The Ipcress File

Product Information

Campbell, Christy (21 June 1992). "Spies With Class: Two of our best-loved, but vastly different, fictional spies, James Bond and Harry Palmer, have reached pensionable age". The Sunday Telegraph. London. p.101. It is not helped by the fact that a lot of characters pass our way, but their characterisation is rather perfunctory. The women are there for our hero to flirt or dally with. There are a lot of male characters, but they have so few defining traits that they blur together. There are a few allies of our hero, who we can safely guess will get killed at some point.

This is the grimy antidote to Bond where the lead character has the Burnley accent. Deighton's espionage world is full of crooks rather than spys on both sides. He portrays a world where the driving force is not a simple Left/Right ideology but rather out and out greed. The IPCRESS File is Len Deighton's first spy novel, published in 1962. The story involves Cold War brainwashing, includes scenes in Lebanon and on an atoll for a United States atomic weapon test, as well as information about Joe One, the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb. The story was made into a film in 1965 produced by Harry Saltzman, directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Michael Caine; and a 2022 TV series, starring Joe Cole, Lucy Boynton and Tom Hollander. Now I guess I'll have to go out and find a record player somewhere so that I can actually listen to it and see if it's as jazzy as the book itself... Deighton, Len (1982). The IPCRESS File. Ballantine. p.25. ISBN 0-345-30453-5. For example; take the time my picture appeared in The Burnley Daily Gazette in July 1939, when I won the fifth form mathematics prize.

Editorial Reviews

He gives a knowing wink at the real-life UK traitors but unfortunately he didn't quite know the whole story in 1962. This is not Mr Deighton's fault and does not weaken his valid premise that the spy world may have more to it than duffing up the Russkies. At the time Hodge and Boyle learned they would not write another day, there were suggestions they had spooked the producers by pitching an incredibly subversive storyline. But the released movie contains a twist at least as dramatic, which seems to disprove the rumour they had gone too far. “My understanding was that that twist had been decided even before we came on board because Daniel Craig wanted it. I think, with us, it was that old cliche “creative differences”. It felt very dramatic at the time but it was just another bump in the road of the Bond franchise.” March 19, 2022 Update I have just learned that this book is the basis for a new 6-part TV mini-series with actor Joe Cole in the Harry Palmer role, previously made famous by Michael Caine. This will surely be on Britbox here in Canada eventually, but until then, we do have the trailer. The bare bones of the plot are similar but the film is a complete re-envisioning of the text. Perhaps for budgetary reasons, the film never leaves London whereas the book not only finds itself in the Home Counties but the Middle East and Pacific.

Len Deighton’s classic first novel, whose protagonist is a nameless spy – later christened Harry Palmer and made famous worldwide in the iconic 1960s film starring Michael Caine. The Ipcress File (1962) was Len Deighton's first novel and I believe he was trying to provide a more realistic depiction of spying than Ian Fleming's Bond books, which he complained were too implausible. He succeeded, and how. It's bleak and cynical, and - most notably - is rooted in the day to day bureaucracy of running a department which makes it much richer and more interesting than my inaccurate classification. It is, in short, the anti-Bond. Len Deighton nailed the life of the spy, especially the loneliness and suspicion. His descriptions of London are spot on, and really evocative. Factor in his imaginative use of words, his emphasis on bureaucracy, his preoccupation with class and hierachy, and it's no wonder that he is held in such high esteem. ITV Turns 'The Ipcress File' into TV Series Penned by 'Trainspotting's John Hodge; Joe Cole, Lucy Boynton, Tom Hollander Star". 10 December 2020. Ipcress is not a name or a place: It is an abbreviation for “Induction of Psycho-neuroses by Conditioned Reflex under Stress” -- or, in other words, brainwashing. I remember seeing the film of the book when it came out in 1965 and believed I had also read the book. Instead of a re-read, this turned out to be a first-timer.He is invited to attend an atomic bomb weapons test event by the US government on an atoll in the Pacific. “Harry” is kidnapped and subjected to cold war brainwashing which was of particular interest to the author Len Deighton. When he escapes instead of finding himself in some desert hellhole, he discovers that he is within walking distance of London. It seems there has been a double cross or a triple cross or maybe just your standard diabolical attempt to infiltrate and take over the British government. Someone is kidnapping top level scientists and brainwashing them. But to what end? And why attempt to brainwash poor “Harry”? Dalby was having a little genteel fun with me. 'But I am sure you will be able to overcome your disadvantages.' Otherwise, some snappy dialogue and clever spy tradecraft, (I particularly liked our narrator's several forms of "spy insurance"), along with some good digs at both the British and American military, intelligence and overall class systems. And finally, this particular edition contains a nice little after-the-credits scene, in the form of an unironically snooty production note that states: Although the protagonist tries to explain it all in the final chapter, I cannot help but think that Len Deighton does not run a tight ship. Kingsley Amis famously weighed in with it is "actually quite good if you stop worrying about what's going on".

This 1960s spy story has far more depth and character development than the Bond novels that were more or less contemporaneous. The use of the unreliable first person narrator was risky but actually worked well, adding an extra layer of uncertainty to the described events. I can recall being similarly fascinated by the literature about brain-washing at the time, as a teenager. And this central theme lifts the tale out of the usual spy story genre. It is, of course, a thriller. But it’s a thriller with heart and emotion. The reader cares about the characters. The action is driven by those characters rather than formula driven. There are places where aspects of the story are almost incomprehensible, dialogue sections where the identity of the speakers is all but impossible to ascribe, passages that appear meaningless until later in the book, when they fall into place. All this adds to the general air of confusion, uncertainty and mystery. The Ipcress File has aged remarkably well. It was first published in 1962 but I’d not read it before (although I thought I had!) and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the writing, the excellent sense of place, especially in London, and the laconic but quite realistic tone. Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19). A good week for your hobbies and romance, but you can expect some difficulties with evening arrangements. Forthright talking may well clear the air.--”

A second read was thus more educative than inspiring, a snapshot of a moment in cultural history that is just as much a part of the shift from Macmillan's era to the Swinging Sixties as Cliff Richard or 'That Was The Week That Was'. Yet the narrative seems conventional compared to dialogue. There is one wonderfully chaotic scene where our spy is talking to someone on the phone while surrounded by multiple and overlapping sets of people talking to each other and him. It wasn't easy to read but it lit up my imagination. It's the dialogue equivalent of Warhol's split screen in 'Chelsea Girls' It wouldn't be the same,' I said.This is followed up later with: 'You are a bit stupid, and you haven't had the advantage of a classical education.' The fall of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and Deighton's retirement from writing novels after the conclusion of the Faith, Hope & Charity trilogy with Charity (1996) put all that out of mind for a few decades as new reading interests took over. I recently learned of the Penguin Modern Classics republication of all of Deighton's works being planned over the course of 2021 in an online article Why Len Deighton's Spy Stories are set to Thrill a New Generation (Guardian/Observer May 2, 2021). I couldn't resist a few re-reads to see how the books stood the test of time.