Reading the 20th Century discussion
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré (March 2022)
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I've read this twice before but am finding it brilliant all over again. I'm switching between audio and book and while Michael Jayston reads it very well, it's a little too easy to lose the thread when listening, I find, and I have to go back over those chapters in the book.
Who's joining in with this group read, and is it your first time with this book or a reread?
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A few months back I rewatched the BBC 70s adapation of this (and then also watched the follow up Smiley's People). Both really stand up. Alec Guinness was an amazing Smiley
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Alec Guinness, even though I haven't seen him as Smiley, is *exactly* as I picture him - though maybe that's because subliminally, I've absorbed images of him in this iconic role.
I think Smiley's People just beats this one to my top Smiley book, Nigeyb - but this one is close. It's a rare book that is still utterly gripping and tense on a third go round.
Sid, glad you'll be joining us on this one.
My brother recommended this book to me ... decades ago, and for some reason I've never read it! So I will take the opportunity to read with this group, however I'll be getting a late start (I should finish The Brothers Karamazov in the next week, and start then). Mysteries and thrillers aren't my usual fare, so I will be reading slowly, but glad to know this thread will be here!
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"I haven't seen any of the adaptations or films partly because the casting of the recent film seems off to me: I just can't 'see' Gary Oldman as Smiley, Colin Firth as Bill Haydon, or Tom Hardy as Ricki Tarr - all great actors but they clash with my vision of these characters."
I urge you to reconsider
It's a superb film and, whilst the cast may not feel quite right, it really works. Another excellent adaptation and a superb evocation of the 1970s. I've seen it a few times, and loved it every time.
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I'd hesitate to call it a mystery or a thriller, Kathleen - though there is a mystery, in lots of ways this isn't thrilling or, rather, not thrilling in a conventional action sense. But I won't say any more, and look forward to your thoughts.
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Well it's hard to hold out against such enthusiasm, Nigeyb! I would love to see the 1970s setting.
That reminds me, in the book a safe house in London is bought for £60k - is that a lot at the time, mid-1970s? I'm not sure how to judge.
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Roman Clodia wrote: "Kathleen wrote: "Mysteries and thrillers aren't my usual fare"I'd hesitate to call it a mystery or a thriller, Kathleen - though there is a mystery, in lots of ways this isn't thrilling or, rathe..."
Intriguing--thank you!
I'm in. It was my second read and I discovered so much more this time through. Le Carré is a writer of such subtlety and complexity!I absolutely love the picture he draws of the musty, broken parts of England that barely function.
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I am in, but will start it a bit later in March.
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I absolutely love the picture he draws of the musty, broken par..."
Yes and yes! I don't even think of these books as spy or genre fiction, they use that setting to think about big ideas like betrayal, idealism, disillusion, power, class...
One theme already present here which becomes more prevalent in le Carre's fiction is the moribund nature of Britain (or a certain class-based part of the British Establishment): Eton-Oxbridge-white-male-middle-aged-middle-class-well-connected and clubby, harking back to an imperial past and a high-point of WW2 when they were young men (nearly all men).
I also love the seedy, unglamorous air: Brixton, Acton, the Charing Cross Road, brown cardboard files.
No rush, if you haven't started - I'm happy to talk le Carre all month!
I’ll be starting this next week, it will be my 4th le Carré and I’ve loved the previous three so am really looking forward to it.
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"Well it's hard to hold out against such enthusiasm, Nigeyb! I would love to see the 1970s setting."
I'd be amazed if it's anything other than love at first watch. I love it and have now seen it three times. A really wonderful film (as is the BBC TV adaption)/
"Just answered my own question (about the safe house) by finding an inflation calculator online: £60k in 1974 would be worth £666,290.08 in 2022."
And the rest. Property prices in London have massively outstripped inflaction.
£60k in 1974 was v expensive. I'd guess that house would be worth £2-3 million now, possibly more
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I've finished now - it's been a bit eerie reading it given the constant flow of grim news today.
I'll be very interested in what you lovely people make of Smiley - I've always thought of him as the sort of moral centre of these books but I'm not so sure now. What do you think about his relationship with Ann, especially?
Smiley is not at all a conventional hero and his core is a bit of a mystery to me. I have the sense of a man who is brilliant, brave and unwavering in the performance of his duty but a failure in the human arts of politics and relating to women. How can such a penetrating spy be so unknowing in his relationship with Ann?
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Brilliant mind, yes. I'm not sure what bravery means in this espionage context. Arguably, the mole is the bravest, perhaps? And while Smiley's the one given the responsibility to root out the mole, Control had him down as a possible traitor (Beggarman).
I don't see Smiley as unknowing in relation to Ann - I think he knows and feels everything but loves her anyway. There are some interesting sidelines on this relationship in the other books. I was interested that he's sort of impotent in their relationship and I was wondering about the significance of that to the theme of wider geopolitical and also internal politics. Also that Control names him Beggarman.
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Smiley knows exactly what Ann is like and what she gets up to. As do his friends and colleagues. It's all part of the tragedy of Smiley (loyal, steadfast, accepting) that helps to make him such a fascinating character.
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I hadn't thought of him before as a tragic figure but I think you're right, Nigeyb.
My imprecision in language. By unknowing I meant there is a kind of wilful political innocence to Smiley, or a disinclination to play certain games necessary to win, not having the style, the verve, the desire, etc. he would have needed to hold Ann's interest, and to win the bureaucratic game to succeed Control. One would think that for a spy, winning at all costs is expected, but not for Smiley. And to me, that willingness to lose is also a heroic innocence, because it reflects his core belief that playing the game in a certain English way is what he is fighting for.
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I've read only Tinker Tailor, but the other Karla books are firmly on my list now,
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Wow, that surprised me! I don't think of Smiley as innocent in any sense - in fact, I view him as weary and burdened by all he knows of disillusion, betrayal, expediency. He knows there's pretty much no sure thing as moral high ground in this shady world of politics, and 'winning', whatever that means, always comes at a high cost. And yes, no-one plays a longer game than Smiley (well, perhaps Cromwell in the Wolf Hall books!)
I struggled with The Honourable Schoolboy though it's important in the overarching story arc. Smiley's People is brilliant, I'd like to reread it.
I'll have to reserve judgment on Smiley's "innocence" until I read more of the Smiley books. I see Honourable Schoolboy is next in order.SPOILER ALERT.
At what point in Tinker Tailor do you think he realised there was a mole in the Circus? I thought (and perhaps I misread it) that he was surprised at the extent of betrayal by one of his colleagues.
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He is worldly and v shrewd - and he certainly doesn't shy away from the more brutal aspects of espionage when necessary. This becomes more obvious in Smiley's People.
He is also, at heart, a decent and honourable person.
Like you RC, I was less taken with The Honourable Schoolboy. It felt incredibly long, overlong, and full of unnecessary detail, although there is also much to enjoy too. The Smiley parts are excellent, his sections crackle with excitement even when they are confined to discussions in meeting rooms. However large sections are given over to field agent Jerry Westerby. He is a character who never rang true for me.
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At what point in Tinker Tailor do you think he realised there was a mole in the Circus? I thought (and perhaps I misread it) that he was surprised at the extent of betrayal by one of his colleagues."
On Nigeyb's comment, I don't think Control shared his suspicions with Smiley - Smiley was on his list of possible moles.
It's difficult to unravel the chronology with so much backstory but I also think it's when Smiley is called out of retirement - but I'm not sure he's that surprised at either the fact of a mole or the identity. Doesn't he say towards the end that he always knew? (view spoiler)
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Exactly my problem too. I'd forgotten that he makes his first appearance in Tinker and right from the start he doesn't feel right - a rare mis-step from le Carré.
Don't want to put you off, Ben, as there are also excellent parts as Nigeyb says and it's important to have read it before Smiley's People.
Yes, I think you're right about Karla's suggestion.I think I'm going to have to withdraw my comment about "innocence." Perhaps what I'm reaching for is a type of idealism, something that differentiates him from Karla.
No need for concern. Nothing will put me off reading Honourable Schoolboy.
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I think this is a testimony to the complexity of le Carre's characters that we can even have these debates.
But for me Karla is more idealistic in strict terms than Smiley - he still believes in communist ideology despite everything that has happened. We know he's been fighting fascism since the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and even having fallen out with Stalin and being imprisoned in Siberia hasn't quenched his crusade.
That question of what - if anything - differentiates Karla and Smiley is one that I continue to ponder. The recalled interrogation scene makes much of how interchangeable they are, and I love that quotation where Smiley realises this:
'I exchanged my predicament for his, that is the point, and as I now realise I began to conduct an interrogation with myself... I could have sworn I was getting through to him, that I had found the chink in his armour: when of course all I was doing - all I was doing was showing him the chink in mine.'
Keep your eye on that lighter that changes hands between them, too.
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It seems odd meeting Smiley again and realising he has been ousted from the Service. The situation with Smiley and Ann are similar to those I am currently reading about in the second volume of the Chips Channon diaries (I know that some of you have read the first volume) with his marriage ending and his realisation of how this will impact him financially, socially and career wise. There is a moment when he realises the servants are all aware of what is going on that is reminicent here, with Ann's behavioiur probably all too well known by Smiley's colleagues.
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"....with Ann's behavioiur probably all too well known by Smiley's colleagues"
No probably about it Susan
A regular occurence is how people rather pointedly ask him...
"...and how's Ann?"
Poor old George
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It's also an interesting relationship in itself, which appears across all the books. And that obvious positioning of Smiley as the man publicly and constantly betrayed by his wife yet unable to walk away is presumably also a comment on his relationship with the Circus and perhaps the British political/intelligence community itself: he knows it for what it is in all its veniality yet he cannot decisively cut his ties to it.
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He always does what is required of him. Many people would not go back to work having been so shabbily treated however George thinks nothing of the recent humiliation. The same applies with his relationship with Ann.
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I am a few chapters in now. I was surprised that Smiley's sacking was so simply dealt with - did that happen in the previous book or off stage, as it were?
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It is well worth a read though. John le Carré lays bare snobbery, vanity, a sense of denial and delusion, repressed emotions, faded dreams, and incompetence. It's often hard to read, but remains grimly compelling throughout. It’s exactly what John le Carré set out to write after The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1963): a more truthful novel that captured the internal politics, the little Englander mentality, and the complacency of the mid-1960s UK intelligence service.
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Yes, I think the complacency of the intelligence service is a very important point. Reading Ben Macintyre's Philby book, it is evident that an old school tie, and the right family, were enough to get you through the door. Implicit trust was often misplaced and Smiley is very aware of that, but his suspicion is seen as misplaced.
I'm sure this his intelligence and sense of duty were the very reasons he was sacked, as he would have (view spoiler).
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I'm less convinced about using those terms like duty and loyalty about Smiley's relationships with the Circus and his wife - but I'm a bit hard-pressed to find the right word. They make him sound cosy, somehow, and I think of Smiley as far more ruthless and dangerous than that. I imagine him as a man with cold eyes.
Those points about complacency, 'chaps like us' mentality and the whole clubby old school tie thing are absolutely spot on - and le Carré tackles them again quite explicitly in 2017's A Legacy of Spies which reopens the plots of Tinker and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold from a contemporary point of view.
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I recently re read a book by Colin Forbes, whose thrillers I used to enjoy when I was young, and I think that had a similar vibe. They remind me of films I watched in the Seventies, where men sat on beds and chain smoked in their shirt sleeves and women wore unsuitable lingerie and hovered in doorways, clutching glasses of booze!
However, saying that, I do really like Smiley. He does really remind me a little of Tweed in the Forbes books (Forbes probably borrowed some of the character traits). Super intelligent, able to spot all those links, not typically attractive, but with an aura, and with immense authority.
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Do you make that comment because she refers to all the men as her boys, and how George was always the most gorgeous?
I don't see that as sexual, more maternal I think.
She is certainly a bit of a caricature (but then so are many of the men too) however it is also refreshing how she is far smarter than most of the male characters. She becomes more prominent in Smiley's People
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But yes, good point that she is cleaned up and back in the game in Smiley's People.
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In the last film adapation she's brilliantly portrayed by Kathy Burke
And, in the BBC TV 70s version she played, just as memorably, by Beryl Reid
I have to say she's one of my favourite characters in the Smiley series - far more likeable and sympathetic than virtually everyone else with the possible exception of Smiley himself
Reading the 20th Century
Books mentioned in this topic
Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy (other topics)The Honourable Schoolboy (other topics)
The Looking Glass War (other topics)
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (other topics)
The Looking Glass War (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
John Le Carré (other topics)John Le Carré (other topics)
John Le Carré (other topics)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré
A modern classic in which John le Carré expertly creates a total vision of a secret world, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy begins George Smiley's chess match of wills and wits with Karla, his Soviet counterpart.
It is now beyond a doubt that a mole, implanted decades ago by Moscow Centre, has burrowed his way into the highest echelons of British Intelligence. His treachery has already blown some of its most vital operations and its best networks. It is clear that the double agent is one of its own kind. But which one? George Smiley is assigned to identify him. And once identified, the traitor must be destroyed.