Frederick Forsyth (1938-2025), Source : Wikipedia
"It is cold at six-forty in the morning of a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad." - Opening Line from 'The Day of the Jackal'
Some fifteen years ago, after raking through my father's books, I finally settled on and started reading an old novel at my home, titled 'The Day of the Jackal'. And thus began my tryst with Frederick Forsyth's novels. Frederick Forsyth (1938-2025), former British spy, war correspondent, author and fiction writer passed away early this week, aged 86. Old novels of Frederick Forsyth, reeking of part dusty but absorbing old paper smell, some owned by my father, some acquired by me at various second hand book shops are a prized collection at my home, something that I find comfort that would help me escape the suffocating travails of reality. I often escape to the rich tapestry of fiction woven by the master story teller, gorging on the pages, visiting far off distant places, witnessing fictional assassinations, spy tales and rebellions.
Reading Frederick Forsyth is a pleasure enhancing ritual, an irresistable tour de force, that transports the reader to the Forsythian World of Geo Politics and Power plays, much before the advent of Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence. The tense and slow word build up, his ruthless and lifelike characterization of people with flaws, is atypical. While a fictional assassination on the then French President Charles DeGaulle forms the plot of 'The Day of the Jackal', the theme of mercenaries ('Vive la Morte, Vive la Guerre, Vive la Sacre Mercenaire') permeats through 'The Dogs of War', an audatious kidnapping of American President's Son, with much darker forces at play is detailed in 'The Negotiator'. Although he started his career with non-fiction (The Biafra Story), it is fiction that endeared him to a generation of fiction hungry and good novel starved readers.
It was an intense obsession with the master story teller's works that played a little role in my hobby of reading books, which inter alia, included 'The Odessa Files', 'The Afghan', 'The Icon', 'No Comebacks', 'The Fist of God', etc., No one was amazed when he declared few years back that he actually spied for the British Government! Truth is stranger than fiction!
Om Shanti and Rest in Peace, Frederick Forsyth, and rest assured, your stories continue to enthrall our minds and hearts.
Maheeth Veluvali (Sonu)
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