Precipice

What a strange book.

In the early years of the 20th century, UK Prime Minister Henry Asquith, was conducting an affair - fervid but by all accounts unconsummated - with woman almost 40 years his junior. He wrote hundreds of letters to Venetia Stanley, many of which have survived. And they form the basis of this historical novel, that follows the affair from the years before the First World War until its – the affair’s - end in 1915 when she married another man.

Robert Harris has used these letters to build a story around. And it’s his usual readable narrative. But like another novel of his, Act of Oblivion, which followed the hunt for the men who signed the death warrant for King Charles 1st, it’s also bound by the history it’s set in. Harris can imagine – as he does with Stanley’s letters to Asquith, which weren’t preserved – but he can’t change the history – a la Quentin Tarantino – to make a melodrama. 

It’s not as if the story fizzles out, trapped in the historical chronology – as happened for me with Act of Oblivion – but it can’t get around it. So what ends up being the most gripping aspect of the story is Asquith’s increasing ardour and Stanley’s increasing detachment. You can feel the pressure building in him as her interest declines. How will it end?

Well, a quick trip to Wikipedia will tell you that. Which means you’re left with a failing romance, a little bit of political intrigue, the inexorable approach of the war, and the realization that it won’t all be over by Christmas. (As Lord Kitchener explains in his first appearance in the narrative.)

I liked this book. I like almost all Robert Harris’ books. But I think what I like and admire most here is his ability to spin a good read out of a history he can’t manipulate.