Anthony Blunt: His Lives by Miranda Carter

Anthony Blunt: His Lives Reviews

• 
  Paul

  There were many facets to the glittering career of Anthony Blunt; art historian, director of Courtauld, international art expert, spy, Surveyor of the Queens Pictures and establishment figure. But what he is best remembered for is his betrayal; for he was a traitor.
  
  In this book, Carter has written a forensic dissection of his life, from the privileged education at Marlborough and Cambridge, his early career in the art world, courtier to the royal family and war work in the intelligence services and post war activities where he built his reputation as an academic in the art world. In his early days he held very Marxist views and these were reflected in his articles and writing. A contemporary of Burgess, Maclean and Philby he was one of those recruited whilst at Cambridge by the Soviets. He passed a number of secrets to them during and after the war, nothing to the level of Philby, but crucial information nonetheless. Rather than this being just a principled ideology, he accepted a number of payments from them. After leaving MI5 he was passed papers from Burgess to courier to them.
  
  Burgess and Maclean defected and slowly the net closed in. Philby was sacked from MI6 and the investigations were started on those that knew or were associated with these spies. Blunt was one of those suspected, but there was no evidence initially, but slowly through the smoke and mirrors came the evidence that they needed. The spies extracted a confession from Blunt, and quietly brushed the scandal under the carpet, with the intention of releasing the story after he had died. In 1979 though his treachery was revealed in Parliament by Thatcher. All his honours and knighthoods were stripped and he was hounded by the press.
  
  This was a fascinating book to read in lots of ways. The amount of detail in here is immense too, even covering his visits to post war Germany to recover letters and artworks for the King. Carter has covered with almost clinical precision probably everything that you could ever want to know about Blunt; the others from the Cambridge ring play second fiddle in the book to Blunt as well, making the focus mostly on him. Blunt could have so easily not been a spy, if the right opportunity had presented itself at the time, but his Marxist sympathies and Cambridge contacts meant that he became one. It was not done out of principle either, he was paid for some of the material that he supplied showing that he was committed to these actions. The spy agencies at the time never thought that people from the establishment would ever betray their country. How wrong they were.
  
  And having been betrayed, the establishment then sought to protect their own.
• 
  David

  An engrossing account of an enigmatic character.
  
  Overall, really solid scholarship and a fine job of digging out hard-to-pin-down facts and impressions. Interviews and primary sources bolster what otherwise could be a secondary-source review, as dealing with facts stuck away in secret archives is always a challenge. (One wonders if perhaps more has been opened up in Russia and the UK in the years since the publication of this book.)
  
  Beyond the scholarship, the writing is bright and clear. The author has a viewpoint without being dogmatic. While the book's focus is on Blunt, there's much to learn about British social fabric of the 1920s and 1930s and life in general between WW I and WW II (of a certain class of folks, that is). One can appreciate the Depression-era appeal of the apparent rapid advances in the economy of the USSR -- too bad it was mostly a brutal lie!
  
  The later stages of the book focusing on Blunt's art-history work also were quite interesting to me, although I could understand if one coming to the book looking just for the "spy story" would not find it as compelling. However, the author is very clear in her introductory material that she is writing much more than a "spy story."
  
  NOTE: See the Goodreads review by some other "DAVID" for many great quotes pulled from this book.
• 
  John Graham Wilson

  This is the second time I have read this book about a man who is from top to bottom a total puzzle; perhaps two men in one body, one wonders how a perfect English gentleman (and keeper of the Queens pictures) could ever have been so crazy as to sell secrets to the Russians, even if he had been influenced by communist ideology at Cambridge in the 30s. The author, Miranda Carter, has done such a thorough job on his life and the times, one wonders if anything could ever be added. Scholarship of the highest order.
• 
  David

  "Anglican parishes abroad are often disconcertingly large: when the Bishop of Gibraltar described the extent of his diocese to Pope Pius VI, His Holiness observed, 'Then I’m a parishioner.'"
  
  Public school sex education in the 1920s:
  "You might find some white matter exuding from your private parts. Don’t worry about it. It’s only a sort of disease like measles."
  
  Blunt review:
  "Mr Wilneski has clearly attempted the impossible. But he need not have failed so grossly."
  
  Burgess on Blunt:
  "The trouble with you, Anthony, is that you want to have your cake and eat it and give the impression that you're feeding it to the poor."
  
  Blunt's secret mission to Germany:
  "The Duke of Brunswick would open a drawer and sigh, 'Oh no, not another golden fleece…'"
  
  Blunt on women:
  "Women had very little influence on art. And the influence that they did have was perfectly wretched."
  
  A poor old chap:
  "...and Hugh Benham, an old Harrovian from a rich East Anglian family who had a disfiguring skin disease and spent much of his time in his pyjamas. (Benham eventually died in Tangier, apparently so drunk he fell out of a hotel bedroom.)"
  
  "Those (guardsmen) who liked to make themselves 'available' were to be found in certain pubs around Buckingham Palace and the West End, including the Bag o' Nails near the Wellington Barracks."
  NB: We used to go to the Bag o' Nails after work! It was full of civil servants in those days.
  
  Blunt on holiday 1:
  "He had driven the battered old Railton, given to him by Burgess's old boyfriend Peter Pollock, to Rome with the handbrake on. He had been so exasperated by its overheating that he abandoned it on the via del Corso"
  
  Blunt on holiday 2:
  "Within a few hours of their meeting, Blunt asked King, who was himself homosexual, about 'queer' life in Athens. Was it easy to find sex? What was the going rate? His specification was 'big, butch, good teeth'. Rather embarrassingly – 'I was surprised by his lack of discretion' – King found him a young man, discovering in the process that picking up a young man in Athens was 'far easier than finding a taxi'. Afterwards Blunt seemed happy and relaxed. 'Oh, I am grateful to you. That was just what I needed. I feel much, much better now.' That night King was woken by Blunt screaming. He had had a nightmare."
  
• 
  JOSEPH OLIVER

  Just add one more voice to the praise for this very well researched book. I knew nothing really about this man other than he was some sort of spy for the Russians. Having read the book - and it is the best part of 500 pages - I feel I not only know the man (in as much as he could ever allow himself to be known) but I also know about the culture and background which inspired men like him to pass information to the Russians during the war and feel that they were in fact contributing to the fall of Fascism.
  The Art World itself was also a closed book to me but is a lot more understandable now. Although the book is very well researched and annotated you do feel that there are still wide areas left untouched or glossed over but I presume this is because of Official Secrets or the unwillingness of so many people not to become involved or speak out. Blunt himself was notoriously compartmentalised and kept one side of him hidden from the other so that even those close to him had no idea he had other sides to his character. A definitive book no doubt and would form the basis for any further research on the man and his work as more information becomes available from the archives. It is also rare that such scholarship and fluid writing blend in the one book.
• 
  Adam

  A fair-minded, interesting assessment of a great art historian with a well-hidden personal history.
• 
  Ben Emlyn-Jones

  Very interesting life story of a controversial man. I felt sorry for Anthony Blunt when he was exposed. Whatever he had done wrong he regretted. He was also a minor figure in the Cambridge spy ring compared to the other three, Burgess, Philby and Maclean. He was active in World War II when the USSR was an allied nation, not the Cold War when it become the enemy. When he was berated by the Prime minister and the press it had been over thirty years since he was a Soviet agent. The story is a textbook example of how heartless and cruel the mainstream media can be. How many people just believe it unquestioningly and join what is effectively a lynch mob. Many people have done far worse than Blunt and the press leaves them in peace, or even celebrates them! Look at Jimmy Savile.
• 
  Gayla Bassham

  This was a reread for me -- I originally read it when it was first released, and then felt an urge to reread after the Blunt episode of the new season of The Crown (which totally screwed up the timeline, but that is a side issue). This is a great biography and again left me with a lot of sympathy for Blunt. He remains a bit of an enigma, though -- what motivated him? Who was he, really? Did he even know himself?
• 
  Booksingarden

  Really, really good book about Anthony Blunt Englishman who was spy for the Russians, a homosexual at the time when that was a crime, a world-famous art historian and knighted by Queen Elizabeth.
  
  This book was incredibly well researched and at 500 pages, a wee bit of a slog but a brilliant picture of such a complex and inexplicable man.
  
  
• 
  Maureen Ball

  The true story of Anthony Blunt, Oxford-educated English spy, famous art historian, prolific author, keeper of the Queen's paintings, director of London's Courtauld Institute and homosexual. Fascinating.
• 
  Alicia Pearson

  I really wanted to like this book but it felt a little tough to get through.
• 
  David Alonso vargas

  Grandísimo ensayo muy bien documentado pero su faceta de espía, si bien lo trata a pinceladas a lo largo de todo el libro, no es como para subtitularlo como un libro de espías.
• 
  Kerry

  Hmm hmmm hhmmmmm, very odd book. Completely obsessive details of everyone this man attended a party with, kind of reminded me of college who went to what party culture except I never cared then and these guys care up until the day they die and it makes it so boring! Even if the people he was going to parties with were famous poets, which I can't say that half the people I went to college with even read a poem unless forced. I honestly did not know who he was before reading the book, kind of thought he was someone interesting and distinguished but this makes being a success at Cambridge or in the Art world seem insanely dull and easy to do. Did teach me a lot about British Bloomsbery movement and little bit Spanish Civil War. And also......being a spy during WWII way way more simple and boring than you would think, spying was SO easy before the computer tech age.
  
  Well written however, author is true Anthony Blunt tradition is meticulous and brings together a plethora of random facts into clear plots and themes. However, much of what she has to go on is opinion or hearsay so hard to take as fact which makes everything about this man go up to question. Which may be the point, we will never know who Anthony Blunt is.
• 
  David Manuel

  Quite a few books have been written about the Cambridge spies, and there are other books about Anthony Blunt. All that I have read focus on espionage and tend to the polemical. Carter's treatment of Blunt it different. Painstakingly researched, this book delves into much more than Blunt's treason, discussing in depth his academic career, personal relationships, and much more. What results is a detailed portrait of a very enigmatic man; still not a particularly flattering portrait, in my opinion. Along the way, the reader meets quite an assortment of the odd people who made up much of England's academic and intelligence communities in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Carter's occasional comments on trying to sort through the various accounts of events offered up by these people is illuminating: apparently it is quite difficult to ascertain facts from the mish-mash of ego-driven screeds, gin- and whiskey-besotted commentaries, and government disinformation that make up so much of the literature about this period. Carter does an admirable job of parsing the data into an interesting biography. Many readers may find the length and detail of this book overwhelming. Those interested in Cold War espionage and the larger context within which it existed will find it worth the effort.
• 
  Gerry

  Most people may well be able to associate with multiple lives rather than one life when considering an autobiography, or when someone chooses to write a biography of them, but it is doubtful that many such lives will be quite so diverse as those of Sir Anthony Blunt.
  
  Miranda Carter captures them all perfectly from Cambridge student, through not-so-good military man, to MI5 representative, to spy for the Russians, to art historian, to art expert, to curator of the Queen's pictures, to Knighthood. How did Sir Anthony do it? He must have been a marvel to comparmentalise the treachery with his honest working life. He is quoted as saying that it was due to plenty of "whisky" and "work, work, work".
  
  He was much disliked by some, much loved by others and many of those in the latter category stuck with him once he had been revealed as a spy, which in itself, arguably, took too long considering that he was suspected and interviewed some 20 years or more before he was outed.
  
  A warts and all bigraphy, not surprisingly, that gets better as it progresses. Worth a read for those with a spying bent and also for those Poussain aficiandos!
• 
  Pasti Jones

  A well written and researched book on a man well documented.
  
• 
  Betaceti

  One of the best and most surprising biographies I ever read.