#57: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre

Tags

100 books, book review, books, espionage, le Carre, literature, spy, thriller

After the intellectual workout of reading Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, I decided to read something a bit less exhausting and more purely entertaining.  Fortunately, I had on my shelf one more novel by John Le Carré– Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  This is another espionage classic from Le Carré, himself a former intelligence operative.

Tinker, Tailor once again features the everyman spy, George Smiley, who finds himself drawn out of retirement to hunt a Soviet mole in the upper echelons of Britain’s spy agency.  There are four primary suspects, and the book follows Smiley’s efforts to discover the guilty party.  Along the way he deals with his own feelings of disappointment and despair in the face of his wife’s infidelities and his inevitable aging.  This novel is a quick read despite being over 300 pages, and is highly entertaining.  Le Carré does an excellent job of building suspense as Smiley laboriously uncovers the traitor’s identity.  The last 150 pages are impossible to put down.  In contrast to many other thriller/espionage writers, Le Carré uses only the words he actually needs to convey any particular scene.  So rather than getting a decent plot dressed up in words clearly out of a thesaurus (I’m looking at you, Clive Cussler), the reader gets an excellent plot served up without ostentation.

The one drawback to Le Carré’s writing is that it relies very heavily on the jargon of the British spy agency of his day, meaning the average modern American reader may have trouble keeping up with some of the action.  A bit of effort at the beginning (and the use of the internet on occasion) is more than enough to overcome this small obstacle.  This book was highly entertaining and is a must read for fans of the espionage genre.  I also look forward to the upcoming film version, starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.

The Current Count:

57 Read, 43 To Go

#39: A Murder of Quality by John Le Carre

Tags

100 books, book review, books, le Carre

Last night I finished another novel by John Le Carré to bring the total up to thirty-nine.  July might be the month that I get back up to speed.  I am still eleven books behind where I need to be, but am making progress.

A Murder of Quality is John Le Carré’s second novel and again features the understated protagonist George Smiley.  Although Le Carré is known as a spy novelist, this book is a straightforward mystery.  A murder occurs under suspicious circumstances, and Smiley investigates as a favor to a friend.  His occupation in the British Secret Service is a footnote to the story.  The murder is set against the backdrop of Carne, a fictional elite boarding school along the lines of Eton or Harrow.  Le Carré does an excellent job satirizing the obsolete class structure of 1960’s Britain (that some would argue persists to this day).  While it doesn’t rise to the level of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, A Murder of Quality is well worth reading.

The Current Count:

39 Read, 61 To Go

#13: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre

Tags

100 books, book review, books, le Carre

Every so often, a book comes out of nowhere to completely blow you away.  The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre was one of those books for me.  Based on the recommendation of my friend Luke Walker, I picked up book number thirteen from Half Price Books earlier this week.  I expected an action book with a good plot.  What I got was much more.   The Spy Who Came in from the Cold tells the story of Cold War spy Alec Leamas, who agrees to a final mission for British covert intelligence in an effort to stave off his inevitable retirement from field work.  The mission is incredibly dangerous, but Leamas is willing to take the risk in order to eliminate his East German rival, Hans-Dieter Mundt.  Leamas pretends to defect in an effort to make the East Germans believe Mundt is a British double agent.  I won’t say what the outcome is, because I do not want to spoil this book.  If you like espionage books, read it.  If you like mystery books, read it.  If you like crisp, intelligent prose, read it.  Le Carre’s book transcends the espionage genre.  It is a reflection on the nature of Cold War foreign policy and a scathing indictment of utilitarian political theory (the good of the many outweighs the good of the few).  It is a touching look at the impact of love on even the most hardened individuals.  Most significantly, it is a wonderfully perceptive examination of human nature and the modern world’s total indifference to it.

The Current Count:

13 Read, 87 To Go