The Looking Glass War (George Smiley, #4) in Espionage Aficionados

Jun 22, 2012 Feliks rated it really liked it

Shelves: genre-thrillers

If John Le Carre had wished to write romance novels for his career; he would have written the best of his era. If he had wished to write swashbucklers, he would have written the best of his era. If he had wished to write adventure tales, etc etc etc. My point is: he is that kind of writer. Happily, he started his career in public service--intelligence--and Fortuitously for the world's readers, he pursued a career writing an ensuing legacy of espionage novels. And those are the best of his era.

B If John Le Carre had wished to write romance novels for his career; he would have written the best of his era. If he had wished to write swashbucklers, he would have written the best of his era. If he had wished to write adventure tales, etc etc etc. My point is: he is that kind of writer. Happily, he started his career in public service--intelligence--and Fortuitously for the world's readers, he pursued a career writing an ensuing legacy of espionage novels. And those are the best of his era.

But this hardly describes his talent. It describes his accomplishment but not the richness, the tone, the tenor. "The Looking Glass War" demonstrates what his aim was: human relationships. Le Carre first and foremost wrote smashing damn good works of human psychology. These books of his ...vibrate with our common condition. They're much more about "people" than they are about "spies". They bulge with the unsung in life; the hidden 'stuff' going on in all our skulls; they seep with awkward conversations, lost reconciliations, and people trying to regain familiarity with each other.

Can you imagine--writing during a period when the world was gaga for James Bond and exploding industrial bases--John Le Carre setting himself down to pen these soft-spoken, resonant, feeling, psyche-driven studies and getting them published? Offering the world these weak, clumsy, fumbling bureaucrats and ex-soldiers and lackeys; toads; flunkies; departmental figureheads and cowards; and calling them spies? He turned the genre on its head and every novel like this one gave the head another spin.

He wrote wonderfully realistic fiction; character-based literature. "Looking Glass War" is one of the sturdiest; one of the least well-known; one of the most unforgettable, one of the most tugging-at-your-sternum. Even, years later. Its hard to forget clumsy Fred Leiser and 'the Department' trying to maintain themselves alongside the rise of MI5 and MI6. This is the kind of book Le Carre was capable of producing at any given year during his heyday. Marvelous and penetrating; part of the George Smiley legend; part of an overall arc of great writing in our time. Read it.

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Dec 26, 2014 Kev rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: spy

The Looking Glass War was published shortly after perhaps Le Carre's most famous work The Spy Who Came In from the Cold and is every bit as murky, grim and depressing as the aforementioned (possibly even more so).

The book starts brilliantly in a Finish airport where a British agent (Taylor) anticaptes the arrival of a pilot who, having undertaken a risky flyover, should have some vital information in his possession. From the moment the uneasily dialogue with the aiport barman begins you know th The Looking Glass War was published shortly after perhaps Le Carre's most famous work The Spy Who Came In from the Cold and is every bit as murky, grim and depressing as the aforementioned (possibly even more so).

The book starts brilliantly in a Finish airport where a British agent (Taylor) anticaptes the arrival of a pilot who, having undertaken a risky flyover, should have some vital information in his possession. From the moment the uneasily dialogue with the aiport barman begins you know this agents fate hangs in balance. And so sets forth a chain of events that culminates with four over-the-hill civil servants huddled together in a North German farmhouse hoping to recapture their WW2 glory days.

No characters come out well in this tale. Using one as an example: Avery, Leclerc's personal assistant, is a hopelessly naive fish out of water and is left aghast when he's tasked with returning to Finland to piece together Taylor's demise. His section reads almost like a horror film when he's holed up in the airport hotel jumping out of his skin over the smallest of knocks at the door. Spare a thought though for poor, poor Leiser; our main character in the second act. The moment the department tracks down the Anglicized Pole, who once was a British agent in WW2, for a risky cross border operation into East Germany you know he's doomed. Like the department itself he jumps at the chance to recreate his war hero image even if its only shared by the misfits in British intelligence. Quite how Leiser trusts and adores the monstrously aloof Haldane so much is particularly puzzling to me. But there comes the crux of the matter. The elite have found their willing pleb to do their grubby work for them and if he fails so what? Who will miss a Pole working in a petrol station?

Its scenarios like these that can make Le Carre particulary hard going at times; which is why he has to often rely on his most renowned creation George Smiley who seems to be the only character that possesses a moral compass.

The Looking Glass War is undoubtedly one of Le Carre's finest amongst his illustrious array of works. Highly recommended. ...more

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Dec 05, 2017 Dave rated it liked it

I’m grading on the curve here.

I read this more than 50 yrs ago when I was a young and callow lad. I rated it here about 5-6 years ago from memory. I remembered that I liked it and that it had raised some questions that impacted the way I viewed the world. This was reflected in the 3 star rating.

I reread it a month ago. I liked it again, perhaps a bit more than the 1st time because I understood it better. Still three stars...LeCarre’s done much better and I grade on the curve.

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