skygiants | (no subject)

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

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From:

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

From:

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.

From:

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.

From:

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???

From:

troisoiseaux

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

Edited Date: 2022-07-26 01:06 am (UTC)

From:

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!

From:

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).

Edited (the important part of this comment) Date: 2022-07-26 01:17 am (UTC)

From:

aurumcalendula

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

Same here!

From:

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.

From:

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.

From:

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.

From:

ambyr

I am very fond of the film adaptation.

From:

evewithanapple

Oh, it wasn't based on the murder - Sherman was still alive when he wrote it. The villain of the story is involved in shady pharmaceutical practices in developing countries, and that's the inspiration.

From:

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.

From:

flemmings

Interesting. Why do you think the son did it?

From:

evewithanapple

tl;dr version, Jonathon Sherman owed his dad $50 million, and Barry was getting ready to call in the loan. If only Barry had been killed, the money would all have gone to Honey; with both gone, the children inherited. So all the kids had a financial motive, but only Jonathon had the $50 million hanging over his head. He's now estranged from his sisters and using his inheritance to fund his own businesses.

The other potential suspects are one of the many, many people/businesses Barry screwed over the years (in which case, why kill Honey?), and his cousins, the Winters, who he cheated out of their inheritance but who, frankly, couldn't plot their way out of a paper bag, much less carry out and get away with a double murder. There's also Barry's various less-than-savory business associates, like Frank D'Angelo, but they would have to be deeply stupid to kill Barry; he was their main source of cash. Basically, Barry was very good at making enemies (an MPP who dealt with him in court once called him "the only person I have ever met with no redeeming features whatsoever") but as far as means, motive, and opportunity go, the son is the most viable candidate. (Allegedly.)

From:

evewithanapple

It won Rachel Weisz her Oscar!

From:

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.

From:

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.)

From:

flemmings

Sound like a lovely bunch of people. Oddly, googling their names doesn't get to this salient information. It's all 'police mystified' and m'aybe it was an anti-Israeli nut job that took out this much loved couple.'

From:

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

From:

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.

Edited (borked a tag ) Date: 2022-07-26 08:04 pm (UTC)

From:

troisoiseaux

That is....... actually even wilder???

From:

evewithanapple

Oh yeah, that was the sister-in-law's theory - "well Honey WAS pretty racist, so maybe she said something 'politically incorrect' in front of some people visiting the house and they murdered her in a rage." It is . . . not the most convincing theory I've ever heard. But the Toronto Police's incompetence is legendary (they initially ruled it a murder-suicide before the family hired a PI who said "um, this is obviously murder") so I doubt it'll ever be "officially" solved.

They had a great reputation in Toronto society because they gave a TON to charity. But the reason they had so much to give to begin with is because Barry screwed so many people out of their money, so.

From:

evewithanapple

It's a combination of two cases, apparently - one in Nairobi, where Pfizer was sued for testing unsafe drugs on children, and one in Toronto, where a whistleblower at the Hospital for Sick Kids was threatened with a lawsuit by Apotex (Sherman's company) for telling patients that the drug they were testing caused cirrhosis. La Carre interviewed the whistleblower, Nancy Olivieri, while he was researching his book.