Reviewed by Mark Steadman
The Inventive Life of George H. McFadden: Archaeologist, Poet, Scholar, Spy
by Richard Carreño
Camino Books, Inc.
September 2024, Hardcover, 280 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1680980608
The new book by Richard Carreño, a biography of George H. Mcfadden, charts his journey from Princeton to Cyprus and his untimely death at sea. Born into wealth in Philadelphia, and after graduating from Princeton his obsession with archeology leads him to set sail for Cyprus where he went to dig at the acropolis of Kourion under the aegis of his alma mater. Living in what is now the Kourion Archeological Museum George wrote, translated and studied history. His idiosyncrasy can be summed up in his mantra: “Where the purpose of a rule in any instance does not seem to apply. I have ignored the rule.”
A touch platitudinous, but for some reason a phrase that Carreño feels bears repeating from time to time throughout the book, but so begins the story of George H McFadden III.
The writing Is marvellously indulgent. He has a penchant for French terms like “chacun a son gout” and “bonhomie” as well as pleasingly old-fashioned phrases such as “kith and kin”, “betwixt and between” and “home and hearth”. He also has the fun tendency of juxtaposing slang with Latin or antiquated phrases as in the following: “Wartime bed-hopping in Alexandria was time-honoured – but only spoken of in sotto voce tones.”
Or: “Rainey attempted bonhomie and collegiality. But his efforts mostly filled, often just shorts of puffery.”
The story bounces along, as McFadden does, through Europe on his archeological quests, with the odd Italian, French or Latin phrase thrown in here and there. He writes with a sense of humour as well. Comedy is about surprises, so said the late, great Norm Macdonald and Carreño has a good feel for misdirection as in these Bill Bryson-esque passages:
“While Fales, Cox, Last, and others, onsite at Kourion, tackled their tasks, oblivious to Raineys and Madeira’s plans for empire-building elsewhere, McFadden took time to slack off.”
“The director knew that McFadden lacked the swag of academic rank.”
The only real issue with the book is that the subject is quite a boring one. George McFadden was an archeologist who pioneered American archeology in Cyprus, unfortunately however he never discovered, say, a dinosaur or the city of Atlantis. If the book crescendos at any point, therefore,
it would be his death. Carreño tries to make a fist out of drawing some controversy out of that, apparently some of his obituaries spelt his name wrong, but there’s not much by the way of drama.
One slight bit on intrigue is the fact that McFadden is gay, as Carreño puts it: “His sexual preferences dogged him in a prejudicial America where racism, nativism and homophobia often prevailed.” Carreño phrases his. But again none of this homophobia ever really manifests itself in an interesting way. He isn’t sent to prison like Oscar Wilde or poisoned to death Alan Turing. Again the book never really takes off.
The author also has a love of factoids, or questionable facts that sound cool (my favourite). We learn that “the Cold War” is a phrase potentially coined by George Orwell, the “Iron Curtain” was probably coined by Churchill. Other than that there are some nice turns of phrase “Always Cary Grant in a world of Gary Coopers.” But the book has a lot more style than substance.
About the reviewer: Mark Steadman writes book reviews and articles freelance. Before taking up writing he studied philosophy at Kings College London before working as a teacher. He now writes full-time.