Edition: Coronet, 1991
Review number: 927
The last Smiley novel is unique in le Carré's output. It is very episodic, and in many places reads like a collection of short stories. It has a regretful, valedictory tone, but is one of the easiest of le Carré's novels to read.
The narrator is Ned, the former head of the Russia House in the novel of that name, now running a secret service training course. He invites the long retired, legendary George Smiley to talk to the group, to find that the discussion that follows sparks memories of his own past.
Like most of le Carré's spy fiction, the episodes which come to Ned's mind do not reflect much credit on the British secret service and, being arranged neatly chronologically, demonstrate his growing disillusion with the job he is doing. Even so, the tone is light, perhaps a response to Ned's retirement, the vantage point from which he is writing. It is also, presumably, from le Carré's point of view part of giving Smiley a proper send off; it is made very clear that no more is to be written about him (he even asks, at the end of the evening, not to be asked back again, so that the new generation can move on from his influence).
Showing posts with label George Smiley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Smiley. Show all posts
Wednesday, 29 August 2001
Tuesday, 3 July 2001
John le Carre: Smiley's People (1980)
Edition: Pan, 1980 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 856
Once again, the British intelligence service known as the Circus is unable to get on without George Smiley, who is recalled a second time from retirement to sort out a problem related to Russian spymaster Karla, controller of the high ranking mole in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
The problem he is called in to sort out begins with the murder of one of the leaders of the community of Estonian refugees, at one time important parts of the Circus' network of agents, but now considered to belong to the past. What Smiley has to work out is what it is that the old man has discovered which has made the
Russians decide that suddenly he is worth killing.
Cleearly in the tradition of the detective early Smiley novels, Smiley's People is not as successful as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or The Honourable Schoolboy. In those novels, others are entrusted with th operational legwork; here Smiley himself investigates the death in England and Germany, and leads a group in Switzerland. Given his age, he makes an unlikely operative; he was a spy in the war, and this novel if contemporary with its setting (as it seems to be) is thirty five years later.
Review number: 856
Once again, the British intelligence service known as the Circus is unable to get on without George Smiley, who is recalled a second time from retirement to sort out a problem related to Russian spymaster Karla, controller of the high ranking mole in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
The problem he is called in to sort out begins with the murder of one of the leaders of the community of Estonian refugees, at one time important parts of the Circus' network of agents, but now considered to belong to the past. What Smiley has to work out is what it is that the old man has discovered which has made the
Russians decide that suddenly he is worth killing.
Cleearly in the tradition of the detective early Smiley novels, Smiley's People is not as successful as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or The Honourable Schoolboy. In those novels, others are entrusted with th operational legwork; here Smiley himself investigates the death in England and Germany, and leads a group in Switzerland. Given his age, he makes an unlikely operative; he was a spy in the war, and this novel if contemporary with its setting (as it seems to be) is thirty five years later.
Friday, 15 June 2001
John le Carré: The Honourable Schoolboy (1977)
Edition: Pan, 1978 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 840
The Honourable Schoolboy is a sequel to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The discovery of the Russian mole in an extremely senior position in the British intelligence operation known as the Circus has severely damaged its reputation, both in Whitehall and abroad. George Smiley, as acting head of the Circus, has the task of re-building confidence, with agents known to the Russians, and unwillingness throughout Whitehall to give him resources or share information.
The only possible source of intelligence that the Circus now possesses is analysis of the activities of the mole. By looking at his manipulation of operations, it is possible to tell something of both the holes in Soviet knowledge and what they themselves were trying to keep hidden. In the second category falls a Hong Kong bank account, into which vast amounts of Russian money have been deposited, and where previous investigations were quashed by the mole, who also destroyed many of the relevant files.
Smiley manages to find an agent whose existence does not seem to have been revealed to the Russians to send to Hong Kong to investigate, and manages to persuade Whitehall to let the Circus resume active operations. The agent is Jerry Westerby, son of a press baron (hence the Honourable of the title), and the novel is divided about half and half between Smiley's activities in London and Westerby's in Hong Kong and Indochina.
Smiley is clearly the character who holds le Carré's interest, and the London, office bound, scenes are far more interesting than the action in the East - just as in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy they are compared with the activities of Prideaux in Eastern Europe. This is despite the fact that le Carré's depiction of the corrupt world of Triads, opium, civil war and the disintegrating US presence is compelling. The reason for it is basically that Smiley is the only fully realised character, those around him being caricatures and Westerby a stereotype, not essentially any different from Prideaux.
The Honourable Schoolboy is not as good as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; the excitement is less. Smiley on the trail of the mole is much more interesting than Smiley trying to restore the reputation of the Circus, and the novel is therefore less involving. Readable, but not le Carré at his best.
Review number: 840
The Honourable Schoolboy is a sequel to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The discovery of the Russian mole in an extremely senior position in the British intelligence operation known as the Circus has severely damaged its reputation, both in Whitehall and abroad. George Smiley, as acting head of the Circus, has the task of re-building confidence, with agents known to the Russians, and unwillingness throughout Whitehall to give him resources or share information.
The only possible source of intelligence that the Circus now possesses is analysis of the activities of the mole. By looking at his manipulation of operations, it is possible to tell something of both the holes in Soviet knowledge and what they themselves were trying to keep hidden. In the second category falls a Hong Kong bank account, into which vast amounts of Russian money have been deposited, and where previous investigations were quashed by the mole, who also destroyed many of the relevant files.
Smiley manages to find an agent whose existence does not seem to have been revealed to the Russians to send to Hong Kong to investigate, and manages to persuade Whitehall to let the Circus resume active operations. The agent is Jerry Westerby, son of a press baron (hence the Honourable of the title), and the novel is divided about half and half between Smiley's activities in London and Westerby's in Hong Kong and Indochina.
Smiley is clearly the character who holds le Carré's interest, and the London, office bound, scenes are far more interesting than the action in the East - just as in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy they are compared with the activities of Prideaux in Eastern Europe. This is despite the fact that le Carré's depiction of the corrupt world of Triads, opium, civil war and the disintegrating US presence is compelling. The reason for it is basically that Smiley is the only fully realised character, those around him being caricatures and Westerby a stereotype, not essentially any different from Prideaux.
The Honourable Schoolboy is not as good as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; the excitement is less. Smiley on the trail of the mole is much more interesting than Smiley trying to restore the reputation of the Circus, and the novel is therefore less involving. Readable, but not le Carré at his best.
Wednesday, 15 November 2000
John le Carré: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974)
Review number: 684
There are a huge number of spy stories with the basic theme of the investigation of the possibility of a traitor, a mole, in a secret service. After the Maclean/Philby scandals of the fifties, it was probably a subject which automatically suggested itself to writers who wrote about the various British secret organisations. It is perhaps an odd subject for a thriller, because it must involve a large amount of bookish research and less action than many writers would desire - it could never have been the sort of thing James Bond would tackle. However, it is a theme which lends itself to a more literary style of spy story, full of complications, byzantine plots and constant reassessments, and these novels provide a very different kind of pleasure to those who enjoy that sort of thing.
Of all these books, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of the greatest. George Smiley has been forced into retirement after a disastrous operation organised by Control, head of the Circus (as the intelligence service of le Carré's novels is known), and Smiley is implicated in the disaster as Control's right hand man, despite his innocence. When a spy labelled a defector returns from abroad with accusations that one of the top men now running the Circus is a mole, Smiley is asked to return to work, to attempt to unmask him. Whoever it is, they are closely concerned with the Circus' star Russian source, codenamed Merlin. The intelligence provided by Merlin is basically the necessary cost incurred by the Russians to enhance the reputation and potential for damage of their mole.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is cleverly written, with enough action to maintain the interest combined with the intellectual puzzle tackled by Smiley. This puzzle is similar to that of a murder mystery, and the first stories featuring Smiley were in fact crime novels in which he was the detective. Le Carré allows himself the space to introduce a cast of contrasting characters, who are three dimensional though they are not allowed to develop. The novel has a believable background, and is a touch less depressing than some of the really downbeat novels which le Carré had written just a few years earlier. As well as being a masterpiece of the spy genre, it is probably also le Carré's best novel.
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