The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (George Smiley, #3) in Never too Late to Read Classics

May 27, 2011 Sara rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, cold-war, spy-thriller, mystery

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold has the distinction of being the first universally lauded novel by John le Carre and the one that cemented his reputation as a serious writer of Cold War fiction. As the story opens, Alec Leamas, a British operative who has been running the Berlin office of the British Intelligence Service, watches as his informant attempts an escape from East Berlin and is killed. With his network blown and his main informant dead, Leamas is asked to undertake a mission of his The Spy Who Came in From the Cold has the distinction of being the first universally lauded novel by John le Carre and the one that cemented his reputation as a serious writer of Cold War fiction. As the story opens, Alec Leamas, a British operative who has been running the Berlin office of the British Intelligence Service, watches as his informant attempts an escape from East Berlin and is killed. With his network blown and his main informant dead, Leamas is asked to undertake a mission of his own, going into deep cover and putting his own life on the line.

If you are old enough to remember a divided Berlin and the tensions that swirled around the Berlin Wall, this book will feel almost nostalgic. In some ways, the times were simpler; we supposed we knew who the enemy was, and it seemed clear to us what was right and what was wrong. Of course, it wasn’t that simple at all, and John le Carre, a man who served in the intelligence services himself, is in a position to remind us of that.

At one point in the book, a spy from the other side say, “We’re all the same, you know, that’s the joke.” And, perhaps, there is more that is the same about us, regardless of our political or social views, than there is that is different.

And, there is a cynicism that runs through the novel that questions the very premises upon which the system is built. There is no absolute truth and no absolute solution, and many of the players are not even sure of the roles they are playing.

Sometimes she thought Alec was right--you believed in things because you needed to; what you believed in had no value of its own, no function. What did he say? “A dog scratches where it itches. Different dogs itch in different places.”

The major questions I was left pondering after finishing were “When do the ends justify the means, or do they ever?” and “Should the individual matter as much as the collective and who decides when the individual should be sacrificed for the good of the society?”

Didn’t see much of Smiley in this novel, but it certainly sets the mood and the understanding him in those left to come.
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Aug 04, 2013 Antonomasia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: british, decade-1960s, 1001-books, 2013, thriller

Sept 2013
I bought this when I started to get fed up with The Kills, quite early in my Booker longlist reading. I'd enjoyed thrillers on film & TV and remembered liking this sort of novel when I was a kid. (Mostly in the form of Reader's Digest condensed books, and the unwanted volumes sent by postal book clubs which often were never returned despite the annoyance that would greet their every arrival.)
If Le Carré is one of the best British thriller writers ever, then surely he'd provide a benchm ...more

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