Spirit Chaser
He was one of Britain’s most famous journalists. Then he became a successful thriller writer. Now Robert Harris’s most political novel yet has inspired a film, in which the central protagonist bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain ex-British prime minister with a messianic gleam in his eye.
Tara Brady, 15 Apr 2010
Robert Harris is gazing at my dictaphone like a physicist might marvel at the Large Hadron Collider. In the current clamour around the 52-year-old, one tends to forget that long before he became a blockbuster novelist and screenwriter, he was a respected journalist and commentator. In his early twenties, he won fans as a staple of such BBC presentations as Panorama and Nationwide; in 1987, he was appointed political editor at The Observer. He can recognise a quality recording device when he sees one, although it must be a while since he’s wielded such a thing in earnest.
“Hmm,” he thinks. “I last did this – where you’re sitting now, I mean – in 2000 and something. It was an interview with Tony Blair for the ill-fated Talk magazine. Anyway I got back home and I couldn’t hear a word. I had to ring the Downing Street press office and they sent me their copy. Then the interview turned out to be controversial and I had the only recording. There was a bit of a fuss, I can tell you.”
For better or worse, it’s impossible to think of Robert Harris without thinking of two particular political bodies: the Nazis and New Labour (insert your own joke here). As a purveyor of fine historical fiction, Mr. Harris has presided over such bestselling titles as Fatherland and Enigma (“I’m spiralling back to World War 2 all the time. Don’t think I haven’t heard all the jokes.”); as a political maven, his relationship with Tony Blair seems neatly emblematic.
Born into a decidedly Old Labour family – Harris Sr. was a self educated Leicestershire printer – Robert Harris was the most convincing voice among the cheerleaders at the New Statesman. Like many of his colleagues at that organ – Martin Amis, Anthony Howard, Julian Barnes, James Fenton and Christopher Hitchens – disillusionment quickly set in. Former friends Harris and Blair would, in particular, fall out over the Iraq war.
“It was all wrong,” says Harris. “The complete capitulation of British interest to America, the scraping before Bush, the implausible case for war, the crusading aspect. The key to Tony Blair is his religious faith. I think he really believes he’s on a mission doing the Lord’s work. He’s an ideologue and conviction politician who divides the world as black hats and white hats. I’m not a believer but I’ve known people who go to church; they’re not necessarily nice people but they maintain a patina of sanctimony. They believe and are sure of their own moral superiority. Add in sucking up to the US and you have a terrible alchemy.”
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