Anthony Blunt: His Lives

Miranda Carter's precocious disentangling of the mesh of half-truths that characterise this period of British intelligence, and its intelligentsia, reaps bountiful dividends. Burgess once sniped that Blunt was holding out for canonisation rather than a knighthood, a remark that reflected his highly principled friend's preference for history over politics, despite his clandestine activities. It is history, though, which has the longer memory, and dictates that he is to be remembered more as a spy than an art historian. Blunt's own account of his duplicitous career is embargoed until 2013, and speculation is markedly polarised as to how much it will reveal. Until then, Carter offers a scrupulously researched, finely balanced assessment of his Russian-doll persona and troubled reputation, while boldly establishing her own as a significant new writing talent.--David Vincent

Although I began the book with considerable prejudice, since Anthony Blunt seems to have prospered while his fellow Cambridge spies were living comparatively miserable lives in Moscow, Ms. Carter's sensitive portrayal of this man, whose aloofness stemmed from a fundamental insecurity, changed my mind. She shows us a man who was unwavering in his ideals and loyal to his friends (He waited until 1964--after Guy Burgess had died and Philby and Maclean were 'safe' in Moscow-- to admit his complicity.). She also portrays a tormented man, whose ability to lose himself in his art-history scholarship preserved his sanity and probably saved his life. Publicly disgraced in 1979, stripped of his knighthood and other honors (after a promise of immunity), deserted by all except a few loyal friends, he died soon after. Miranda Carter depicts him as a man who was courageous but tragically flawed.

This book is meticulously researched, so much so that an average enthusiast of espionage literature may find himself adrift among the dozens of friends, acquaintances and enemies whom Anthony Blunt knew, not only Guy Burgess, Kim Philby and the other Cambridge spy protagonists, but also literary figures, including Julian Bell, Louis MacNeice, W.H. Auden; and other personages--who have engendered their own share of speculation--Victor Rothschild, Michael Straight and Goronwy Rees. Precisely because of the plethora of names, the book presents a fascinating glimpse into a fifty-year history of Great Britain from the 1920's onward. And while probably only the most passionate art historians will read every word about Nicholas Poussin and Baroque Rome, the persistent reader will be rewarded by a colorful and witty glimpse into the outrageous life and times of Guy Burgess (Inexplicably no one has written a biography of the wayward spy, but if they do, it should probably be called "My Noisy War"!).

For those afficionados who cannot get enough of the Cambridge Spies (Judging from the numbers of books still being published about them, half a century later, such readers are numerous.), this book is highly recommended!


'A low dishonest decade'   March 8, 2004
 6 out of 9 found this review helpful

This is a masterly biography, confidently earning its many awards. The pressures and influences that shaped the middle class students at Oxford and Cambridge between the wars nudged them into these strange, marginalised figures commenting on and playing with the mass society around them.

For Blunt, it's almost as if the divisions between his many lives began to blur - with the critic, the spy, the homosexual, the teacher, the friend all becoming Le Carre-like Russian dolls, as Carter points out, nested within each other and with a curious blank at the core.

I loved this book for its walk-on cast too: Louis McNeice, WH Auden, the Queen Mother, Brian Sewell and Alan Bennett all grace the index: what other figure could match Blunt for his Byzantine connections?

It seems these fascinating 'traitors', so true to themselves, whoever that self is, will continue to engage...


An almost perfect spy?   December 30, 2003
 6 out of 6 found this review helpful

The biography is aptly titled. Anthony Blunt really was a man with a multi-faceted life - more like a few lives crammed into one - complete with paradoxes and contradictions aplenty. In many ways he was an unlikely spy, and by the same token, an almost perfect one!

This is a meticulously written biography. Carter digs deep and wide with her research and reports back in a calm, measured, credible and lengthy manner. An excellent collage of Blunt is built up. Conflicting views of the man emerge - petty/professional, cold/effusive, insightful/blind, opinionated/persuadable - and this really helps to establish the light and shade in the man's nature. Carter makes human that which could easily have been made monstrous.

The only caution I hazard about this book is that the Pan McMillan paperback version contains numerous, silly typos. Otherwise this is a stimulating, entertaining and sustaining book.


The Most Famous Quintet   November 29, 2002
 8 out of 12 found this review helpful

The individuals who comprised The Cambridge Five have been extensively documented as individuals as well as a group. Miranda Carter's book is worthwhile for it not only brings truly new information to this man's duplicity; she also spends a great deal of time on the man himself. This is a thorough autobiography and not just a spy novel barely elevated to the non-fiction category. Some readers may find the book too long on the man and too brief on his activities as a spy. Anthony Blunt was a traitor, but to limit his long life to that one word is to greatly minimize who this man was. The wide-ranging life he leads together with the positions of influence he held outside of intelligence agencies makes him an even more fascinating character. None of his actions diminish or justify his perfidious conduct; they do make him much more than a one-dimensional traitor to his country.

Most of the spies that are exposed today have often become extremely wealthy for betraying their country. When Blunt was first recruited it was during a time when the Oxford Union Society within the college carried the debate with the motion, "that this house declines to fight for King or Country". In October of 1933 the Labor Party on, "no issue but the pacifist one", according to Stanley Baldwin replaced the Conservatives. And Europe in general was not interested much less enthusiastic about a second world war less than a generation after the first finally ended. Persons notable not only for their fame but also for their gullibility marketed Communism with success including their tours and subsequent spreading of nonsense regarding Potemkin Villages. These folks were believers; they were not making a living. They were supporting something they actually believed in at one time as opposed to those who are on the hunt for their various pieces of silver.

What Miranda Carter meticulously documents is Blunt's life as a nearly unbroken series of either unconventional or anti-establishment choices. There is also a great deal of evidence that as competent an art historian as he may have been, it also appears participating in art fraud was yet another of this man's defects. I found her documentation of his almost ascetic living conditions interesting as well.

There may be something that I am missing but I was amazed with the leniency England treated men like Blunt. In 1964 he admitted to his activities for which he was granted complete immunity. It was not until Margaret Thatcher revealed this deal in 1979 out of either personal anger or thought for political gain was he finally exposed. As the defections of his more notorious comrades had already taken place and England had been greatly embarrassed, it seems odd that fear of further embarrassment would cause them to make a deal with this criminal long after he was a meaningful asset to the Former USSR. Miranda Carter also documents the periods when none of the Cambridge Recruits were believed to be genuine by Moscow, and how vast amounts of information they delivered was never even read.

I have read a number of books on this topic and would recommend this book for anyone who is interested. I expect there will be more books if and when additional documents are found/released, but until then this is the best work I have read on Blunt.