The land of the freebie, the home of the rave
Simon Henry
THE VENERABLE BEAD by Richard Condon Michael Joseph, £14.99, pp. 304 Take a population which arms itself with guns, an administrative capital riddled with bribery and corruption and a President's office filled by a buffoon and you have modern-day America. At least that is Richard Condon's view. One of America's 'How can I put this Pollard? You're de trop, excessive, extra, inessential, inordinate, redundant, supererogatory, superfluous, supernumerary, surplus, unnecessary, unwanted . . . ' most popular humorists, he has been making the most of the country's ills for 40 years with a remarkable talent for natural and comic dialogue, a genius for farce and a gift for the sharp one-liner.
The Venerable Bead leads us through the extraordinary adult life of Leila Aluja, a patriotic, red-blooded American citizen of Iraqi descent. Having convinced the FBI's director of her brilliant anti-communist credentials, she is billetted to smash a Sino- Albanian spy ring centred on Hollywood. She breaks into the movie business and falls in love with the powerful Joe Raynard, 'the only figure in film history who had ever been awarded the Oscar for agenting'. Joe, however, is a leader of this espionage outfit (real name: Josef Shquitonja). Com- plications are inevitable, she forsakes show- biz and turns her attention to the law. Becoming a partner in a leading Washing- ton practice she lobbies effectively on behalf of CANCER (Center for American National Cigarette Education and Research) and the National Gun Carriers Association. Still greater success awaits her when she becomes a PR consultant, man- aging to convince the American public that a war to liberate a family-owned oil-rich country would be not only a duty but also great fun. From here, her success takes her to the head of the world's largest fast-food corporation and her true vocation: market- ing tuna burgers.
Her explanation for this worldly success is the Venerable Bead itself, a ruby given as a wedding present by Josef. His 146- year-old father had stolen it from a Rus- sian grand duchess earlier in the century whilst on a bank-robbing spree with Joseph Stalin.
The blurb claims that 'Only the master could keep this story under control — just', and that is true. There really are so many strands, such is the exciting life of Leila, that it is a miracle that it works at all. From Dorset to Washington; Beijing to Holly- wood; the movie industry to international espionage; yoghurt-making to marketing tofu pizzas; fifth-century Gaelic folk tales to Ghed, an Albanian dialect — the range of the book is huge. Yet it fits together like a carefully crafted jigsaw.
Despite his jocularity, Condon can still make his serious intention known. He ridicules the Second Amendment, still in force but passed over 200 years ago, to pro- tect the immigrant population from the indiginous Indians. He produces a startling montage of the frailty of the democratic political system when the bribes and pres- sures exerted by the lobbying system grow to uncontrollable proportions as in the USA. He paints a picture of the govern- ment propaganda machine in action and its effects on the population. Get a couple of folk heroes to endorse a policy and you have the people on your side. Like P. J. O'Rourke, Condon with this critique of the US administration, with its inefficiency, corruption and stupidity, hits a nerve.
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