An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris

Robert Harris' excellent historical fiction on the Dreyfus affair was on the program for the second gathering at the library for "Read the book, watch the movie". We had a good discussion on both the book and the film. The film J'accuse is French and directed by Roman Polanski. The French title is, as you all know, referring to the newspaper article that Emile Zola wrote in defence of Alfred Dreyfus and how he had been treated.

It is a dreadful story and "has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world, and it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism." (Wikipedia). It was at times difficult to read about the judicial and military systems, and how they  produced false evidence, although they knew that Dreyfus was innocent. The antisemitism was shocking,  both to read about and watch in the movie. 

"Paris in 1895. Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish officer, has just been convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil’s Island, and stripped of his rank in front of a baying crowd of twenty-thousand. Among the witnesses to his humiliation is Georges Picquart, the ambitious, intellectual, recently promoted head of the counterespionage agency that “proved” Dreyfus had passed secrets to the Germans. At first, Picquart firmly believes in Dreyfus’s guilt. But it is not long after Dreyfus is delivered to his desolate prison that Picquart stumbles on information that leads him to suspect that there is still a spy at large in the French military. As evidence of the most malignant deceit mounts and spirals inexorably toward the uppermost levels of government, Picquart is compelled to question not only the case against Dreyfus but also his most deeply held beliefs about his country, and about himself.

Bringing to life the scandal that mesmerized the world at the turn of the twentieth century, Robert Harris tells a tale of uncanny timeliness––a witch hunt, secret tribunals, out-of-control intelligence agencies, the fate of a whistle-blower--richly dramatized with the singular storytelling mastery that has marked all of his internationally best-selling novels."

I have not read anything by Harris before, but this first meeting with his writing has given me an appetite for more. Well researched and structured it gives a good account of what happened. The characterisation is good, and we are totally with Georges Picquart on his quest to prove the innocence of Dreyfus. He gave upp his career and life to defend something he believed in, and he was very heroic. It is scary, it is exciting and if we did not know the outcome, we could easily believe that this story would not end well. 

I finished the book earlier the same day as I watch the film. The discussion afterwords pointed out that some elements were missing. It was surely done for the sake of dramatisation and it did not change the story as such. I really liked the film. It followed well the structure of the novel, the actors were excellent and the direction was good, bringing the times; the surroundings and architecture, houses and interiors, people and their clothes as a backdrop to a chilling story.  

All in all, I can highly recommend both the novel and the film.