Serge answers “What are your conclusions on the ending? ...”

Lorraine Petkus asked this question about Transcription:

What are your conclusions on the ending? Don't want to add spoilers yet.

Serge With the Toby/Hazeldine character so obviously modelled after George Smiley, my theory during the wartime chapters was that Perry was a German spy giv…moreWith the Toby/Hazeldine character so obviously modelled after George Smiley, my theory during the wartime chapters was that Perry was a German spy giving worthless information to the British through the transcriptions, and that the real information was obtained secretly by Toby and handed over to "Mr. Fisher" through dead letters. Then the twist ending is pulled out of the hat! If so many intelligent readers cannot figure it out, than we have all been cheated - it is neither possible nor worth figuring out. John LeCarré (the names of whose characters are used throughout the novel) does not write the whole book from a single character's point of view, therefore his plot twists are legitimate. But in the novel at hand there are no clues, no matter how many times we reread. The author should have stuck to the well-researched wartime story.(less)

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