'54

V good

Cary Grant's assignment by MI6 to play the role of Yugoslav leader Marshall Tito in a film biography is just one of the plot lines in this jam-packed novel, filled with subplots from its 1954 setting. The west is trying to form closer ties with Tito, while the Soviets, with whom he has already broken, are acting to prevent this. Many Italian partisans fought on the Yugoslav front during World War II and have remained there, supported by friends and family in Bologna as they engage in the smuggling of oil into Trieste. As members of the local communist party, these Bolognese supporters are trying to control the future of "Italian" Trieste. In Naples, Salvatore Lucania ("Lucky Luciano"), recently deported from the US, works at controlling the world's drug trade.As these plots develop simultaneously, the reader must keep track of dozens of characters and their activities, since the various plots do not overlap until the end. Cary Grant, Alfred Hitchcock, David Niven, Grace Kelly, and the James Bond novels all play parts in Grant's story. The Naples story, with Luciano, involves all the on-going crimes of this don and his henchmen--drugs, race-fixing, gambling, prostitution. The Bologna plot is far more domestic, with a young man searching for his father, who is in Trieste, and a love story involving a married woman who takes care of her mentally ill brother. Minor threads involve the McCarthy hearings, Emperor Bao Dai from Vietnam, Nikita Krushchev, and even Fidel Castro.Wu Ming, the "author," is actually a collective of five Italian writers (four of whom, known as "Luther Blissett," wrote the Reformation novel, Q). While this device allows for enormous creativity, the accumulation of vast amounts of period detail, and the introduction of more characters than I can recall in one novel in a long time, the novel suffers from a looseness in construction and a lack of control. The grand finale, while worthy of James Bond, is actually anticlimactic as the various plots come together more than five hundred pages after they began.Filled with local color--bars, casinos, races, card games, and political movements--the novel is often lively and fun to read. The points of view and location change every few pages, however, and the reader often feels as if s/he is reading four separate novels simultaneously. Humor and irony pervade the novel, including sections written from the point of view of a TV set, a scheme to make a Madonna weep, and a satiric view of an FBI agent. There's a lot of everything in this novel! One wishes its authors had subjected it to more vigorous pruning. Mary Whipple

Being a huge fan of Q I have been eagerly awaiting the follow up from the Luther Blissett/ Wu Ming collective. And '54 is not a disappointment, although it is different. Q was the story of one man, doggedly so (arguably even the extracts from Q's diary, as they were given to the protagonist in the end are not outside the central characters sphere of knowledge) and its pace was from the way in which the book would flicker between periods in time. '54 however, is the story of several characters moving through a strict timeline that marches on day by day each chapter. And it is the characters who inhabit '54 that make it such a rich book. There is Pierre, a young Italian who reminded me of Tony in Saturday Night Fever, and his relationship with a married woman. There is Steve "Cement" an American gangster living in Italy wanting to break free from his powerful boss. Then of course, Cary Grant. The Cary Grant sections, as another reviewer has said are excellent, especially when he is struggling with his own identity - is he Cary Grant or Archie Leech?'54 maintains the fast pace of Q and as a result suffers from some of its failings. The chapters are often very short and frequently move between distant and unrelated characters in the blink of an eye and for much of the book it is uncertain why we are being told the story of these people. The connections become apparent towards the end and the glue that holds them together is Cary Grant who is taken to the Eastern Block and sees the madness of the world the other two characters live in. The solution to this however is to enjoy the character's stories and involve yourself in the densely populated and richly historical world of the book. Like Q a lot of the minor characters are instantly memorable and add an extra level of enjoyment.There are a lot of in jokes in '54. One of my favourites involves Casino Royale, a book Cary Grant reads on his sojourn to Yugoslavia, and a book he doesn't enjoy. At one point he is sipping cocktails with David Niven complaining about it and suggesting that there is no way it could ever be made into a film. Another involves an Italian character thinking Alfred Hitchcock is Winston Churchill.In short, this is a book with the range and scholarly depth of Q, but whilst there were very few precedents to Q, '54 has the accessibility of a le Carre or Len Deighton novel. With '54 Wu Ming have again marketed themselves out of the range of the readers who want the next American crime thriller and as a result, '54 is deep and provocative in a way so many books and films these days simply aren't. Treat yourself, read it.