Shuttlecock (novel)

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Badminton (English original title: Agent Running in the Field ) is a 2019 spy novel by the British writer John le Carré. At badminton , Nat, a British secret agent of advanced age, meets a young man named Ed. From the duel on the field a friendship grows outside, until both are entangled in an intelligence affair against the background of the upcoming Brexit .

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MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross in the London Borough of Lambeth

After two decades in which Anatoly, known as "Nat", worked under the cover identity of a diplomat in the middle service in numerous countries as the agent leader of the British Secret Intelligence Service , he was withdrawn from the field service at the age of almost 50. He is assigned the management of a London branch of the service, the so-called "oasis", in which defectors and hired spies are parked without important tasks. His wife Prudence, known as "Prue", has long since withdrawn from the secret service and lives out her idealism as a human rights lawyer. When Nat tries to impress his daughter Stephanie by revealing his secret activities, she is only indignant about how he can lead other people to betrayal after he has long since lost faith in the values ​​of the British state.

Even at an advanced age, the sporty Nat holds the title of South London Badminton Champion. One day a young man named Ed Shannon shows up at his Athleticus Club in Battersea to challenge him. While the distinguished Nat repels at first the boy's uncouth, arrogant manner, he learns to appreciate his honesty and straightforwardness more and more at the following meetings inside and outside the field. Last but not least, the tirades of ranting about Brexit and Donald Trump , into which Ed climbs at every opportunity, speak from his soul. Ed, who obviously hardly cultivates friendships and social contacts, repeatedly demands that the individual must do something to change politics.

In the oasis Nat has only one ambitious employee, the young Florence, but the surveillance she initiated of a seedy Ukrainian oligarch with the cover name ORSON is sabotaged at the last minute by her superior Dominic "Dom" Trench, because his wife Rachel acts as his asset manager . Fired with anger, Florence quits her job on the very day when Nat invited her to a mixed doubles with his play partner Ed. Without Nat's knowledge, the two young people become friends that same evening.

In another operation, Nat proves his unbroken instinct. Sergej, a blown Russian sleeper agent who has been run by the oasis ever since, is contacted by a mysterious Russian agent whom Nat recognizes Anastasia, a notorious leader in the Russian secret service. Nat concludes that a significant stake must be at stake when a senior cadre of their caliber goes out on the field. The British partner secret services MI6 and MI5 jointly monitor the establishment of contact when - to Nat's great surprise - Ed Shannon turns up, who turns out to be an employee of the British domestic secret service and gives Anastasia secret documents relating to an operation under the code name "Jericho".

When Nat reveals his acquaintance with Ed, he suddenly loses the support of his companions in the service, and the anger over the mole in his own ranks discharges on himself. Nat is not only relieved of his position, he also has to defend himself in unpleasant interrogations against the allegations that he was innocently spied on by Ed Shannon or that they even made common cause, since their political attitudes are similarly "radical". Bryn Jordan, Nat's long-time mentor, offers his disgraced protégé partial rehabilitation if he takes advantage of his friendship with Ed to recruit him as a double agent against the Russian secret service. About "Jericho" he can only elicit that it was informal conversations with the American brother secret service.

Only by warming up the old contacts with the German embassy employee Renate does Nat find out the true background. With Operation "Jericho", the British and Americans are planning to destabilize the European Union after Brexit has been completed using all the secret service means in order to create political and economic advantages for an American-British alliance. Ed, a staunch European, who above all has a love for Germany, was so outraged by the knowledge gained from the copy service that he wanted to forward it to the German embassy . But while they shied away from the political consequences of contact with a British defector, the Russian secret service found out about the potential spy and, under the guise that he was still in contact with the Germans, approached the naive Ed in order to use him for their own purposes skim off.

After these revelations, Nat no longer feels any loyalty to his former employer. Supported by his wife Prue, his only endeavor is to save his friend, who has been driven by his conscience and got caught in the mill of the secret services. He uses his former agent Florence, who is now in a relationship with Ed and will soon marry him. The two agents are so well-rehearsed that they plan the escape of the young couple on their honeymoon despite the omnipresent surveillance. Ed, taken by surprise, is only told on the drive to the airport and is visibly disappointed that his badminton partner and best man turns out to be an agent. When they say goodbye, Nat misses the opportunity to tell the young man that he is a decent guy.

background

It was only in 2017 that John le Carré announced his definitely last novel, The Legacy of the Spies , a life report of his long-time hero George Smiley , the appearance of which had been accompanied by interviews and public appearances. Two years later he published another book with Badminton , a “very last novel” that Jochen Vogt regards as a coda or encore that owes its impetus primarily to the current political events surrounding Brexit .

The interviews for the publication of Badminton were often determined by le Carré's comments on Brexit: “I'm really afraid to leave Europe. I am convinced that if we stay, we can strengthen the spirit of Europe and help to create a real counterbalance to the USA, to China. ”He criticized Boris Johnson's “ screaming ”as well as Donald Trump's “ idiocy ”and ranks behind both act primarily from narcissism . The events surrounding Brexit have taught us “how fragile our institutions and our democracy are”.

He told John Banville : “My ties to England have loosened significantly in recent years. It is a kind of exemption, but a sad one. ”He said he applied for Irish citizenship at the age of 88 so that he could remain an EU citizen after Britain left. He is entitled to Irish citizenship because his paternal grandmother was born in Ireland. "For the first time in my life I thought about living somewhere else."

reception

Sylvia Staude does not consider the original title Agent Running in the Field to be translatable. It contains the underlying meaning that the "running" agents could get lost. The German title Badminton, on the other hand, refers to the ease of play between the two protagonists, their exchange of words, "the tactical, often ambiguous conversation that sometimes resembles a game of chess between experts", and the le Carré in its typical understatement and with its captivating casualness "elegant as always ”. Gina Thomas sees the quirky badminton game between “cunning, patience, speed”, aimed at “an impossible race to catch up”, as a metaphor for the kind of people who “lie for their country” as secret agents.

Marcus Müntefering finds many well-known motifs in le Carré's new novel: a secret service riddled with intrigue, in which there is a mole, a hero who looks like a revenant George Smileys, and a congenial adversary on the other side, but this time one Became a woman. What has changed, however, is that the agents have lost the sense of what they are doing and there is a “terrifying ideological vacuum”. A young naive idealist serves as a contrast to the disillusionment of the aging spies: “One who still believes in being able to change something.” Soon the latter is faced with a loyalty conflict in which, in order to do the right thing, he has to betray his country. Müntefering does not count the novel among le Carré's best books, not least because of its “theses”. But it is one of his most important. "

“Trump, Putin, Johnson - for the author they are all scoundrels.” Summarizes Peter Huber le Carré's agenda. In badminton, too, the author is interested in "the little cogs in the espionage gear, the obvious losers who have kept their consciences". According to Gina Thomas, "the anger over the immorality of those in power and the melancholy-tinged contemplation of the comedy of life are balanced" in the novel. For Ulrich Noller is badminton , however, neither old nor mild nostalgic, but show the contrary, "[k] lare edge, a grim-committed espionage novel by a convinced democrat -. And Europeans"

Jochen Vogt calls the end of a novel, which could have conveyed its current statement in a shorter form, a “fairy tale ending”. According to Wieland Freund, it is more positive than it has been in a novel by the author for a long time: “All stories that end with a wedding admit to be comedies.” Le Carré has not reconciled with England, but with of the youth in the form of the rumbling badminton partner Ed, the lively colleague Florence or the morally incorruptible daughter Steff. It is a novel "of grandfather's goodwill for le Carré's generation of grandchildren, who have shed their parents' moral flexibility and act with fresher, sometimes more annoying, always more strenuous, but always justified unconditionality."

expenditure

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jochen Vogt : Encore for the spy . In: The Friday of October 29, 2019.
  2. ↑ "I am afraid to leave Europe" . Interview with John le Carré. In: Saarbrücker Zeitung from November 1, 2019.
  3. ^ "I think my own ties to England were hugely loosened over the last few years. And it's a kind of liberation, if a sad kind. "Quoted from: John Banville : " My ties to England have loosened ": John le Carré on Britain, Boris and Brexit . In: The Guardian of October 11, 2019.
  4. ↑ John le Carré wants to remain an EU citizen with an Irish passport . In: The time of October 21, 2019.
  5. ↑ Sylvia Staude: John le Carré: "Badminton" - The upright Ed . In: Frankfurter Rundschau of October 22, 2019.
  6. ↑ a b Gina Thomas: The English patient in delirium . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from October 28, 2019.
  7. ↑ Marcus Müntefering: Not his best book, but one of his most important . In: Der Spiegel from October 24, 2019.
  8. ↑ Peter Huber: John le Carrés "Badminton": Because of mild age . In: Die Presse on November 18, 2019.
  9. ↑ Ulrich Noller: A spy novel that aims at the heart of the present . In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur from October 25, 2019.
  10. ↑ Wieland Freund : John le Carré and the "German Flausen" . In: Die Welt from October 21, 2019.