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A Perfect Spy
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John le Carre's classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge, and have earned him unprecedented worldwide acclaim.
Immersing readers in two parallel dramas -- one about the making of a spy, the other chronicling his seemingly imminent demise -- le Carre offers one of his richest an ...more
Immersing readers in two parallel dramas -- one about the making of a spy, the other chronicling his seemingly imminent demise -- le Carre offers one of his richest an ...more
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Paperback, 590 pages
Published
December 31st 2002
by Scribner Book Company
(first published March 12th 1986)
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"Life is duty... It’s just a question of establishing which creditor is asking loudest. Life is paying. Life is seeing people right if it kills you."
I’ve been reading John le Carré’s espionage novels like I would that little bag of my favorite dark chocolates that I hide in the bottom drawer of my refrigerator. Not one right after the other, because honestly, there are other treats I like to indulge in as well. There are the Reese’s peanut butter cups and the Trader Joe’s roasted pistachio toffe ...more
I’ve been reading John le Carré’s espionage novels like I would that little bag of my favorite dark chocolates that I hide in the bottom drawer of my refrigerator. Not one right after the other, because honestly, there are other treats I like to indulge in as well. There are the Reese’s peanut butter cups and the Trader Joe’s roasted pistachio toffe ...more

Let me start this review with these words; this book is devastating. It is the best writing John Le Carre has ever done, and will ever do.
That's not to say that it's a better spy novel than Tinker Tailor or The Spy Who Came in From the Cold; it's not. If spycraft is what you crave, it's here, but it definitely takes a back seat to everything else. In A Perfect Spy, Le Carre's writing rises easily to the level of the 20th Century's greatest authors.
After the death of his father, Magnus Pym, debo ...more
That's not to say that it's a better spy novel than Tinker Tailor or The Spy Who Came in From the Cold; it's not. If spycraft is what you crave, it's here, but it definitely takes a back seat to everything else. In A Perfect Spy, Le Carre's writing rises easily to the level of the 20th Century's greatest authors.
After the death of his father, Magnus Pym, debo ...more

Le Carré writes beautifully, let's get that out of the way straight off, but something about this left me a little disappointed. It did have a lot to live up to: not only is it often considered his best work, it's sometimes considered anyone's best work. Philip Pullman reckons A Perfect Spy is ‘one of the finest novels of the twentieth century’, while Philip Roth said it was ‘the best English novel since the war’. Other Philips also speak highly of it.
It begins with the arrival of a man in a sma ...more
It begins with the arrival of a man in a sma ...more

“Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.”
― John le Carré, A Perfect Spy
Remembrances of loyalties past. In some of le Carré's novels you feel haunted by the ghosts of Conrad, Greene, Nabokov, etc. In 'The Perfect Spy', I went back and forth about whether le Carré was building this novel to be Dickensian spy novel or a Proustian spy novel.
I still haven't quite figured it out. All I know is that it worked. It was br ...more
― John le Carré, A Perfect Spy

Remembrances of loyalties past. In some of le Carré's novels you feel haunted by the ghosts of Conrad, Greene, Nabokov, etc. In 'The Perfect Spy', I went back and forth about whether le Carré was building this novel to be Dickensian spy novel or a Proustian spy novel.
I still haven't quite figured it out. All I know is that it worked. It was br ...more

Forget that this novel happens to be written in the Cold War spy genre. That’s incidental. It is in every sense literary fiction and as such contains some truly astounding pages. One caveat: the male-female relationships seem oversexed in a way that was the convention in the 1980s. The criminal father aspect reminds somewhat of Geoffrey Wolff’s fine memoir, The Duke of Deception. The author’s very good at creating hateable males. He does it by making them misogynists.
...more

I picked up this book since it was on a list of most influential novels according to one of my issues of Mental Floss magazine, but I just couldn't force myself to get through it. I read about 100 pages of some of the most impenetrable prose, full of confusing switches in point of view, setting, and time period before I set it aside. The army of characters that dropped in like paratroopers made it hard to keep the names straight and at some point, I stopped trying. I just never got into the stor
...more

Set in the cold war, A Perfect Spy by John le Carré is a compelling novel with a psychological depth rarely found in the genre. The book focuses on Magnus Pym, to whom the title alludes. Magnus is a model spy of the age; he is ambitious and glamorous with a beautiful wife and an intelligent son. Unfortunately, he is the star of British Intelligence, and unbeknown to them, he is also fiercely loyal to a spymaster who lurks behind the Iron Curtain.
When Rick Pym, Magnus' Father, dies, Magnus' world ...more
When Rick Pym, Magnus' Father, dies, Magnus' world ...more

This was a brilliant story. At first I wasn't going to give it any stars because it seemed more like a stream of consciousness story and not a novel as we know it. But as I got into the story and its flow, I got sucked in.
And this is a stand alone story. It has nothing to do with Smiley and The Circus. So if you have never read a LeCarre story before, this is a good introduction to his writing style. ...more
And this is a stand alone story. It has nothing to do with Smiley and The Circus. So if you have never read a LeCarre story before, this is a good introduction to his writing style. ...more

Years ago I read this and gave it 5*****. I tried to re-read it (it's included reading for our Oxford course next summer), but found it disjointed and extremely difficult to follow, with little in the way of cohesive plot. Occasional paragraphs/pages were full of tension and beautifully written but there were not enough of these. I put it aside after 142 pages.
...more

Magnus Pym is a perfect spy. He is groomed for it from birth by his wretched and criminal father, Rick. He has learned to lie, to pretend, and to betray, but he has never learned who he truly is. He is a man caught between worlds and putting on a different face for everyone he knows, so that his controller, his wife, his best friend, his father and even his son, all know a different man and none of them is the real man, the Pym who talks to himself when alone.
John le Carre is, IMHO, one of the b ...more
John le Carre is, IMHO, one of the b ...more

A Perfect Spy (1986) by John le Carré is quite hard work for the first two thirds of the book however I stuck with it and was really glad I did. In the final third it comes together beautifully.
I was also pleased I'd already read John le Carré: The Biography by Adam Sisman, as A Perfect Spy is very autobiographical and much of the plot concerns John le Carré's own upbringing, and in particular his appalling conman father Ronnie Cornwell who masqueraded as a successful entrepreneur making and los ...more
I was also pleased I'd already read John le Carré: The Biography by Adam Sisman, as A Perfect Spy is very autobiographical and much of the plot concerns John le Carré's own upbringing, and in particular his appalling conman father Ronnie Cornwell who masqueraded as a successful entrepreneur making and los ...more


Description: Magnus Pym -- son of Rick, father of Tom, and a successful career officer of British Intelligence -- has vanished, to the dismay of his friends, enemies, and wife. Who is he? Who was he? Who owns him? Who trained him? Secrets of state are at risk. As the truth about Pym gradually emerges, the reader joins Pym's pursuers to explore the unsettling life and motives of a man who fought the wars he inherited with the only weapons he knew, and so became a perfect spy.


I recently found a review of this book ( here ) that notes that A Perfect Spy is a kind of what-if autobiographical account of John LeCarre himself (fictionalized, obviously). Whether this is or is not the case, this is one of the best novels I've read this year.
Magnus Pym, intelligence agent for the British, has gone to London after the news of his father Rick's death. He is supposed to return to Vienna, where he and his wife Mary are currently stationed, but instead he sends his luggage on ho ...more
Magnus Pym, intelligence agent for the British, has gone to London after the news of his father Rick's death. He is supposed to return to Vienna, where he and his wife Mary are currently stationed, but instead he sends his luggage on ho ...more

Le Carre does Dickens...but he's not Dickens. There are two intertwined narratives in the book, one describing the main character's background and childhood (which, as has been noted, shares many details with the author's own childhood), the other describing his contemporary dilemma as a spy on the run. The contemporary man-hunt stuff is fun, thrilling, suspenseful; it would have made a good spy novel in itself with a little more development. The sections dealing with the character's childhood a
...more

The book moves between two parallel stories, one focusing on the sudden disappearance of a spy and the other a long historical introduction to his upbringing and his becoming a spy. Le Carré is always a good read, but I didn’t enjoy this as much as many of his other works. The two stories didn’t really fit together well as they might have, and while the seemingly shorter sections about his vanishing peaked my interest, the seemingly longer ‘growing up’ sections left me frustrated. As always, sti
...more

Philip Roth, himself, claims on the book's cover that it is "the best English novel since the war". I find that hard to believe, but I can understand why Roth would like it. It is structurally sound and Magnus Pym, the perfect spy, is a memorable character. Personally, though, I wasn't really impressed. It is a long book (700pages), jumping back and forth in time, lots of characters and a narrator who, somewhat schizophrenically, never refers to himself using the first-person singular pronoun. W
...more

Nov 08, 2021
Gretchen Rubin
added it
I don't usually read thrillers or spy novels, but this is a fascinating portrait of a character. It's one of those novels where your sense of reality changes from chapter to chapter.
...more

Feb 26, 2020
Steven Godin
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction,
great-britain
This isn't the type of book I would have normally bought or borrowed (although I did like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold read a few years ago) but it came to me as a birthday present last November from a relative who didn't have the foggiest idea as to my literary tastes. I would have felt guilty if I didn't at least try and read it, so, as not to interfere with my regular reading I pigeoned it in for the weekends only. It took a good hundred pages or so to truly get into it, and what I thoug
...more

I got through half-way in this book and had to drop it. What did it for me were the long narratives of flashbacks into the main character's past which I suppose were meant to unveil gradually to the reader who the main character really was and the ultimate motives behind his actions. They were quite murky and tedious and I didn't have the patience to really delve into them. I my opinion they detracted from the clarity and fluidity that should be salient traits of any good prose (from the Latin w
...more

The Sunday Times reviewer calls this 'a perfect work of fiction' and le Carre's masterpiece. I can't disagree. This is a fantastic read - a real page turner, intelligently written and often very funny. I'm a fan of JleC's anyway but I'm now in awe of his artistry and expertise in reeling in and hooking his readers. It's not often these days that I struggle to put a book down. My only regret is that I've finished it and will find it a hard act to follow for the depth of the main characters, for ...more

A strange hybrid. The sections of the book concerning Pym's disappearance and the effect it has on his family and colleagues are good solid stuff. Unfortunately too much of the book is taken up with Pym's terribly over-written autobiography, that just goes on and on and on and on and on and on. Excruciating.
...more

I found this novel formidable. As far as I know, the author wrote it based on Kim Philby's life who later defected to the then USSR as a senior citizen there till his death. The title also reminds me of 'A Perfect Crime' I read in an anthology, a book I borrowed from the College of Education Library, BKK.
...more

From BBC Radio 4:
1/3. 'Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love.' So says Magnus Pym, the spy of the title; and he has betrayed a lot in his life - countries, friends and lovers. When Magnus disappears after his father's funeral MI6 launches an urgent manhunt to prevent his defection. Dramatised by Robert Forrest.
2/3. When Magnus Pym disappears after his father's funeral MI6 launches an urgent manhunt to prevent his defection. But Pym is on a search of his own ...more
1/3. 'Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love.' So says Magnus Pym, the spy of the title; and he has betrayed a lot in his life - countries, friends and lovers. When Magnus disappears after his father's funeral MI6 launches an urgent manhunt to prevent his defection. Dramatised by Robert Forrest.
2/3. When Magnus Pym disappears after his father's funeral MI6 launches an urgent manhunt to prevent his defection. But Pym is on a search of his own ...more

Originally published on my blog here in August 2001.
One of le Carré's non-Smiley novels, A Perfect Spy is far more about the psychological pressures which create a secret agent than about the mechanics of spying itself. It is part of le Carré's move away from writing genre thrillers that really began with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Magnus Pym is quite a senior operational officer, who has been running networks of British spies in Czechoslovakia for many years. After the death of his father Ric ...more
One of le Carré's non-Smiley novels, A Perfect Spy is far more about the psychological pressures which create a secret agent than about the mechanics of spying itself. It is part of le Carré's move away from writing genre thrillers that really began with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Magnus Pym is quite a senior operational officer, who has been running networks of British spies in Czechoslovakia for many years. After the death of his father Ric ...more

There are novels which can only be described by a single word: epic. John le Carre's A Perfect Spy, published originally in 1986, is one of those novels to be certain. It is a tale that stretches right across half the twentieth century in the form of the life of Magnus Pym, the perfect spy of the novel's title. The novel is also, in fine le Carre tradition, a fine cross between the spy thriller and a human drama and is all the better for it.
The story revolves around the life and times of Britis ...more
The story revolves around the life and times of Britis ...more

Brilliant Cold War novel heavily based on the author's own troubled childhood. I'm obv a stan but this is one of the best books I've ever read.
...more

The first hundred or so pages of A Perfect Spy seem designed to disorient: after a charming opening where Magnus Pym descends upon a quiet English shore town for what appears to be some much-needed R&R ("Hello Mr. Canterbury," the woman greets him upon opening the door, catching the alert reader off guard and perhaps already sounding an alarm in the reader's mind), we cut to Vienna, where Pym's wife apparently doesn't know where her husband is, and over the pages that follow it becomes clear tha
...more

This was such a great book by such a great writer that I am approaching this review with trepidation, not sure that I will be able to do justice to it. But that's how great books leave you feeling, I suppose. It is about the making of a perfect spy, his background, education, needs, his actions and the consequences of all that. I could not help comparing it with the book before last that I read and reviewed, how thin how incompetent that was in comparison. Here we get the story from several poin
...more
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John le Carré, the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell (born 19 October 1931 in Poole, Dorset, England), was an English author of espionage novels. Le Carré had resided in St Buryan, Cornwall, Great Britain, for more than 40 years, where he owned a mile of cliff close to Land's End.
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