagonist in the novel As the
Crow Flies (1991), moves from being a barrow boy (seUmg
vegetables fi-om a street cart), to owning London's most
prestigious department store. Archer depicts the board
meetings, the n e t w o r h g and the periods of anxiety that take
T:rumper from his humble start in the East End across to a
substantial financial empire in Chelsa--a distance of only five
miles "as the crow fies". The novel, is written in the Kane and
A M genre--business and f d y rivahes. There are many
autobiographical parallels in the novel. Both Archer's own
father and h s fictitious Charlie Trumper in the novel hail from
the same area of the East End. Archer's father was a printer in
the City Road, next to East End, where the Trumper Saga
begins. His father, a semi invahd, died when Archer was 15.
Charlie Trumper's father also hes when he was 17.
The novel is based on the lives of business buccaneer, Sir
Jack Cohen, whom Archer has known, who founded Tesco, a
chain of grocery stores and died in 1979. Archer runs the risk of
endmg up hke his hero Trumper--a reluctant peer. Archer is
now 58 and the road he has travelled in his life has also been
both very long in one sense and very short in another sense.
John Turner says, Charlie Trumper's "life is elaborately crafted
by an author whose own 'curriculum vitae' in its various
ehhons, has lent a new and richer meaning to the term 'self-
made man' ":34
The novel, Honour h o n e Thieves (1993), further proves
that Archer's Literacy trade mark and his abllity to sustain
tension on every page remains unchanged. Moved by the double
dealmg of his fellow criminals, one of the characters in the book.
Dollar B d asks twice plaintively: "Is there no longer honour
among thieves?" (256, 449). His partners of the crime are
planning to steal the o r i ~ n a l Declaration of the U.S
Independence. Behind the crime is Saddam Hussein, who plans
to burn the paper in public to embarrass the U.S President. The
reader wdl hold his breath as he follows the activities of an Iraqi
hplomat, the head of a crime family, a Mossad agent and a
professor who trains the C.I.A. All of them will do anythmg to
get the documents. We know that Hussein &d not lay his hands
on the paper, yet we turn page after page unresistingly. The
depiction of atmosphere of terror that surrounds the dictator
shows that Archer is not just a writer of thrillers. In the novel
he has also drawn attention to the fate of the Kurdish people in
political and media circles. "Mr.Archer supplies interesting
trivia about the Declaration and the forger's art, alonpwth
confusing crosscuts to Paris and Tel Aviv.".j,j Says Bdl Kent.
In the novel, The Fourth Estate I 1996), there is much of
Abel Rosnovslu and WiUlam Kane (in Kane and Abel) in the two
personahties of The Fourth Estate--kchard Armstrong and
Iieith Townsend. Richard and Kaith are unscrupulous, w d h g
to take resource to any means in their bid to take over
newspapers and television stations. Both are gamblers and
prepare to risk everything in their battle to control the
newspaper empire. The manoeuvring and manipulations of
Richard Armstrong and Keith Townsend in the novel perhaps
relate to some actual happenings in the field. The novel is again
a confirmation of the extraordinary talent of Jeffrey Archer.
H d e d by critics around the globe as a master storyteller,
it is interesting that Archer has turned &om creating five-and-
six hundred-page blockbusters to the smaller canvas of the short
story. Indeed, i t is in readmg the three collections he has
published to date--A Quiver Full of Arrows (1980), A h s t in
the Tale (1988), and Twelve Red Herrinzs (1994)--that i t is
possible to trace those writers who have influenced his fiction,
the most powerful of which, is the work of Somerset Maugham.
Archer shares with blaugham, an observant eye to places
and is able to inject a ring of truth into the settings and people
about whom he writes. Combined with this is a great gdt for
narrative, capturing the reader's attention at the begnning of a
story and retaining it to the end. Archer writes lightly knit tales
that proceed in an unbroken line from the exposition to the
conclusion. Moreover an unsuspecting twist in the tale d send
the reader back through the text in search of possible clues and
probable answers as to why the narrative has turned out the
way it has Sybil Steinberg observes: "Archer's understanhog of
human nature and h ~ s talent for surprise endings make this
volume (A Twist in the Tale) a must for his fans.36
Money and trappings of wealth figure in the cunning
plots of Twelve Red Herrings. "There is richness to these tales,
se t of by their seeming simplicity, that makes paying attention
to them all the more worthwhlle."3'i remarks John Zinsser.
In October 1986, Archer resigned as a Conservative
Deputy Chairman. Re withdrew from all political engagements
and ~ o r k e d on thls court-room play. That was the origin of
Bevond Reasonable Doubt (1989). The play clicked. In the words -
of hhchael Crick:
Bevond Reasonable Doubt was on tour after 24
months run in London. It visited 17 theatres in 9
months. The play was also listed around the world--to
Ireland, Australia, South h c a , Turkey, Greece and
several other European countries. It is sbll regularly
performed in amateur theatre (330).
The play Exclusive (1989), is about the inner workmgs of
a London newspaper. It was vigorously planned and closed after
12 weeks. The play was a creative failure. Archer has also
written three childrens' story books, which had failed to sell.
Notes
ltlrnold Kettle. .-in Introduction to the English Novel, vol.1.
2nd ed. (London.Hutchinson, 1967) 20.
zA4nthony Burges, The Nouel Now (London: Faber & Faber,
1971) 16.
3 ~ u s t a v e Flaubert, Letter to Mademoiselle Leroyer de
Chantepie. 12 Dec. 1857, Correspondence, 1903.
4 , ~ a n Kundera. Intermew, Part I1 by Christian Salmon (Paris
Review, 1983).
S ~ a v i d D o w h g , ed. Novelists o n Novelists (London:
Macmlllan: 1983) viii.
G~aximibion E Xovak, Times Literary Supplement 25 Jan.
1991: 8.
7 ~ i a n a Cooper-dark, ed. Interview wi th Contemporary
Novelists &ondon: M a c d a n , 1986) 1 I.
S ~ . ~ . ~ e a v i s , Fiction and the Reading Public (London:
Chatto and Windus, 1965) 73-74.
' J ~ a r t i n Seynour-s~nith, "Origins and Development of the
Novel", Novel and Novelists : A Guide to the World o f
Fiction (New York: St Mary's Press, 1980) 11.
l o ~ l z e Times Literary Supplement 25 April 1919 : 195.
1 1 , ~ o s e ~ h Warren Beach, The Twentieth Century Novel (New
York: Appleton-Century-Crafts, Inc; 1932) 154.
121,.1,owrnthaI, I,iiet.atto.e, Popr~lnr Ctr1tt~t.e and Society
(Califbmia: I'acific Books, 1961) xii.
1 3 ~ . ~ . ~ h o m p s o n , "History From Below", Tinzes Literary
Sr~pplentent 7 April 1966: 279.
1 4 ~ a r ~ Wollstonecroft Shelley. Fr~an,Izertstein or tlte Modern.
Pramet l~er~s (London: Everyman and Oxford U.P, 1818)
100.
I s ~ e s l i e Fiedler, What was class culture? and Mass Society
(New York: Sirnon and Schuster, 1982).
l G ~ . ~ l a t e r , Origins and Significance o f Ft-anlzfast School:
A Marxist 1'er.spective (London: Routledge & Kegan
l':ik~l, 1077) 141.
1 7 ~ . ~ ) . ~ e a v i s , Fictior~. artd tlte Reading Public (London:
Chatto and Windus, 1965) 68.
lsl'eter Haining, Mystery: An Illustrated History o f Crime
trrlrl l)c.tcv:ti~~c. Fictiort (T,onctc~n: Souvenir Press, 1977)
163.
19?'odorov, The Poetics of Prose, trans, Richard Howard
(Oxford: Basil Black Well, 1977) 47.
20~i ( :hc le Ficl(1, "Jeffrey Archer", interview, P~lblishers
Weelzly (London: vo1.238, 26 April, 1991) 42-43.
21~%ill Uryson, "The Story Teller", Tlte New Yorlz Tirites
Magazine 26 Nov. 1990: 75.
(All subsequent quotations from this source are indicated by
page numbers in parenthesis)
22~ictoria Glendining, "Profit without Honour" rev. of A Matter
of Ifonoar by Jeffrey Archer, Times Literary
S11j1plerrzert4 5 Dec, 1986: 1368.
(A subsequent quotations from this source is indicated by page
nr~nibcr in ~~arc:nt.hesis)
2331artin Seymour-Jmlth. Financial Times 1 S o \ . 1980
" d ~ h a r l e s LIortlz. ed. Current Biography Year- Book. 1998
(New York: The W.H.Wilson Company, 19881 20.
(A subsequent quotations from t h s source is indicated by page
number in parenthesis)
25~effrey Archer, interview by Foy Balchford, A Twist in the
Tale (Lreat Britain: Longman, 199 1) v.
26hliriam M o t , Novelists on Novel (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 19'75) 32 1.
27~effrey Archer, Rushes o f Interview by Oliver James for
Channel 4's "Network" (7, 9 March 1988).
2 8 ~ h e Economist 17 Sept. 1994: 62.
2 9 ~ a r a c Medma, "?vIoe Scandalous than Fiction", Time vol. 128,
10 Nov. 1986: 19.
3 0 ~ h a r l e s J Keffer, "Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less",
Bestsellers vol. 36, 4 July 1976: 106.
3 1 ~ e n e Lyons, "Four Novels", The New Yorlz Times Boolz
Review 23 Octo. 1977: 36-37.
('4 subsequent quotation from thls source is inhcated by page
number in parenthesis)
32Michael Crick, Jeffrey Archer: Stranger than Fiction
(London: Hamish Hamilton, 1995) 218.
3 3 ~ o r a Johnson, "Men and women and Trouble", The iVew
York Times Review 11 July 1982: 14, 27.
3 4 ~ o h n Turner, "A Politician in the F d y " , rev. of As the
Crow Flies by Jeffrey Archer, London: Times Literary
Supplement 26 July, 1991.
3 5 ~ i l l Kent, "Humour Among Thieves", rev. of Honour Among
Thieves by Jefhey Archer, The New Yorlz Times
Review 15 Aug. 1993: 18.
36sybil Stemberg, "Fiction: X Twist in the Tale", rev. of A Twist
in the Tale by Jeffrey Archer, Publishers Weekly, vol.
234, 4 Nov.1988: 72.
37~ohn Zinsser, ed. Stories from a Twist in the Tale.
Publishers Weelzly vol. 237, 2 Nov.1990: 50.