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Hmm. I recall thumbing through a friend's copy of Spycatcher. I remember it as having some fascinating details about the misbehaviour of MI5 and its rivalry with MI6, but mainly being very clunkily and messily written, with the stories constantly being derailed by bitchy character assassinations (unsubtly homophobic, for the most part) of the various people he worked with or spied on. The main thing I took away from it was that I wouldn't piss on a copy if it were on fire, the author being a rancid, bigoted paranoiac who thought anybody to the left of Pinochet had no rights at all and his main objection to the British authorities (other than them fucking with his pension) was that they didn't give him more freedom to persecute such people.
The fuss around the book was an interesting historical event and full of irony. I wouldn't say the same of the book itself. A curiosity in some parts, very unpleasant in others.
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I recently read A Highly Civilised Man, Dane Kennedy's book on Burton. It's an interesting take on him - he's trying to situate Burton in Victorian society and explain how in lots of ways he's a product of his time rather than the outlier and pioneer he's made out to be.
He's a fascinating and contradictory character in so many ways, you can see why there's still so much fascination.
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itsbruce
tbc
@biarittz
Currently swapping between a paperback copy of Spycatcher (Peter Wright), and via Kindle on the phone, A Rage To Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton (Mary S. Lovell)
Both excellent reads. Recommended.