Magic Classical Book Club: "Intelligence" by Robert Newman

Today’s guest on the Magic Classical Book Club is Rob Newman who will be talking to Tim Smith about his new novel: "Intelligence"

Oxford, 1938. Ida and Medora are two brilliant young philosophers at the heart of a group who gather in storied rooms to dance, drink and debate theories of right and wrong.

But as the world spins towards war, theoretical questions of life and death become all too real. While her friends are called up to do intelligence work, Ida, the irrepressible Texan outsider, seeks academic distraction. Then she stumbles across secret Nazi information that could radically change the direction of the war. Can she and Medora capture the attention of the spymasters and mandarins in London in time to save thousands of lives?

Seductive, witty and page-turning, Intelligence is the unputdownable new novel from one of the UK's best-loved writers and comedians.

Tim firstly asked what goes on in this book:

“Yeah, so Intelligence is set in mainly in London and France and also in Oxford, and it's about how these two young philosophers, Ida and Madora stumble upon the greatest military secret in the world and no one will listen to them. That's basically the sort of situation. So in 1938 it starts, and they're both still teaching a philosophy at Somerville, at this women's college in Oxford, and then on the outbreak of war, Madora, known as Mary, gets a job in kind of low ranking intelligence, job deciphering aerial reconnaissance photographs, up in the north, circular in Wembley. And Ida, her boyfriend, has also been recruited too, he is gone to work in London for MI14 and so. And she feels everyone else is doing the exciting cloak and dagger stuff, but because she's from Texas, in sentimental homage to my grandmother who comes from Downham County, Texas, there's in the United States, the war, there's no exciting intelligence jobs for her. So she goes on sabbatical to the French Ardennes. It's the phony war. France is protected by the Maginot line is while she's down in of all places, an upper paralithic cave, looking at 20,000 year old bones that she stumbles upon this, this German military secret.”

Tim then asked where he got the idea for the book:

“Yeah. Well, I've always been fascinated by Second World War, and I like those films like Indiana Jones, where you go from sort of academia into action.

_“But the story that we tell ourselves about the golden generation sometimes makes 'em seem like they were superior beings, but at the beginning of the war, everything was chaotic. All the wrong people were in charge. And it took a couple of years before things got sort of sorted out.”_

And also there was a great deal of social change happening like so, because there were no men in the university anymore. Women were free in philosophy. And then in that area of aerial reconnaissance photo of photography, which hasn't been much written about, men and women had sort of equal standing in, in that world. Where unlike say, Bletchley Park which is much more where the women were sort of secretarial and the men had all the executive exciting jobs.”

Tim then asked, as Rob still does stand up comedy, whether he always wanted to be a novelist:

“I always thought when I grow up, I'm going to be a novelist.

But writing standup, I think it helps. I've been a sort of professional writer for sort of nearly 40 years now with the writing for the radio or live shows or writing books. And I do think what you learn are in some ways transferable, like people who often say you look most relaxed when you are doing a voice, when you're not doing your own voice. And I think in the book, there's no sort of authorial voice. I like to go use that free and direct style where you go through the characters and are always in there. And so I think that's similar.”

If you want to listen back to Tim's full interview with Rob Newman, click here to see all of Tim's past shows.