The Untouchable by John Banville
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another near masterpiece, which does not leave me a choice about the rating. Mr. Banville presents the life story of Victor Maskell (Anthony Blunt in real life), one of the "Cambridge Five", a ring of spies working in Great Britain for the Soviet Union in 1930s to 1950s.

To me, the central question the novel is why men of the highest privilege embraced the Soviet-flavored Marxist ideology. Why was an upper-class, Cambridge-educated intellectual, an eminent art historian, and a relative of the royal family eager to pass information to the Soviets?

There is so much more: nearly clinical observations of human psychology, questions on the nature of one's identity, even a glimpse into the closeted gay world of the times. But first and foremost, there is the brilliant prose. I kept re-reading many, many passages to savor the stunningly gorgeous English.

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