I blogged about Alistair MacLean recently. You might’ve seen it. If not, why not? Don’t make me come round there…
Anyhoo.
There’s a scene in ‘Where Eagles Dare’ when Richard Burton completely bamboozles all and sundry with a mind-bending speech in which he claims to be a double agent, who may be a triple agent, who may be none of the above.
It’s a marvellous feat of writing from MacLean and when delivered in Burton’s mellifluous tones becomes instantly riveting.
It’s one example of what we call a reversal, also known as a twist. That it’s a double bluff reversal makes it all the more interesting.
I love reversals.
I love it when a writer or film maker has me thinking one thing one minute and then completely side swipes me.
It’s a magic trick, really – sleight-of-hand. The writer seems to be taking you down one alley, then veers off suddenly in another direction, upending everything you thought or believed up until then.
Misdirection Marathon
For me, the champeen reversal engineer is American author William Goldman. I recall reading ‘Marathon Man’ for the first time, back in the 1970s and being completely stunned when I learned that – spoiler alert! – Babe’s brother was actually the agent known as Scylla and that a character named Janey who I thought was a woman was really a dude!
I mean, seriously- WTF?
This morning I posted a link to an interview with author Harlan Coben who read the book in his teens and has admitted it was a life-changing experience. I know what he means. It proved to me back then that thrillers could be dark AND funny, while there is real skill in leading your reader down a garden path or two.
These reversals could only be pulled off on the page. The movie version did not even attempt to recreate them.I don’t know how they could.
Master magician
Goldman’s tricky.
In ‘Control’ he has a series of chapters that you think are set in the present day but it turns out occured 100 years before.
In ‘Edged Weapons’ (filmed as ‘Heat’, amid a great deal of heartache for all concerned I understand, and now remade as ‘Wild Card’ with Jason Statham) he has a character who works in Las Vegas but who hates gamblers and gambling – yet in a stunning reveal he turns out to be an obsessive punter himself.
And in ‘Magic’, we’re not aware that Fats is a dummy until the big reveal. Again, couldn’t be done on screen (but the movie is still one of my favourites)
All these books are told by a man who knows how to structure a tale and whose prose is so perfect it ought to be outlawed to protect the rest of us.
If you want to read a superb coming-of-age tale, then seek out his ‘Temples of Gold’. It is nothing short of wonderful. I don’t know how many times I’ve read it but I love it every time I do. Even with no reversals.
At some point in the future I’ll return to the subject of William Goldman, because I have more praise to heap upon his shoulders.