What do You think about So Disdained (2002)?
Sometimes it's interesting to check in on a once-populat, now mostly forgotten author, and put yourself in a different time. This is the mid 1920s, Britain is trying to find its way back to normal after what's simply known then as The War, and the Soviet Union is beginning to be seen as a threat. Stalin would recently have come to power, though his name isn't mentioned by Shute-- in 1928, it wouldn't really have had much significance.This is a tightly written story, reminiscent of early Grahame Greene, although Greene had actually not begun his career in 1928, so maybe the influence was the other way around.
—Tad Richards
I rather liked this book. It's the second by Shute that I've read, and I'll likely read more of him. It involves a young man who had been a pilot during WWI. During the subsequent ten years he had become an estate manager for a rich guy. He does it well and is more-or-less a member of the family. Driving home one night in the driving rain, he comes across someone walking along the road. He stops to offer they guy a ride and discovers he is an old mate from the air corps. His mate, however, has stayed with flying, the only thing he ever liked or could do competently. He was flying a spy mission for the Russians (this was before the rise of the Nazi's, so the "Reds" were a worry) and crashed his plane. So, we spend the rest of the book trying to save the pilot's bacon, so to speak, while making sure the "intelligence" that he had gathered didn't get back to the man's employers. It's a somewhat complex plot, but a rather interesting story, during a rather interesting period of time.
—Larry Piper
Nevil Shute was a good (if somewhat overlooked now) author best known for A Town Like Alice & On the Beach. So Disdained dates from earlier in his career and it shows to some extent in the slightly weaker characterisation and slightly predictable plot. However his basic ability remains and I was quickly sucked into the story. The central plot preempts the 1950 & onwards trend for cold war fiction - it is essentially a story of bad bolshevik Russians and a lost but honorable Englishman. The book rolls along nicely but it should be said that, to contemporary eyes, the latter part of the book's & its introduction of heroic Italian fascists, sits uncomfortably. That said, this was written shortly after the 1926 general strike and I think the middle classes in particular were worried by "Bolsheviks" and also it is argued as part of the plot development - in the narrators eyes the fascists were the natural antagonists of the Bolsheviks.... Interesting as a period piece and works as a quick & easy read if you can cope with the handsome fascist captain and his men!
—Johanne
