(no subject)

[skygiants]

Okay I know that everyone has been telling me for years that I ought to read John le Carré and I knew in my heart that I ought to read John le Carré, but the time had not yet come, the stars had not aligned, etc., ANYWAY hey surprise it turns out Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is extremely good? Who could have foreseen this!

Of course the Kim Philby Situation of "one of the head guys in charge of identifying Russian moles is in fact a Russian mole" on which the book is loosely based is inherently fascinating, and le Carré is an absolute master at depicting the murky and unhappy world of spycraft in all its grim banality -- one of the characters gets a stern letter from the bureau telling him that the driver's license for his cover alias is in danger of expiring and that if he doesn't take steps to renew it soon he should be in expectation of a disciplinary letter! THIS is it, this is what I want from espionage stories is the horrible truth of the fact that if you have three cover identities that just means you have to go to the DMV thrice -- but in addition to this stuff which I knew going in and looked forward to, there were a couple things in particular that really struck me:

- there are women in it? would never have known from osmosis! specifically George Smiley's wife is in it, or rather not in it, because she's currently moved out to shack up with somebody else, a not infrequent state of affairs. I think I might actually have osmosed that if I osmosed anything, but the way their marriage is broadly portrayed is far more interesting than I was expecting and I am now deeply invested in it -- messy and unfaithful, horribly negotiated polyamory, but with a core of honesty and investment in each other that I found really compelling! Ann does not feel like a token Adulterous Wife but like a person, and I realize that this may not be true across other George Smiley books but I very much enjoyed it here

- the frank and bitter acknowledgment of the human costs of the Cold War games being played in the upper halls of MI5 -- there's a moment in particular when Smiley goes to talk with a Czech contact about the mission that we've known from the start of the book left one British character badly injured, which everyone is Very Concerned About; only at this point do we learn that this mission also resulted in the deaths of seven or eight Czech operatives, and the way it hits at that moment and what it reveals about the priorities of everyone else involved feels absolutely brutal

- okay on a lighter note, Smiley's story about trying to recruit his counterpart on the other side and identifying with him so strongly, finding him so personally compelling, that he accidentally ends up revealing all his own vulnerable spots instead ... simply a perfect nemesis situation and one simply loves to see it!

So ... if one was going to read a next le Carré, which one ought one to target? This is an open invitation for everyone who has been telling me to read these books (or anyone who hasn't) to pitch your faves

Comments

[evewithanapple]

I vote The Constant Gardener for your next read, not for any actual quality reasons, but because it was inspired by a famously shady Canadian pharmaceutical CEO who was mysteriously* murdered in 2017 so it holds a proximal fascination for me.

*his son did it

*allegedly, Jonathan Sherman's lawyers if you're reading this, it does not meet the standard for libel

[troisoiseaux]

INTERESTING. I remember hearing about the murder when it happened but I haven't been following the investigation since, and I didn't know Le Carré wrote a book inspired by it???

[ambyr]

I am very fond of the film adaptation.

[flemmings]

Interesting. Why do you think the son did it?

[skygiants]

THIS DOES SOUND PROXIMALLY FASCINATING

[coffeeandink]

I love this book and recommend finishing the Karla trilogy (The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People). The Smiley books earlier than TTSS aren't as good, IMO, even The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

I still haven't read most of le Carré, but my other favorite of the ones I have read is A Perfect Spy.

[princessofgeeks]

I second this. I have read a ton of Le Carre and these are great.

Then also The Night Manager just because the miniseries with Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Colman and Hugh Laurie is so damn good. Better than the book, I thought.

But Smiley and his world remains my favorite.

[skygiants]

I ended up reading Smiley's People next because I found it on my dad's shelf while on vacation, but A Perfect Spy is also on my list because there is a great poster of it up in a work bathroom I use frequently ....

[starlady]

I would finish the Karla trilogy. Then you can go on to the other Smileys (not as good but still worth reading, I'd say), or pick up some of his more recent books.

[skygiants]

I was blown away to realize how many extremely recent books he had, I'd been thinking of him very much as an 80's author because of the books that I'd grown up with on the shelves ...

[troisoiseaux]

The only other Le Carré I've read is The Night Manager and I... would not necessarily recommend it...

[skygiants]

Night Manager not coming up particularly well in this comment section!

[shadaras]

Y'know, despite having really loved the original TV show version of Tinker Tailor (the remake was also fun but I didn't like it as much; the slow pacing of the original fits the themes better), I'd never thought about reading the novel? xD I should, probably! It sounds delightful!

[skygiants]

I definitely want to watch the original TV miniseries now, too!

[sovay]

Ann does not feel like a token Adulterous Wife but like a person, and I realize that this may not be true across other George Smiley books but I very much enjoyed it here

She continues to feel like a person as far as I'm concerned.

I also have significant feelings about Bill Haydon and Jim Prideaux.

So ... if one was going to read a next le Carré, which one ought one to target?

If you are going to continue with the trilogy, The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley's People (1979). To be honest, I tend to re-read Tinker, Tailor and then skip straight to Smiley's People, but I am sure there's something in the middle book that is worth dipping into at least once.

The first two Smiley novels, Call for the Dead (1961) and A Murder of Quality (1962), are much more like traditional detective novels that happen to star Smiley, but I am fond of them and they are not without some of the classic le Carré elements; he was always interested in the human costs.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) deserves its reputation; it is the first le Carré I ever read; you may wish to have something a little lighter on standby as a chaser; nonetheless I re-read it a lot.

The Secret Pilgrim (1990) is a mosaic novel, considered minor, probably is, I really like it. One of the reasons I like it, actually, is a near-throwaway line about Ann and Smiley's marriage.

The Tailor of Panama (1996) is a very dark farce, inspired by Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana (1958) but going further. I was introduced to the story first with the 2001 film which I may like better, but it bled back to the novel.

The Constant Gardener (2001) is a conspiracy thriller whose real-life basis is probably less important than the degree to which le Carré hated corporations, but the degree to which le Carré hated corporations and their mutual complicity with governments was considerable and good on him for it.

Our Kind of Traitor (2010) may also be minor le Carré in that it is less an indictment of systems than a kind of throwback hall of mirrors, but it is probably my favorite of his late novels. A Legacy of Spies (2017) is the last of the Smiley cycle and important for that reason, but I did not have the same emotional reaction to it; your mileage may vary.

The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life (2016) is the closest le Carré ever came that I know about to writing a memoir and it's great. I still faintly regret not writing to him to ask about Squadron Leader X (1943).

[aurumcalendula]

To be honest, I tend to re-read Tinker, Tailor and then skip straight to Smiley's People

Same here!

[serriadh]

The BBC radio dramatisation of Tinker Tailor (with Simon Russell Beale) has a brilliant device where Smiley is often talking to Ann in his head, or hearing her talking to him. Ann is played by Anna Chancellor which makes it even more brilliant. It's on (UK) Audible but I don't know whether it's more widely available. Well worth listening to.

[skygiants]

I had no idea this radio dramatisation even existed, thank you for the rec!

[salinea]

there's a short LeCarré novel called Call for the Dead that seems mostly forgotten that I liked a lot.

Otherwise the Honourable Schoolboy is, I believe, what's next in sequence of the Karla trilogy.

[skygiants]

Thank you for the rec! (I accidentally ended up skipping Honorable Schoolboy but in my defense that is because it is not on my father's shelves which has become my main Le Carré access so far.)

[landingtree]

I started with Smiley's People on the back of half a memory of the movie Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy, and that worked surprisingly well: without knowing the backstory or even how much backstory there was, I found it tense and involving.

[skygiants]

That's what genarti is doing now, lol, mostly because we were both down the dock on vacation and she was like 'I want to go get a book but I don't want to move' so I handed her Smiley's People which was already down there ....

[toft]

If you find the Smiley/Karla relationship compelling, I HIGHLY recommend Smiley's People, which I love almost as much as TTSS. I also highly recommend the BBC miniseries of both books, as I said on twitter - Alec Guinness is brilliant, the casting is fantastic all round - particularly of the women - and Patrick Stewart as Karla is riveting even though he's only in each series for about five minutes. I find Le Carre really varies for me; he's always a brilliant writer and brilliant at the mundane misery of spycraft, but sometimes he veers too far from deconstructions of British imperialist masculinity, which I'm interested in, into nostalgia for doomed chivalry, which I am bored by.

[toft]

(I recommend skipping The Honourable Schoolboy for that reason; iirc plotwise it's not at all necessary to follow the links from TTSS to Smiley's People.)

[zero_pixel_count]

So when I saw this post on my phone earlier I was like, "oh yeah, that's also the one Le Carré I've read... Absolutely agree about Ann, I started out being like 'uh-oh' (reaction primed by the 70s-80s spy books I read from my parents' bookshelves as a teen) but she came across human despite the twisty bitterness... Hmm, I don't remember most of these details, but it was a while ago..."

Having now checked, though, what I actually read was Call for the Dead. So the vibe is consistent, I guess? :D

[skygiants]

This is definitely also compelling me to read Call for the Dead!! MORE ANN

[chestnut_pod]

Smiley's People to finish out the trilogy duology! It's got lots of twisty Karla/Smileyness in it. Definitely don't read The Honorable Schoolboy; it's racist, sexist, and boring, which is just unforgivable. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is also a very good one -- the first Smiley book written, and interesting to compare to the others for that reason, before he'd really fledged out his characters and world.

To be completely honest, I don't actually think he's good at women at all: there is one Ann and one Connie and then every other woman in his oeuvre is an Irina or worse. TTSS works so well because the emotional core is made up of the duos of Karla/Smiley and Prideaux/Haydon, who are men, whom Le Carré understands can have emotions AND politics. This, coupled with his insistence on heterosexuality in most of the rest of his books -- The Night Manager standing out as particularly egregious -- make for some pretty flat tripe whenever he tries to make a book hang on a central relationship. Those which are more politically focused, like The Constant Gardner, stand up better.

[skygiants]

Having now read Smiley's People, I also genuinely did love Maria Ostrakova and then got very indignant when she got rescued from peril at the 2/3 mark and promptly disappeared from the book!

[cyphomandra]

I do like The Little Drummer Girl, which hasn’t been mentioned yet. It’s one of those books I often find myself turning over bits of in my mind and thinking about them.

I read The Pigeon Tunnel back to back with the Adam Sisman memoir, which makes for fascinating reading in terms of what can and can’t be verified.

[skygiants]

Thank you for the recs! That definitely sounds like a fascinating book pairing ...

[imbir]

Because it wouldn't be a true John le Carré discussion without conflicting reports from unreliable sources, I'm going to rec The Spy Who Came in From the Cold over A Perfect Spy. The former is shorter, punchier and a little less staged + true crime than the semi-autobiographical latter (le Carré's father did time for insurance fraud and was a known associate of the Kray twins).

[skygiants]

I love conflicting reports from unreliable sources, thank you! will simply have to read both and draw an inevitably biased and incomplete judgment

[plinythemammaler]

I would STRONGLY agree with jumping from Tinker Tailor to Smiley's People as unfortunately the parts of The Honourable Schoolboy set in Asia just Do Not Work. Smiley's People on the other hand is amazing and brimful of both Smiley's complicated chatacter and relationships and reaaaally digging into what's going on with him and Karla. I'm so happy you read TTSS! I would also say that if the part about the Czech circle stands out to you I would definitely recommend The Constant Gardener and the Spy WHO came In From The Cold as they both work as kind of thrillers that walk their way into sideways indictments of systems of disposability.

Also, do not under any circumstances read The Naive and Sentimental Lover. I have to atone for recommending that one Natasha Solomons book somehow and my atonement is sparing you that reading experience. Its like reading the worlds longest, most tortuous AITA

[skygiants]

The only thing I seem to have missed by jumping was that there seems to be more Connie in Honourable Schoolboy, and by Smiley's People she's gotten a girlfriend which I would be devastated to have missed the on-page development of, but that does seem to be an inter-book occurrence? As far as I can tell?

sdjf;kldj DULY NOTED thank you I will accept this remedy (the Natasha Solomons at the very least was memorable!)

[pedanther]

I'm going to agree with the people who are saying you should definitely read Smiley's People at some point, and also with those saying that you can probably skip The Honourable Schoolboy; it's a story with Smiley in it rather than a story about Smiley, and the story it is about isn't that great, for reasons that have been mentioned.

One of the things that's stuck with me from when I read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the bit near the end, when Smiley and the mole are having their final conversation, and the mole says that he doesn't think of himself as a traitor because a nation is such an abstract thing and how can you be loyal to it or betray it? And Smiley, who's had thoughts along similar lines, doesn't know how to answer him. But the book as a whole does: in the course of Smiley putting together what happened, we get a pretty thorough picture of the mole's life, and the whole thing comes out as a series of concrete betrayals -- there isn't a single person who loves him, or who he's claimed to love, that he's kept faith with. He can wax philosophical about patriotism, but he can't talk his way out of being the man who sent his buddy to die.

[skygiants]

YES I love that mirroring, it's so good -- because of course the whole book (and as far as I can tell from now two books now the whole oeuvre) is about how there's nothing of loyalty or that's worth being loyal to in spycraft itself, but you can do as much as you can to prevent harm to the people who trust you, and Smiley is constantly doing this while the mole has done the exact opposite of this.

[lirazel]

Okay I know that everyone has been telling me for years that I ought to read John le Carré and I knew in my heart that I ought to read John le Carré, but the time had not yet come, the stars had not aligned, etc.

This is the story of my relationship with so many books/writers including, no surprise, John le Carre! I am heartened that it lived up to the hype! Surely when the stars are finally aligned for me, I will enjoy it muchly!

[skygiants]

yes for sure, and I very much hope you do whenever the stars for you so align!

[rydra_wong]

THIS is it, this is what I want from espionage stories is the horrible truth of the fact that if you have three cover identities that just means you have to go to the DMV thrice

Only slightly tangential: are you familiar with the late-70s British tv series The Sandbaggers?

[skygiants]

Not at all, except that I think sovay might have mentioned it positively at some point, but it sounds perhaps as if I ought to be?