52 LISTENER JUNE 1 2019
BOOKS&CULTURE
by GREG DIXONW
hat makes a good spy? Good
sense suggests the successful
spook ought to be a ghost in
the machine, an unseen eye at
the keyhole, a faceless stealer of secrets.
Hollywood has always seen it otherwise.
Its perfect spy is James Bond, a handsome
rogue who charms and boozes and shags
and drives like a madman, but still saves
the day.
And here’s the thing: Hollywood isn’t
wrong. The infamous and dashing Soviet
agent Richard Sorge – described as “the
most formidable spy in history” by no
less an authority than 007 creator IanFleming – turns out to be almost more
Bond than Bond. In Owen Matthews’
often lively and mostly absorbing new
biography of Sorge, An Impeccable Spy, we
read a near-unbelievable story of a manwho is both a crafty stealer of secrets and
a scene-stealing rogue. Under his cover
as a journalist, he charmed his Nazi and
Japanese enemies and gained access to
their most precious secrets for his SovietFrom Russia
with pluck
The incredible story
of how a Soviet spy
partied his way into
secrets of the Axis.
G
ET
TY
IM
AG
ES
by GILBERT WONGS
earch on Google Maps for the
southern highland district of Skaf-
tártunga in Iceland, where Heiða
Ásgeirsdóttir has tended 500 sheep
since she was 23, and there is only a greyblankness. Her 6000ha farm, Ljótarstaðir,
is just 25km from Katla, an active volcano.
Against this big-sky backdrop of moun-
tains and glaciers, where time is measured
in geological periods, the internet
becomes a silly, momentary distraction.
Ljótarstaðir has been farmed since the
12th century. The name translates as the
light shines over, in the sense of the sun
drawing slowly over the land at dawn, a
phrase that captures today the same sense
of wonder felt by those who saw it 10 mil-
lennia ago.
Amid this ancient isolation, Ásgeirs-
dóttir happily tends her flock, often from
the cab of her Valtra A93 tractor, accom-
panied only by her dog. The twist is that
she worked very briefly as a model, earn-
ing acclaim in New York. She hated that
world and fled Manhattan for Ljótarstaðir.
Her time as a model takes up a page or
so and if that was the hook to make you
pick this up, then this isn’t the book for
you. Written with Icelandic poet SteinunnSigurdardottir, Heiða is a meditative con-
solation for those of us who toil daily in
front of a screen.
We follow a year cast in four seasons
at the edge of the world. In summer, we
learn the intricacies of harvesting hay andhow to keep it sweet. The year progresses
and Ásgeirsdóttir never stops. There’s
constant farm work, preparation for the
storms and snows of winter, and regular
bouts of merriment and alcohol at poetry
slams that appear to be as popular in
Iceland as rugby is here.
The good folk of Skaftártunga gatherMaking a
ewe-turn on
the catwalk
An Icelandic model
turned sheep farmer
stars in an enjoyable
chronicle of rural life.
Against a backdrop of
mountains and glaciers
measured in geological
time, the internet is but amomentary distraction.