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A Small Town In Germany
Bonn in den 60er Ein kleiner Beamter der britischen Botschaft verschwindet – und mit ihm ein äußerst brisantes Geheimdossier. Auf ihn angesetzt wird Alan Turner, ein Beamter der Londoner Spionageabwehr. Doch dieser erkennt bald, dass auch er nur ein Spielball der politischen Mächte ist.
319 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1968
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About the author
John le Carré
378 books9,518 followersJohn 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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Displaying 1 - 29 of 629 reviews
August 25, 2024
Another offering by John Le Carre that reveals the way agents and spy operate. Le Carre was a master of both plot and characters, and his way of presenting different angles is unique.
Set in the 1960s in 'a small town in Germany', namely Bonn, the novel revolves around a myserious disappearance of Leo Harting, and we learn a lot about him and people around him though stories told by different characters. The novel may be called a slow burner, but with Le Carre you get this feeling of anticipation that not may authors know how to achieve. The finale is surprising, as always, and the Master does not disappoint.
Ralph Lister is a wonderful voice for Le Carre's books.
*A big thank-you to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for a free audiobook in exchange of my honest review.*
Set in the 1960s in 'a small town in Germany', namely Bonn, the novel revolves around a myserious disappearance of Leo Harting, and we learn a lot about him and people around him though stories told by different characters. The novel may be called a slow burner, but with Le Carre you get this feeling of anticipation that not may authors know how to achieve. The finale is surprising, as always, and the Master does not disappoint.
Ralph Lister is a wonderful voice for Le Carre's books.
*A big thank-you to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for a free audiobook in exchange of my honest review.*
June 27, 2013
I thought I'd read all of Le Carré's books that I cared to read. I recently discovered this one and it might be my favorite one. Chronologically, it falls between his early mystery novels ("Call for the Dead" and "A Murder of Quality") and the spy novels. It draws from both genres and is better for it. I recommend reading it without reading any reviews because they give too much of the plot away.
September 12, 2011
No one likes Alan Turner. He's a spycatcher with the British foreign office, and if he's talking to you, your career is probably over. With gleeful ferocity, he tramples across uncrossable boundaries of diplomacy, decency and class.
The year is 1968. The West is mired in the Cold War, the British have lost their empire, young people are rioting all over the globe, the Vietnam War is in full swing, and in Germany, a mysterious and charismatic leader is rising swiftly to power.
Sensitive international negotiations are scheduled for the near future. Suddenly, a low-level diplomat disappears from the British Embassy in Bonn, along with a highly confidential personalities file. Find the file, Turner is told, but for God’s sake, don't let the Germans know.
Turner is no Smiley. He’s cynical, sharp-tongued, dirty-minded, happy to make enemies, and worst of all, from the wrong social class. He begins his hunt by assuming that the disappeared diplomat, Leo Harting, is spying for the Soviet Union. By the novel’s end, he is trying to save his life.
The book begins by taking us through the different departments, levels and personalities of the Embassy, a world with which Le Carre is obviously familiar. He has an other-worldly gift with dialogue; when the cheery young Cockney from the code room speaks, you can almost hear his accent. The same can be said for the Ambassador from the fancy old family, the career diplomat, the German journalist and the Polish immigrant.
Layered, rich with detail, it does take some time getting started. But once I realized where the story was going, and what Harting has been searching for, I couldn’t put it down. The culminating scene, a massive political rally where we finally hear the mysterious Karfeld speak, is a masterpiece. As a private army fans through the crowd, beating up anyone who might disagree, the future tyrant plays to our worst qualities as human beings, calling upon the starstruck masses to embrace their resentments, their vindictiveness, their jealousies, and their unreasoning fears of the Evil Other. An uncannily fitting book to read on 9/11.
The year is 1968. The West is mired in the Cold War, the British have lost their empire, young people are rioting all over the globe, the Vietnam War is in full swing, and in Germany, a mysterious and charismatic leader is rising swiftly to power.
Sensitive international negotiations are scheduled for the near future. Suddenly, a low-level diplomat disappears from the British Embassy in Bonn, along with a highly confidential personalities file. Find the file, Turner is told, but for God’s sake, don't let the Germans know.
Turner is no Smiley. He’s cynical, sharp-tongued, dirty-minded, happy to make enemies, and worst of all, from the wrong social class. He begins his hunt by assuming that the disappeared diplomat, Leo Harting, is spying for the Soviet Union. By the novel’s end, he is trying to save his life.
The book begins by taking us through the different departments, levels and personalities of the Embassy, a world with which Le Carre is obviously familiar. He has an other-worldly gift with dialogue; when the cheery young Cockney from the code room speaks, you can almost hear his accent. The same can be said for the Ambassador from the fancy old family, the career diplomat, the German journalist and the Polish immigrant.
Layered, rich with detail, it does take some time getting started. But once I realized where the story was going, and what Harting has been searching for, I couldn’t put it down. The culminating scene, a massive political rally where we finally hear the mysterious Karfeld speak, is a masterpiece. As a private army fans through the crowd, beating up anyone who might disagree, the future tyrant plays to our worst qualities as human beings, calling upon the starstruck masses to embrace their resentments, their vindictiveness, their jealousies, and their unreasoning fears of the Evil Other. An uncannily fitting book to read on 9/11.
June 24, 2013
I’ve read quite a few of John le Carré’s books and the only one that I didn’t particularly enjoy was “The Constant Gardner” which departed somewhat from his usual spy books. So when I discovered this paperback on a market stall the other week, I decided to purchase it as the blurb on the back looked interesting. After all, this is le Carré and he’s a known quantity and an excellent author.
I started this and initially it appeared to be interesting. The location was good, being Bonn in Germany and I was awaiting the “action”. Well I couldn’t come across this really and in fact the action appeared to be contained in the prologue.
So I started skim reading. Messrs Cork and Meadowes appeared to be very boring. Alan Turner didn’t inspire me either. He had been sent from London to look for Leo Harting, one of the secretaries in the British Embassy in Bonn who had gone missing at about the same time as some missing files.
When I arrived at page 140, Chapter 8 about Jenny Pargiter, my eyes lit up. Perhaps it all happens here, half way through this book of 319 pages. After all, some books take a while to warm up. Who was I trying to convince?
“I assume,” Jenny Pargiter began, in a prepared statement, “that you are used to dealing in delicate matters.”
Of course, Alan Turner was and it was all about how she had met Harting.
No, sadly, this wasn’t interesting either.
I found the book boring, cold, stiffly written, lacking any sparkle and contrived. I continued to skim read through to the end and just closed it thinking, what a waste of time. I cannot believe that my tastes have changed that much. This book certainly didn’t “smile” at me as so many others have.
I started this and initially it appeared to be interesting. The location was good, being Bonn in Germany and I was awaiting the “action”. Well I couldn’t come across this really and in fact the action appeared to be contained in the prologue.
So I started skim reading. Messrs Cork and Meadowes appeared to be very boring. Alan Turner didn’t inspire me either. He had been sent from London to look for Leo Harting, one of the secretaries in the British Embassy in Bonn who had gone missing at about the same time as some missing files.
When I arrived at page 140, Chapter 8 about Jenny Pargiter, my eyes lit up. Perhaps it all happens here, half way through this book of 319 pages. After all, some books take a while to warm up. Who was I trying to convince?
“I assume,” Jenny Pargiter began, in a prepared statement, “that you are used to dealing in delicate matters.”
Of course, Alan Turner was and it was all about how she had met Harting.
No, sadly, this wasn’t interesting either.
I found the book boring, cold, stiffly written, lacking any sparkle and contrived. I continued to skim read through to the end and just closed it thinking, what a waste of time. I cannot believe that my tastes have changed that much. This book certainly didn’t “smile” at me as so many others have.
March 20, 2018
Another John le Carré masterclass.
This slow burn novel is predominantly set in Bonn, then the capital of West Germany, in the late 1960s, with a backdrop of significant political upheaval: numerous student demonstrations, and interestingly, given the current Brexit negotiations, part of this book's context is whether the UK will be invited to join the EU which was very much in the balance at the time.
British industry was in the doldrums, the economy was in freefall, inflation was starting to ramp up. The cure to these ills? Get into the EEC.
As with so many other John le Carré books, part of the fascination is the way he evokes a mood or an era. In this instance he was writing this novel whilst some of the events depicted were unfolding and this makes the book a time-capsule, and one I was engrossed by.
One of the protagonists is Alan Turner, a no nonsense style Mr Fix It who alienates pretty much everyone he encounters, and the sort of flawed anti hero that is often John le Carré's stock in trade. He's certainly no George Smiley. He treads on toes wherever he goes and never sugars the pill however his dogged determination and ruthlessness get results.
The plot, once it gets going properly (as so often with John le Carré there's 50-100 pages of often confusing scene setting) it's a corker concerning the disappearance of a junior diplomat who has taken a highly confidential file. Turner assumes he has defected before understanding that the real reason is far more complex and nuanced. The tension builds as the story concludes with a memorable finale at a large political rally.
Superb stuff from the always reliable John le Carré. Any other author and this would be five stars but, rated against John le Carré's own high water marks (e.g. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, Smiley's People), this does not quite hit the same dizzying heights despite being another essential book in the le Carré bibliography.
This slow burn novel is predominantly set in Bonn, then the capital of West Germany, in the late 1960s, with a backdrop of significant political upheaval: numerous student demonstrations, and interestingly, given the current Brexit negotiations, part of this book's context is whether the UK will be invited to join the EU which was very much in the balance at the time.
British industry was in the doldrums, the economy was in freefall, inflation was starting to ramp up. The cure to these ills? Get into the EEC.
As with so many other John le Carré books, part of the fascination is the way he evokes a mood or an era. In this instance he was writing this novel whilst some of the events depicted were unfolding and this makes the book a time-capsule, and one I was engrossed by.
One of the protagonists is Alan Turner, a no nonsense style Mr Fix It who alienates pretty much everyone he encounters, and the sort of flawed anti hero that is often John le Carré's stock in trade. He's certainly no George Smiley. He treads on toes wherever he goes and never sugars the pill however his dogged determination and ruthlessness get results.
The plot, once it gets going properly (as so often with John le Carré there's 50-100 pages of often confusing scene setting) it's a corker concerning the disappearance of a junior diplomat who has taken a highly confidential file. Turner assumes he has defected before understanding that the real reason is far more complex and nuanced. The tension builds as the story concludes with a memorable finale at a large political rally.
Superb stuff from the always reliable John le Carré. Any other author and this would be five stars but, rated against John le Carré's own high water marks (e.g. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, Smiley's People), this does not quite hit the same dizzying heights despite being another essential book in the le Carré bibliography.
September 6, 2024
After reading “The Looking Glass War”, another less talked of/under the radar spy thriller novel by John Le Carre, I decided to take a swing on another, rather under the radar Le Carre novel, A Small Town In Germany which shaves away several elements from his previous novels - The Looking Glass War, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and the two mystery novel with a spy leading the detective investigation- Call for the dead and A Murder Of Quality which are of course the mention of The Circus (A nickname for MI6) or it’s very existence in the same manner as in his previous novels instead we have a brutish and distasteful fixer of sort for the Foreign Office, hunting an English diplomat by the name of Leo Harting, who seem to have vanished along with several of the embassy’s documents.
With that, we are lead to believe that this is a simple tale of a spyhunter/fixer hunting a turncoat where by the end the outcome might’ve been the opposite but really, the spying stuff are merely an entry point into an esoteric story of the small town in Germany. Similar with “The Looking Glass War”, A Small Town In Germany is thick with noir in its atmosphere and writing rather than that of a Spy Thriller. Its twist and turn are there but not in a thrilling way but rather for the characters which bends and shape their action. What’s more is that the most tiniest connection does appears in which connects the novel, which is for the most part being presented and known officially as a standalone work but the mere mention of Steed-Asprey, a veteran intelligence officer in the Circus world and is Smiley’s mentor, connects this with all the Smiley featured work. Alan Turner, who’s official cover is a Foreign Office official, like most MI6 officers with official cover do when attached to the embassy. This tiny detail does flip the entire thing and the ending into something larger in scale compared to what it meant on a first reading.
A 3/5 but really is closer to a 4 than it is to a 2.
With that, we are lead to believe that this is a simple tale of a spyhunter/fixer hunting a turncoat where by the end the outcome might’ve been the opposite but really, the spying stuff are merely an entry point into an esoteric story of the small town in Germany. Similar with “The Looking Glass War”, A Small Town In Germany is thick with noir in its atmosphere and writing rather than that of a Spy Thriller. Its twist and turn are there but not in a thrilling way but rather for the characters which bends and shape their action. What’s more is that the most tiniest connection does appears in which connects the novel, which is for the most part being presented and known officially as a standalone work but the mere mention of Steed-Asprey, a veteran intelligence officer in the Circus world and is Smiley’s mentor, connects this with all the Smiley featured work. Alan Turner, who’s official cover is a Foreign Office official, like most MI6 officers with official cover do when attached to the embassy. This tiny detail does flip the entire thing and the ending into something larger in scale compared to what it meant on a first reading.
A 3/5 but really is closer to a 4 than it is to a 2.
December 8, 2021
My first Le Carré novel after reading The Spy Who Came In From The Cold over forty years ago. Therefore, I was ready for the anachronisms, the misogyny, the archaic technology and spying techniques, the introspection, the deception. But there was more.
Set in Bonn, a temporary capital, “a house draped in Catholic black and guarded by policemen,” and the eponymous small town in Germany of the book’s title, the plot hovers around a British embassy official who has gone missing with valuable documents on the eve of a Neo Nazi demonstration to be held in the city, and on the eve of Britain’s bid to enter the European Union with the support of Germany against the opposition of France.
The omniscient narrator seems to lose himself between the dialogue and the action, for sometimes I found it hard to figure out who was saying what, or what was happening, but it all jelled in the end because there was a lot of overwriting that amounted to the author philosophizing or trying to raise his prose above genre into literary – much of it dispensable.
Suffice to say that the action centres around the British Embassy in Bonn and its staff, its cloistered life, its protocols, its hierarchy (A level staff do not fraternize with B level staff, and so on), and its secrets.
The missing official, Harting, is a German émigré to Britain who threw his lot in with his adopted country against the Nazis. His hunter is Turner, a brutal and relentless security official who tries to get into the mind of the hunted and gain understanding of his quarry. Much of the investigation hovers around Turner’s obsession with minutia: what did Harting eat, who did he have sex with, what did he dress, what were his movements before he went missing – obsessive to the point of me wanting to drop this book midway. However, the plot gradually emerges—mostly through dropped threads in innocuous dialogue—into something larger than anticipated, and the last few chapters are unputdownable.
What bothered me was Turner’s relentless hounding of the British Chief of Chancery, Bradfield, and the other embassy staff and their wives, goading them on, ostensibly to provide the reader information we are unable to derive from the narrative – a sort of double agent of a kind. An oft-used device, but one to be used sparingly these days, even by genre authors. Turner is abusive and not above beating-up women in the course of his investigation, especially when Harting grows in his mind into a sympathetic character worth saving instead of sacrificing.
Britain and its representatives are portrayed as the bad guys, hedging their bets with all players, German Feds and Neo Nazis alike, and willing to sell their people down the river if it benefited them. They have conveniently ended the persecution of war criminals and handed that task over to the Germans who grin and nod at the many with shady pasts who are in positions of power without sanction. As Bradfield says, “Hypocrisy is a virtue of the British. We are a corrupt nation.” He even has a reason for why they are pursuing their quarry: “Harting has broken the law of forgetting, of moderation.”
Despite its jerky narrative style—and I put this down to the book being one of the earlier works of the author—this shorter Le Carré novel has a particular charm in capturing the small town in Germany, Bonn, and its political events before it vanished into the background by becoming just another German city after the re-unification of the country and the restoration of the original capital, Berlin.
Set in Bonn, a temporary capital, “a house draped in Catholic black and guarded by policemen,” and the eponymous small town in Germany of the book’s title, the plot hovers around a British embassy official who has gone missing with valuable documents on the eve of a Neo Nazi demonstration to be held in the city, and on the eve of Britain’s bid to enter the European Union with the support of Germany against the opposition of France.
The omniscient narrator seems to lose himself between the dialogue and the action, for sometimes I found it hard to figure out who was saying what, or what was happening, but it all jelled in the end because there was a lot of overwriting that amounted to the author philosophizing or trying to raise his prose above genre into literary – much of it dispensable.
Suffice to say that the action centres around the British Embassy in Bonn and its staff, its cloistered life, its protocols, its hierarchy (A level staff do not fraternize with B level staff, and so on), and its secrets.
The missing official, Harting, is a German émigré to Britain who threw his lot in with his adopted country against the Nazis. His hunter is Turner, a brutal and relentless security official who tries to get into the mind of the hunted and gain understanding of his quarry. Much of the investigation hovers around Turner’s obsession with minutia: what did Harting eat, who did he have sex with, what did he dress, what were his movements before he went missing – obsessive to the point of me wanting to drop this book midway. However, the plot gradually emerges—mostly through dropped threads in innocuous dialogue—into something larger than anticipated, and the last few chapters are unputdownable.
What bothered me was Turner’s relentless hounding of the British Chief of Chancery, Bradfield, and the other embassy staff and their wives, goading them on, ostensibly to provide the reader information we are unable to derive from the narrative – a sort of double agent of a kind. An oft-used device, but one to be used sparingly these days, even by genre authors. Turner is abusive and not above beating-up women in the course of his investigation, especially when Harting grows in his mind into a sympathetic character worth saving instead of sacrificing.
Britain and its representatives are portrayed as the bad guys, hedging their bets with all players, German Feds and Neo Nazis alike, and willing to sell their people down the river if it benefited them. They have conveniently ended the persecution of war criminals and handed that task over to the Germans who grin and nod at the many with shady pasts who are in positions of power without sanction. As Bradfield says, “Hypocrisy is a virtue of the British. We are a corrupt nation.” He even has a reason for why they are pursuing their quarry: “Harting has broken the law of forgetting, of moderation.”
Despite its jerky narrative style—and I put this down to the book being one of the earlier works of the author—this shorter Le Carré novel has a particular charm in capturing the small town in Germany, Bonn, and its political events before it vanished into the background by becoming just another German city after the re-unification of the country and the restoration of the original capital, Berlin.
May 9, 2016
Le Carre's books trigger emotion in me. I'm not entirely comfortable with that but I'm hooked. Scratch the surface of his well-rendered cynicism and a meager optimism begrudgingly appears. Yes, we humans can be absolutely horrible to each other, but some of us are not and some of us care. Deeply.
Le Carre's skill at presenting things not quite as they are, while subtly suggesting what is, was and probably will be, delights me. He is neither obvious nor inscrutable. His paints his misanthropy with a loving brush. I'm no longer so concerned about his anti-US reflex. We are too much like the British and too successful to write us off. I'm amused that some Britishers refer to us as "cousins." We are, rather, rebellious grown children who should have appreciated mum more. We have cultivated our own customs and habits. Some superior, humorous, some crass. I wish we could laugh together. Would that admit defeat for mum? I think not. But I'm not infected by empire.
Objectively, this is probably not a five-star but I so love his perspective, male characters, settings and interplay. I can't help myself...
Le Carre's skill at presenting things not quite as they are, while subtly suggesting what is, was and probably will be, delights me. He is neither obvious nor inscrutable. His paints his misanthropy with a loving brush. I'm no longer so concerned about his anti-US reflex. We are too much like the British and too successful to write us off. I'm amused that some Britishers refer to us as "cousins." We are, rather, rebellious grown children who should have appreciated mum more. We have cultivated our own customs and habits. Some superior, humorous, some crass. I wish we could laugh together. Would that admit defeat for mum? I think not. But I'm not infected by empire.
Objectively, this is probably not a five-star but I so love his perspective, male characters, settings and interplay. I can't help myself...
November 15, 2023
A Foreign Affair
Review of the Penguin Modern Classics paperback & Kindle eBook (2011) of the original Heinemann hardcover (1968).
A Small Town in Germany does not feature the author's spymaster George Smiley & the Circus, his invented name for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. It does take place in the Smileyverse as veteran Circus recruiter Steed-Asprey is briefly mentioned. It does involve a molehunter though. Alan Turner is with the Foreign Office and is sent to the British Embassy in Bonn, Germany (then the capital of West Germany) to investigate the disappearance of a minor embassy official. Meanwhile there is a groundswell of German Nationalist and anti-Western feeling embodied in the rise of a political figure.
Leo Harting had made himself quietly indispensable to the embassy staff by taking on tasks which others were reluctant to do. When he disappears it is discovered that various embassy files are gone with him. The suspicion is that he has defected to the Eastern Bloc. Curiously, various office items such as a lamp, tea kettle, file trolley etc. have gone missing over the past weeks as well. Turner meets with a certain amount of obstruction from embassy staff who are reluctant to think the worst of Harting.
Cover of the original 1968 Heinemann hardcover. Image sourced from Wikipedia.
Turner eventually uncovers the real reason for Harting's disappearance and events turn more dramatic for the final 20% or so of the book. I wasn't quite as taken with Turner as I have been with Smiley, so the preceding series of interviews with embassy staff were more a chore to get through. The overall cynical atmosphere of failed intelligence operations still carries over from the Circus novels.
I read A Small Town in Germany as part of my current ongoing Carré binge which began with seeing the biographical film The Pigeon Tunnel (2023) at the recent Toronto International Film Festival. It is one of his early books which I had never read previously.
Trivia and Link
Read an appreciation (NOTE: includes SPOILERS) of A Small Town in Germany at SpyWrite.com by Jeff, May 11, 2017.
Review of the Penguin Modern Classics paperback & Kindle eBook (2011) of the original Heinemann hardcover (1968).
Bonn isn’t pre-war, or war, or even post-war. It’s just a small town in Germany.
A Small Town in Germany does not feature the author's spymaster George Smiley & the Circus, his invented name for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. It does take place in the Smileyverse as veteran Circus recruiter Steed-Asprey is briefly mentioned. It does involve a molehunter though. Alan Turner is with the Foreign Office and is sent to the British Embassy in Bonn, Germany (then the capital of West Germany) to investigate the disappearance of a minor embassy official. Meanwhile there is a groundswell of German Nationalist and anti-Western feeling embodied in the rise of a political figure.
Leo Harting had made himself quietly indispensable to the embassy staff by taking on tasks which others were reluctant to do. When he disappears it is discovered that various embassy files are gone with him. The suspicion is that he has defected to the Eastern Bloc. Curiously, various office items such as a lamp, tea kettle, file trolley etc. have gone missing over the past weeks as well. Turner meets with a certain amount of obstruction from embassy staff who are reluctant to think the worst of Harting.
Cover of the original 1968 Heinemann hardcover. Image sourced from Wikipedia.
Turner eventually uncovers the real reason for Harting's disappearance and events turn more dramatic for the final 20% or so of the book. I wasn't quite as taken with Turner as I have been with Smiley, so the preceding series of interviews with embassy staff were more a chore to get through. The overall cynical atmosphere of failed intelligence operations still carries over from the Circus novels.
I read A Small Town in Germany as part of my current ongoing Carré binge which began with seeing the biographical film The Pigeon Tunnel (2023) at the recent Toronto International Film Festival. It is one of his early books which I had never read previously.
Trivia and Link
Read an appreciation (NOTE: includes SPOILERS) of A Small Town in Germany at SpyWrite.com by Jeff, May 11, 2017.
August 5, 2019
It’s quite unnerving reading about political upheaval in Europe in 1968, when Britain was trying desperately to get into the European common market, Germany was divided and Bonn the western capital, and find that much remains the same after decades of to-ing and fro-ing, though now England (not Britain) wants to leave the EU.
The warp threads of Small Town in Germany include the rise of Neo-Nazism, the hypocrisy of diplomatic expediency; polite political games with deadly outcomes; powerful, compulsively dishonest men; and hatred-inciting demagogues. And they are all active threads in the current politics of Europe, the US and Britain.
Perhaps because of the contemporary familiarity of the political background, this book, unlike many thrillers set in the sixties, resonates powerfully in the present.
Le Carré’s writing is superb. He remains, for me, master of the genre.
The warp threads of Small Town in Germany include the rise of Neo-Nazism, the hypocrisy of diplomatic expediency; polite political games with deadly outcomes; powerful, compulsively dishonest men; and hatred-inciting demagogues. And they are all active threads in the current politics of Europe, the US and Britain.
Perhaps because of the contemporary familiarity of the political background, this book, unlike many thrillers set in the sixties, resonates powerfully in the present.
Le Carré’s writing is superb. He remains, for me, master of the genre.
June 23, 2007
Le Carre is the grandfather of all spy stories. Although a little slow paced, the story has enough depth to keep you involved. Unfortunately I think the female characters get stranded in typical gender stereotypes and none of them have enough spark to make you think they're anything but filler. However, Carre has great insight into the intelligence community and all the drama rings true.
January 25, 2022
John le Carré’s A Small Town in Germany was published in 1968, amongst West German domestic political turmoil and incipient terrorism, ongoing tension between East Germany and West Germany, and intra-European maneuvering around the Common Market. It’s a novel set firmly in its era that captured the time well. Reading it now, more than fifty years since its initial publication, lacks the immediacy of reading it when it was initially published, but its psychological, institutional, and political subtlety remain fascinating.
A Small Town in Germany is a story of four men: Alan Turner, a brusque British Foreign Office investigator, who masks his essential humanism as hard-bitten realism; Rawley Bradfield, Head of the British Chancery in Bonn, who masks his nihilism as realism; Leo Harting, a low level temporary “dip”, who masks his humanism as unctuous charm and who we never meet first hand; and Karfeld, an aspiring populist leader with wartime secrets and flexible and indeterminate beliefs, who Harting and eventually Turner want to hold accountable for his wartime crime, and who we also never meet first hand. Harting, a young wartime refugee to England, seems a man out of place in English and in German, and in England and in Germany.
Turner is dispatched from London to the Bonn British embassy to investigate Harting’s sudden disappearance with stolen secret and sensitive files. Turner’s full of scorn for the classism of the British Foreign Office: ”Christ forgive me: who do you represent out here? Yourselves of the poor bloody taxpayer? I’ll tell you who: the Club. Your Club. The bloody Foreign Office. . .” Turner’s disgust with the good old boy culture of the Chancery grows and grows, as he comes to reject the prevailing assumption that Harting’s disappearance results from his supposed leftish politics. Turner reveals himself as the novel proceeds as a far more sympathetic character, as he comes to recognize Turner himself as a more nuanced character and even sees his emotional kinship with him: ”Come on, Leo, we’re of one blood, you and I: underground men, that’s us. I’ll chase you through the sewers, Leo; that’s why I smell so lovely. We’ve got the earth’s dirt on us, you and I. I’ll chase you, you chase me and each of us will chase ourselves.”
Bradfield, Turner and Harting’s foil, with his upper class and bureaucratic snobbery, initially dismisses Harting to Turner: ”’He is so trivial, he said at last, in a moment of quite uncharacteristic softness. ‘Can’t you understand that? So utterly lightweight.’ It seemed to surprise him still. ‘It’s easy to lose sight of now: the sheer insignificance of him.’” And Turner replies: ”’He never will be again,’ Turner said carelessly. ‘You might as well get used to it.’” And later, Bradfield reveals to Turner his utter nihilism: ”’You know us here now. Crises are academic. Scandals are not. Haven’t you realized that only appearances matter?’ Turner searched frantically about him. ‘It’s not true! You can’t be so tied to the surface of things.’ [And Bradfield replies:] ‘What else is there when the underneath is rotten? Break the surface and we sink. That’s what Harting has done. I am a hypocrite’, he continued simply. ‘I’m a great believer in hypocrisy. It’s the nearest thing we ever get to virtue. It’s a statement of what we ought to be. Like religion, like art, like the law, like marriage. I serve the appearance of things. It is the worst of systems; it is better than the others. That is my profession and that is my philosophy.’”
Bonn, the ironically eponymous small town in Germany, serves as almost a separate and ominous character: ”Bonn was a dark house where someone had died, a house draped in Catholic black and guarded by policemen. Their leather coats glistened in the lamplight. . . Only the posters spoke. From trees and lanterns they fought their futile war, each at the same height as if that were the regulation; they were printed in radiant paint, mounted on hardback, and draped in thin streamers of black bunting, and they rose at him vividly as he hastened past. ‘Send the Foreign Workers Home!’ ‘Rid us of the Whore Bonn!’ ‘Unite Germany First, Europe Second!’ And the largest was set above them, in a tall streamer right across the street: ‘Open the road East, the road West has failed.’”
A Small Town in Germany is the first John le Carré novel that I’ve read in which George Smiley doesn’t appear. Even without the wonderful Smiley, and even without what must have been the contemporary excitement of reading A Small Town in Germany soon after its publication, it remains a wonderful and subtle novel, for which any genre classification is inappropriate. As Richard Boston, then editor of New Statesman wrote in his October 27th 1968 review, "A Small Town in Germany is an exciting, compulsively readable and brilliantly plotted novel. Le Carré has shown once more that he can write this kind of book better than anyone else around -- and he has done so without repeating himself.” Boston’s assessment remains as true now as when he wrote it.
If you decide to read A Small Town in Germany, search for the Penguin Classics edition with the excellent Introduction by Hari Kunzru.
A Small Town in Germany is a story of four men: Alan Turner, a brusque British Foreign Office investigator, who masks his essential humanism as hard-bitten realism; Rawley Bradfield, Head of the British Chancery in Bonn, who masks his nihilism as realism; Leo Harting, a low level temporary “dip”, who masks his humanism as unctuous charm and who we never meet first hand; and Karfeld, an aspiring populist leader with wartime secrets and flexible and indeterminate beliefs, who Harting and eventually Turner want to hold accountable for his wartime crime, and who we also never meet first hand. Harting, a young wartime refugee to England, seems a man out of place in English and in German, and in England and in Germany.
Turner is dispatched from London to the Bonn British embassy to investigate Harting’s sudden disappearance with stolen secret and sensitive files. Turner’s full of scorn for the classism of the British Foreign Office: ”Christ forgive me: who do you represent out here? Yourselves of the poor bloody taxpayer? I’ll tell you who: the Club. Your Club. The bloody Foreign Office. . .” Turner’s disgust with the good old boy culture of the Chancery grows and grows, as he comes to reject the prevailing assumption that Harting’s disappearance results from his supposed leftish politics. Turner reveals himself as the novel proceeds as a far more sympathetic character, as he comes to recognize Turner himself as a more nuanced character and even sees his emotional kinship with him: ”Come on, Leo, we’re of one blood, you and I: underground men, that’s us. I’ll chase you through the sewers, Leo; that’s why I smell so lovely. We’ve got the earth’s dirt on us, you and I. I’ll chase you, you chase me and each of us will chase ourselves.”
Bradfield, Turner and Harting’s foil, with his upper class and bureaucratic snobbery, initially dismisses Harting to Turner: ”’He is so trivial, he said at last, in a moment of quite uncharacteristic softness. ‘Can’t you understand that? So utterly lightweight.’ It seemed to surprise him still. ‘It’s easy to lose sight of now: the sheer insignificance of him.’” And Turner replies: ”’He never will be again,’ Turner said carelessly. ‘You might as well get used to it.’” And later, Bradfield reveals to Turner his utter nihilism: ”’You know us here now. Crises are academic. Scandals are not. Haven’t you realized that only appearances matter?’ Turner searched frantically about him. ‘It’s not true! You can’t be so tied to the surface of things.’ [And Bradfield replies:] ‘What else is there when the underneath is rotten? Break the surface and we sink. That’s what Harting has done. I am a hypocrite’, he continued simply. ‘I’m a great believer in hypocrisy. It’s the nearest thing we ever get to virtue. It’s a statement of what we ought to be. Like religion, like art, like the law, like marriage. I serve the appearance of things. It is the worst of systems; it is better than the others. That is my profession and that is my philosophy.’”
Bonn, the ironically eponymous small town in Germany, serves as almost a separate and ominous character: ”Bonn was a dark house where someone had died, a house draped in Catholic black and guarded by policemen. Their leather coats glistened in the lamplight. . . Only the posters spoke. From trees and lanterns they fought their futile war, each at the same height as if that were the regulation; they were printed in radiant paint, mounted on hardback, and draped in thin streamers of black bunting, and they rose at him vividly as he hastened past. ‘Send the Foreign Workers Home!’ ‘Rid us of the Whore Bonn!’ ‘Unite Germany First, Europe Second!’ And the largest was set above them, in a tall streamer right across the street: ‘Open the road East, the road West has failed.’”
A Small Town in Germany is the first John le Carré novel that I’ve read in which George Smiley doesn’t appear. Even without the wonderful Smiley, and even without what must have been the contemporary excitement of reading A Small Town in Germany soon after its publication, it remains a wonderful and subtle novel, for which any genre classification is inappropriate. As Richard Boston, then editor of New Statesman wrote in his October 27th 1968 review, "A Small Town in Germany is an exciting, compulsively readable and brilliantly plotted novel. Le Carré has shown once more that he can write this kind of book better than anyone else around -- and he has done so without repeating himself.” Boston’s assessment remains as true now as when he wrote it.
If you decide to read A Small Town in Germany, search for the Penguin Classics edition with the excellent Introduction by Hari Kunzru.
November 17, 2011
Written before "Tinker, Tailor" and set at the height of the Cold War,a junior official in the West German capital goes missing with a sheaf of confidential material. The junior offical is an emigre and his disappearance could be a massive embarrassment to HMG. The Foreign Office send Alan Turner, a bulldozer of an investigator, who is not prepared to let the niceties of realpolitik get in his quest for the truth. Turner makes no friends, that is not his job, but is unprepared for the complexities of the balancing act between post-war expediancy and wartime criminality - every country has its version of Werner Von Braun. This is a fiction about squaring the circle and how the truth can sometimes be a massive embarrassment. Within le Carre's oeuvre this is an underrated masterpiece.
March 21, 2013
Throughout most of this early le Carré novel, I was convinced I would probably rate it three stars. It was interesting, but plodded at times. It seemed a little provincial, a bit dated, ended up being historically incorrect, and seemed almost like le Carré was writing a Henry James ghost story more than a le Carré thriller. However, by the end I loved it. The chapter before the Epilogue (a conversation between Turner and Bradfield) was absolutely genius. It was one of the most powerful chapters in any book I've come across that wasn't originally written in Russian.
September 30, 2008
To be honest, I was a bit disappointed by the ending. However, this is much deeper than a typical Cold War novel. It speaks pointedly to the human condition, and the thoughts and emotions that drive people's actions, particularly when motivated by different things. It's a very good read from that standpoint, but the culmination of the plot left me scratching my head a bit.
November 5, 2023
His foreword gave me the impression that le Carre was not fully satisfied with his 1968 book, A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY. If so, I dissent. Alan Turner and Leo Harting are among his best characters. And the plot is very satisfying, as one would expect, but no spoilers here.
August 17, 2016
I read the vast majority of this book at a desultory, generally unenthusiastic pace, and I wish I'd known how it would come together at the end, because I would have given it better attention.
The good parts: le Carré's close observation of meetings and interiors (he's sort of like a domestic novelist of the office, among his other interests) and wonderful bits of scene-setting, like this: "It was a day to be nearly free; a day to stay in London and dream of the country. In St. James's Park, the premature summer was entering its third week. Along the lake, girls lay like cut flowers in the unnatural heat of a Sunday afternoon in May" (37).
The less good part: I found that this particular novel frequently trafficked in emotions that heightened too quickly to feel quite right--it felt to me like the author was trying to make his characters angry (or despondent, or whatever) and the characters were only grudgingly coming along for the ride. It took me a while to figure out what this reminded me of: it was the recent literary novel Swimming Home--though there's a difference of degree; le Carré's characters seem strangely tetchy whereas Levy's appear to be, in fact, Martians.
So Alan Turner goes to Bonn, the titular small town, in search of an employee who has gone missing and is possibly a spy. What is going on here? As Turner interviews all the uncooperative staff of the embassy, one of them quotes the missing man: "We've got the big memory and the small memory. The small memory's to remember the small things and the big memory's to forget the big ones" (103).
Turner spends much of the book on the small things, tracing odd little details of the suspected spy's life, his romances, hobbies and failures. I confess that le Carré tricked me into looking in the wrong direction, too.
The good parts: le Carré's close observation of meetings and interiors (he's sort of like a domestic novelist of the office, among his other interests) and wonderful bits of scene-setting, like this: "It was a day to be nearly free; a day to stay in London and dream of the country. In St. James's Park, the premature summer was entering its third week. Along the lake, girls lay like cut flowers in the unnatural heat of a Sunday afternoon in May" (37).
The less good part: I found that this particular novel frequently trafficked in emotions that heightened too quickly to feel quite right--it felt to me like the author was trying to make his characters angry (or despondent, or whatever) and the characters were only grudgingly coming along for the ride. It took me a while to figure out what this reminded me of: it was the recent literary novel Swimming Home--though there's a difference of degree; le Carré's characters seem strangely tetchy whereas Levy's appear to be, in fact, Martians.
So Alan Turner goes to Bonn, the titular small town, in search of an employee who has gone missing and is possibly a spy. What is going on here? As Turner interviews all the uncooperative staff of the embassy, one of them quotes the missing man: "We've got the big memory and the small memory. The small memory's to remember the small things and the big memory's to forget the big ones" (103).
Turner spends much of the book on the small things, tracing odd little details of the suspected spy's life, his romances, hobbies and failures. I confess that le Carré tricked me into looking in the wrong direction, too.
January 28, 2013
If you want a good spy novel this was superb! Brilliantly plotted, when one of the officer goes missing, but existing artificial effect.......very clever.
Leo Harting works twenty years as Chancery officer was missing, and an investigation was conducted due to the disappearance of the forty odd files that contained the most sensitive materials on high ranking German politicians. The rest are top secret, and Anglo-German agreements:secret treaties, secret codicils to published agreement.
Since, Leo works with Meadowes "Turner" suspects that Harting was a spy. And secretly inquiring Korfeld's Nazi career, while working as administrator of a laboratory that poisoned Jews. Leo, found some evidence that will endanger him from Ludwig. While, Bradfield was unfeeling towards Harting's state of affairs, because he thinks Leo was an embarrassment and felonious.
Leo Harting works twenty years as Chancery officer was missing, and an investigation was conducted due to the disappearance of the forty odd files that contained the most sensitive materials on high ranking German politicians. The rest are top secret, and Anglo-German agreements:secret treaties, secret codicils to published agreement.
Since, Leo works with Meadowes "Turner" suspects that Harting was a spy. And secretly inquiring Korfeld's Nazi career, while working as administrator of a laboratory that poisoned Jews. Leo, found some evidence that will endanger him from Ludwig. While, Bradfield was unfeeling towards Harting's state of affairs, because he thinks Leo was an embarrassment and felonious.
December 5, 2025
It's a 3.5 but quality of le Carre's writing just bumps it to a four.
Semi comic thriller which lifts the lid on the British Embassy in Bonn at the time of the formation of the EU. A temporary diplomat has gone missing and taciturn 'researcher', Turner, is sent from London to sought it out. The more he investigates the more inept the embassy officials appear. Post war German politics and the relationship with Europe and Russia form an intriguing backdrop.
After a slow start the pace picks up when Turner, a blunt Yorkshire man turns up and ruffles everyone's feathers and tramples all over the microcosm of the English class system at play in the embassy. His quarry, Harting slowly comes into focus as Turner tracks down his movements around the embassy and homes in in his motivations.
Not sure the ending does the build up justice.
Semi comic thriller which lifts the lid on the British Embassy in Bonn at the time of the formation of the EU. A temporary diplomat has gone missing and taciturn 'researcher', Turner, is sent from London to sought it out. The more he investigates the more inept the embassy officials appear. Post war German politics and the relationship with Europe and Russia form an intriguing backdrop.
After a slow start the pace picks up when Turner, a blunt Yorkshire man turns up and ruffles everyone's feathers and tramples all over the microcosm of the English class system at play in the embassy. His quarry, Harting slowly comes into focus as Turner tracks down his movements around the embassy and homes in in his motivations.
Not sure the ending does the build up justice.
February 27, 2025
I think I read that Carré didn't care for this one when it first came out, but came around on it years later. I gather it's supposed to be his ode to the things he loves about Germany, but he felt he didn't really do it justice, with Germany not coming off great in the novel, and it even being read as anti-German. Certainly not as easy task! The spy stuff works, and really that's what matters most. A bit more at my newsletter here
January 28, 2024
Not the best that I've read by the author to date but still an interesting read. For this reader the ending wasn't quite what I was hoping for.
December 15, 2021
(See Mass Market Paperback edition for my review)
January 27, 2010
I’ll warn you, it starts slow. But then it takes you screaming down odd twisted paths and leaves you dumped at the end of the line, wholly unsatisfied, but ready to read another book by John le Carre.
There, my one-paragraph review of “A Small Town in Germany,” the first of le Carre’s books I’ve read, following my long-standing policy of reading books that typically come to me through thrift store purchases, outright donations or are discovered being smuggled into the house baked inside loaves of bread.
The one sympathetic character in the book is the one you don’t get to meet. The rest of them are anti-heroes at best, schemers at worst – which is probably an accurate reflection of the seedier side of mankind – the decent guy is the one you never meet. But then he’s not decent, then, is he? I won’t spoil any plots, but be ready to discover there are no white hats in this roundup.
I’ll ding it one star for crude sexual references that add nothing to the plot nor to the overall contemptible anti-hero’s persona. The book, and its characters, are brutal, brutish, ugly and inhuman, as inhuman as the Nazis who inevitably become the book’s shadow villains. Nazis, of course, are perfect villains, because that’s their shtick. “Nazis. I hate these guys,” is an apt line to steal from Indiana Jones when reading this book.
Le Carre has an interesting style. No one is omniscient in this book. We learn along with the characters, and as little as possible, to boot. Nor are we left with a clear-cut understanding as to how the plot is sewn together. There is much left unsaid that le Carre leaves to the reader to fill in. That’s admirable in a spy novel, because the true impulse is to wrap up everything in a neat package at the end like an Agatha Christie novel. The flaw with that premise is that life rarely comes in such neatly-wrapped packages. Le Carre captures that frustration well, and plays it to great narrative advantage.
There, my one-paragraph review of “A Small Town in Germany,” the first of le Carre’s books I’ve read, following my long-standing policy of reading books that typically come to me through thrift store purchases, outright donations or are discovered being smuggled into the house baked inside loaves of bread.
The one sympathetic character in the book is the one you don’t get to meet. The rest of them are anti-heroes at best, schemers at worst – which is probably an accurate reflection of the seedier side of mankind – the decent guy is the one you never meet. But then he’s not decent, then, is he? I won’t spoil any plots, but be ready to discover there are no white hats in this roundup.
I’ll ding it one star for crude sexual references that add nothing to the plot nor to the overall contemptible anti-hero’s persona. The book, and its characters, are brutal, brutish, ugly and inhuman, as inhuman as the Nazis who inevitably become the book’s shadow villains. Nazis, of course, are perfect villains, because that’s their shtick. “Nazis. I hate these guys,” is an apt line to steal from Indiana Jones when reading this book.
Le Carre has an interesting style. No one is omniscient in this book. We learn along with the characters, and as little as possible, to boot. Nor are we left with a clear-cut understanding as to how the plot is sewn together. There is much left unsaid that le Carre leaves to the reader to fill in. That’s admirable in a spy novel, because the true impulse is to wrap up everything in a neat package at the end like an Agatha Christie novel. The flaw with that premise is that life rarely comes in such neatly-wrapped packages. Le Carre captures that frustration well, and plays it to great narrative advantage.
April 12, 2014
Once again my quest to like a le Carré novel is proven elusive. All the ingredients for a great book are there. The setting is Germany at a point in time when for most, like the British, the wounds have healed but for some they are still open. The place is Bonn that brings memories to those who grew up during the cold war and the actors are diplomats engaged in the first and failed effort to bring Britain into the EEC. And the mood is anti-American with the students preparing for the mad year of 1968.
thus, by all accounts I should love this book. But I just can’t stomach the way le Carré writes, it starts to look I never will as I've already read most of them. His dialogue goes round and round in great circles. One loses the plot time after time. When the dialogue breaks a circle and the story moves forward it shine for a while until it starts to go in circles again.
What is interesting in this book is that it truly reveals le Carré the writer as a misogynist. I had sensed his dislike of women in the way he describes Smiley's wife in his later books but I hadn't realized how much he hates women until I read this story. Every woman in this book is described with venom. They are there only to betray, nothing more can be expected from them. I wonder why and I wonder whether the man behind le Carré feels the same. I hope not.
thus, by all accounts I should love this book. But I just can’t stomach the way le Carré writes, it starts to look I never will as I've already read most of them. His dialogue goes round and round in great circles. One loses the plot time after time. When the dialogue breaks a circle and the story moves forward it shine for a while until it starts to go in circles again.
What is interesting in this book is that it truly reveals le Carré the writer as a misogynist. I had sensed his dislike of women in the way he describes Smiley's wife in his later books but I hadn't realized how much he hates women until I read this story. Every woman in this book is described with venom. They are there only to betray, nothing more can be expected from them. I wonder why and I wonder whether the man behind le Carré feels the same. I hope not.
October 29, 2016
This made for great reading on my flight to Germany, but it's undeniable that this is missing some vital element of le Carré's genius. I think the critical flaw is in the character of Turner, the brash investigator sent to resolve the disappearance that kicks off the plot of the book. A lot of readers (and le Carré himself, in the introduction to this edition) will point to how wrong the writer gets the German character and where that society went in the aftermath of the war, but if we cared more about Turner and the places this story took him to, we could forgive that. As le Carré points out, the undercurrent of rage at the older generation was mostly correct, but was channeled in a very different way than what is presented here. No, the flaw is in Turner - we never really get to know him outside of his determination to solve the case (and seemingly piss off everyone involved at the same time). It's a Smiley approach to a Leamas type of role, and it makes the conclusion of his arc unsatisfying. Still, le Carré is a master of time and place, and the tension builds admirably. 3.5 stars.
January 1, 2017
Wow! I had to remind myself that I was listening to the time when Britain was fighting to gain access to the Common Market, not Brexit. I had to remind myself that the right-wing movement and charismatic leader was from 1968 not 2016. So many parallels to today's geo-political world and such a good story on top of it.
The reason I read this early work by John Le Carre's is that I was reading his book The Pigeon Tunnel and he referenced this book as the one where embassy life (diplomats and some spies?) were the most realistically depicted. I enjoyed that aspect, but the story and its construction were the real stars.
Highly recommended!
The reason I read this early work by John Le Carre's is that I was reading his book The Pigeon Tunnel and he referenced this book as the one where embassy life (diplomats and some spies?) were the most realistically depicted. I enjoyed that aspect, but the story and its construction were the real stars.
Highly recommended!
October 19, 2018
A wordy, wordy book full of people talking in riddles and by the time I got to two chapters from the end I couldn’t take it any more, so I read the last page and you know what? Still no idea what it was about. And I like his books. A lot. But not this one.
July 11, 2017
Early Le Carre is still great Le Carre. As with most of his work, if you can make it through the long set-up and make sense of the British-ism embedded in the writing, you'll be rewarded with a fine novel.
The 'small town' referenced in the title is Bonn, (West) Germany in the late 60's during the Cold War. It was a different world then, but maybe not so different since protests against an economic summit, issues related to NATO, and Russian spying are all in the story line. The plot is solid: a German national who's a long-time 'temporary' employee of the British embassy disappears with some important files (paper, of course). An investigator is sent in to determine if the man defected to the East. We're then treated to the characteristic Le Carre style..... lots of dialogue, many characters, interrogations. Not a lot of action per se, but enough to keep the story interesting and readers engaged. The writing is superb, the plot is solid, and when the investigator finally reaches a conclusion, it's likely not what you expected.
I read a lot in this genre, and one thing I was struck by while making my way through this book was how different the reaction would be in today's world. There wouldn't be one investigator sent, more likely a team with a bunch of computer and forensics experts. The disappeared person would have been tracked via cell phone, credit card use, surveillance cameras, etc. I'm not sure all the interviews of his bosses and co-workers would have taken place, and any that did probably wouldn't have been as genteelly done. Would've been a different book, but if Le Carre wrote it I'd still read it!
The 'small town' referenced in the title is Bonn, (West) Germany in the late 60's during the Cold War. It was a different world then, but maybe not so different since protests against an economic summit, issues related to NATO, and Russian spying are all in the story line. The plot is solid: a German national who's a long-time 'temporary' employee of the British embassy disappears with some important files (paper, of course). An investigator is sent in to determine if the man defected to the East. We're then treated to the characteristic Le Carre style..... lots of dialogue, many characters, interrogations. Not a lot of action per se, but enough to keep the story interesting and readers engaged. The writing is superb, the plot is solid, and when the investigator finally reaches a conclusion, it's likely not what you expected.
I read a lot in this genre, and one thing I was struck by while making my way through this book was how different the reaction would be in today's world. There wouldn't be one investigator sent, more likely a team with a bunch of computer and forensics experts. The disappeared person would have been tracked via cell phone, credit card use, surveillance cameras, etc. I'm not sure all the interviews of his bosses and co-workers would have taken place, and any that did probably wouldn't have been as genteelly done. Would've been a different book, but if Le Carre wrote it I'd still read it!
October 5, 2015
'Shady doings' at the British Embassy in Bonn, Germany. That about sums it up.
This is an odd-item among LeCarre's early works; and it is often overlooked because it appears 'out-of-sequence' --even, 'disrupting' the Smiley saga--and its protagonist seems to have been the one-off appearance of admittedly a rather boring and ineffectual hero, called in to solve a singular mystery, and then never heard from again. One wonders why LeCarre wrote this minor drama at all. I confess that I myself have no idea. Perhaps it is the result of a hol in Bonn?
No matter. The story has a strange allure and appeal despite its drab earmarks. I've gone back to it for at least one re-read. There is very little violence; but what violence there is, is very personal. It is an intimate book; rich with atmosphere and the inner musings of its narrator (as usual) and rife with diplomatic detail (as usual).
One yearns to see it fit somehow in with the goings-on of the Circus--which one knows were in progress at the time--but it doesn't. It refuses to. It's just an extremely odd, annoying-that-it-doesn't-match-with-anything-else, type of book.
This is an odd-item among LeCarre's early works; and it is often overlooked because it appears 'out-of-sequence' --even, 'disrupting' the Smiley saga--and its protagonist seems to have been the one-off appearance of admittedly a rather boring and ineffectual hero, called in to solve a singular mystery, and then never heard from again. One wonders why LeCarre wrote this minor drama at all. I confess that I myself have no idea. Perhaps it is the result of a hol in Bonn?
No matter. The story has a strange allure and appeal despite its drab earmarks. I've gone back to it for at least one re-read. There is very little violence; but what violence there is, is very personal. It is an intimate book; rich with atmosphere and the inner musings of its narrator (as usual) and rife with diplomatic detail (as usual).
One yearns to see it fit somehow in with the goings-on of the Circus--which one knows were in progress at the time--but it doesn't. It refuses to. It's just an extremely odd, annoying-that-it-doesn't-match-with-anything-else, type of book.
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