Many readers, especially Canadians, will know of John Ralston Saul as a leading public intellectual whose non-fiction critical-commentary and philosophical has had a marked uptake in social discussion and public debate. Books like Voltaire's Bastard, The Unconscious Civilization, and Reflections of a Siamese Twin are viewed by many as exemplars of non-fiction that is both reflective and literary. But, whenever I mention it, I find almost no one is aware of his early novels. With this post, I wish to rectify this.
I mentioned in an earlier "Literarture" posting on Arturo Perez-Reverte's THE PAINTER OF BATTLES that I have a collecting passion for literature in three fields -- legal fiction, art fiction, and political thrillers/espionage fiction. This includes first editions of all of John Ralston Saul's first four novels, including the taut and lean inaugural book, The Birds of Prey, a cause celebre book in France (written while JRS lived in Paris during a certain globe-trotting, swashbuckling period in his life) that I recommend highly.
The specific book I wish to recommend in this posting is the second in the Field Trilogy books, named after a journalist named Field who knocks about Southeast Asia forever looking for his moral compass. This second Field book is called The Next Best Thing. (The other two Field books are Baraka, the first, and The Paradise Eaters, the second.) Here is the blurb on the book from JRS's own site, which is a little tighter and shorter than the book jacket blurb of the first edition:
James Spenser is a man obsessed by beauty – a collector haunted by his almost supernatural response to art. A sophisticated, complex character, he would seem the last man on earth to turn to theft. But his target is exceptional: twenty 11 th-century Buddhas from the deserted city of Pagan, Burma – their value, $1 million each.
Teaming up in Thailand with Field, a drunken expatriate journalist, and Blake, an American Baptist minister-cum-guerilla leader, Spenser finds himself unwittingly embroiled in a deadly web of private and public feuds: from the bizarre relationship between Blake and his girlfriend Marea, with whom Spenser, too, becomes involved, to the bloody rivalries of the guerrilla armies and opium dealers vying for power at any cost. Ruthless leaders and desperate individuals are brought face to face in a life and death struggle for supremacy.
It is the character study and psychological profiling of the impassioned art lover who becomes an obsessed collector, and then an immoral looter of ancient art, that many will find a fascinating aspect of a book that stands firmly in the Graham Greene tradition of the literary political (and indeed adventure) thriller. JRS' insights into the human condition wrapped in a taut fictional narrative deserve to be better known, and enjoyed.
That said, I notice that Vintage Canada's website only has Baraka, the first of the Field Trilogy books, listed as in print (since the book was reissued in 1997 in trade paperback form) and available for purchase. As for The Next Best Thing, the online major book sellers source only three used copies. However, ABEBOOKS.COM reveals many more secondhand copies available, and that is where I would recommend you look for the book. If you go to THIS LINK, you can then narrow the search results on the page to correspond to booksellers nearest you.
I mentioned in an earlier "Literarture" posting on Arturo Perez-Reverte's THE PAINTER OF BATTLES that I have a collecting passion for literature in three fields -- legal fiction, art fiction, and political thrillers/espionage fiction. This includes first editions of all of John Ralston Saul's first four novels, including the taut and lean inaugural book, The Birds of Prey, a cause celebre book in France (written while JRS lived in Paris during a certain globe-trotting, swashbuckling period in his life) that I recommend highly.
The specific book I wish to recommend in this posting is the second in the Field Trilogy books, named after a journalist named Field who knocks about Southeast Asia forever looking for his moral compass. This second Field book is called The Next Best Thing. (The other two Field books are Baraka, the first, and The Paradise Eaters, the second.) Here is the blurb on the book from JRS's own site, which is a little tighter and shorter than the book jacket blurb of the first edition:
James Spenser is a man obsessed by beauty – a collector haunted by his almost supernatural response to art. A sophisticated, complex character, he would seem the last man on earth to turn to theft. But his target is exceptional: twenty 11 th-century Buddhas from the deserted city of Pagan, Burma – their value, $1 million each.
Teaming up in Thailand with Field, a drunken expatriate journalist, and Blake, an American Baptist minister-cum-guerilla leader, Spenser finds himself unwittingly embroiled in a deadly web of private and public feuds: from the bizarre relationship between Blake and his girlfriend Marea, with whom Spenser, too, becomes involved, to the bloody rivalries of the guerrilla armies and opium dealers vying for power at any cost. Ruthless leaders and desperate individuals are brought face to face in a life and death struggle for supremacy.
It is the character study and psychological profiling of the impassioned art lover who becomes an obsessed collector, and then an immoral looter of ancient art, that many will find a fascinating aspect of a book that stands firmly in the Graham Greene tradition of the literary political (and indeed adventure) thriller. JRS' insights into the human condition wrapped in a taut fictional narrative deserve to be better known, and enjoyed.
That said, I notice that Vintage Canada's website only has Baraka, the first of the Field Trilogy books, listed as in print (since the book was reissued in 1997 in trade paperback form) and available for purchase. As for The Next Best Thing, the online major book sellers source only three used copies. However, ABEBOOKS.COM reveals many more secondhand copies available, and that is where I would recommend you look for the book. If you go to THIS LINK, you can then narrow the search results on the page to correspond to booksellers nearest you.
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