Frederick Forsyth, His Novels and Me

 

Last month we lost one of the greatest post-war British novelists, Frederick Forsyth. He was also one of my all-time favourite authors and has been for almost forty years.

I first became aware of Frederick Forsyth’s work through the film adaptations of his novels The Day of the Jackal and The Dogs of War. They were popular television fair during the late 1970s / early 1980s and would often be shown in the late evening slot on weekends and Bank Holidays. They were good, solid, exciting films, and I would always try and catch them whenever they were shown.

But it wasn’t until a few years later – somewhere around 1988 – when I read my first Forsyth novel. I had a friend who, like me, was an avid reader and had recently been turned on to political thrillers and Cold War technothrillers by his father, and it was this friend who would, in turn, infect me with the same love for these genres. My mate had built up an extensive collection of books by Tom Clancy, James Clavell, Craig Thomas, Michael Dobbs and, of course, Frederick Forsyth. The books ran along one wall of his spacious bedroom, and I used to love to browse through them and chat with my friend about them.

I decided to start with The Fourth Protocol which I devoured in just a couple of sittings and immediately went out and bought three more of his books – The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War. I read these novels just as quickly, and very soon I'd purchased all his novels up to that point (The Negotiator was his latest at that time).

Forsyth was an author I followed avidly from that moment on, buying his latest novel the moment it was out in paperback*¹, scurrying home and devouring it with great glee. He wasn’t the only author I was inspired to read at that time, thanks to my mate – I also bought books by Tom Clancy (The Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising), James Clavell (Shogun, Whirlwind) and Craig Thomas (Firefox, Firefox Down, Sea Leopard, The Bear’s Tears).

I still read all these authors. I have all (or most) of their novels and re-read them regularly, but my favourite of all those I discovered round my mates house in the late 80s was, has always been, and still is, Frederick Forsyth.

I only learned of his death today. I was searching for something on Google as research for one of my writing projects and I spotted something that implied that he'd died this year. I went immediately to Wiki (it’s good for a couple of things. Dates of deaths being one of them) and discovered that he died last month. I find things out late nowadays because I’ve removed myself from this culture, and this is one of the drawbacks (but the rewards are many, so I can live with it). The news saddened me. Made me go to the bookshelves where his novels sit, pick them up one by one and thumb through them. It’s made me want to revisit his novels again, perhaps from the very beginning this time – starting with The Day of the Jackal and making my way through the novels and the short story collections until I reach The Fox.

What’s sad is we have lost one of the greatest British writers of the post-war era. We have lost a good writer, one who is a master of his craft and had the ability to hold his readers spellbound, to compel them to keep turning those pages until the very end (and that kind of writer is getting rarer and rarer these days). What’s also sad is I’ll never have the pleasure and excitement of buying a brand new Forsyth novel again. That was something I used to look forward to enormously. I often pop onto Wiki or Amazon a few times a year and see if there's any news of a new Forsyth novel coming later in the year (in fact, I did just that only a few weeks ago).

What I find the saddest of all, is we’ll never see a writer of Frederick Forsyth’s caliber again. I find that both incredibly saddening and profoundly worrying. Today, the writing world just got immensely poorer.

In an interview once, Frederick Forsyth talked about his routine for writing novels. He would spend 3 to 6 months researching the novel, travelling to the places he was about to write about, speak to people concerned, examine documents, etc. Then, when he was ready, he would lock himself in his writing room for a month and just write the book, stopping only for food and sleep. I've loved this idea for a writing routine since I first heard the interview, so much so that I've often thought about giving it a try.

Who knows. Maybe one day I will.

 

 

 

 

NOTES –

1 – I’m not a fan of hardbacks. I’ve always thought it odd that people are prepared to spend £20 - £25 on a book, when they can wait just 8 months and buy the same book in a format that costs half to two-thirds the price. I know what you’re going to say “But they look nice. Especially sitting on the shelf.” I’d argue that paperback look just as nice.