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.