Interesting! Surprising! Having to rethink what I thought I knew, but hell - seems like I'm having to do that on a daily basis now anyway. Check it ouInteresting! Surprising! Having to rethink what I thought I knew, but hell - seems like I'm having to do that on a daily basis now anyway. Check it out....more
His last couple (imho) weren’t really up to par - his par, which is smarter than the average bear - but this one - wow! Certainly because it goes backHis last couple (imho) weren’t really up to par - his par, which is smarter than the average bear - but this one - wow! Certainly because it goes back to George Smiley days, but also the whole way it’s constructed is a step UP.
Dunno if you are familiar with it, but the premise is Peter Guillam - who worked for Smiley and ran agents behind the Iron Curtain in the Cold War days - is an old man now and long retired, but called back into “the Circus� to answer questions about allegations he’d subverted justice in the case of Alec Leamas (The Spy Who Came In From The Cold).
I don’t know how familiar you are with the storyline of the George Smiley novels, but Smiley suspected there was a mole placed somewhere high up in the Circus (British overseas secret service) compromising agents in place and leaking secrets to the Soviet Union. While the titles of those novels sound kinda schmaltzy, the writing is brilliant! I have to read it aloud sometimes just to feel what it’s like to roll his words off my tongue.
Well, this one has lots of flashback to those days, but with the advantage of insight by one who was there in the thick of it (meaning the narrator, Peter Guillam), so we get his viewpoint about things we experienced in those early events along with his own secrets and passions revealed that flesh out a character who’d always kept pretty tightlipped and enigmatic in those past novels. And we find out things we didn’t know before...
So, all in all, it revitalizes all those already-utterly superb storylines and elevates the whole pantheon. There’s a visual image for you - take it literally - be my guest.
If you haven’t read the Smiley novels, you are in for a treat (maybe, possibly).
Call for the Dead (1961) A Murder of Quality (1962) The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) The Looking Glass War (1965) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) Smiley's People (1979) The Secret Pilgrim (1990) A Legacy of Spies (2017)
I’d advise reading them in this order. If pressed for time (world ending later today, etc.), maybe just the trilogy:
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) Smiley's People (1979)
(By the way, didn’t know this, but Le Carre is credited with coining the term ‘mole� so he and I share that rarified atmosphere of gifting you mere mortals with new coins)
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