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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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Susan
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rated it 4 stars
Mar 04, 2022 04:08AM
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I seem to remember reading somewhere that le Carré himself admitted, with hindsight, that his women often lacked the complexity of his male characters - and I admired him all the more for recognising and accepting that.
I realise that we have very different takes on the books (which is fascinating, not a criticism) in that I don't find Smiley likeable or even necessarily empathetic. He's a brilliant character but he's also all about moral grey areas.
And for all his wistful desires to go away and study German poetry, he can never resist being called back to the Circus and getting embroiled in, even heading up, all the plots. I don't believe for a second that he could have survived as long as he has at the top of his game without being brutal and ruthless when it comes to it. And however much we see him wounded at various outcomes (The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, for example, for those who've read it), he doesn't walk away from the game. I think he accepts responsibility for the results of his actions and can even mourn them, but he would do the same again, if he had to.
For me, le Carré is all about these compromises and contingencies. It's precisely the way the espionage/political world eats away at humanity that I think he's interested in. And these complicated, compromised characters like Smiley are why I love these books.
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The Looking Glass War was JLC's attempt to provide a more truthful account of the intelligence services.
Smiley only has a bit part in this book, however his perceptiveness and awareness help the reader to understand what is happening.
Amateurism, tragedy and stupidity permeate the entire novel. JLC lays bare snobbery, vanity, a sense of denial and delusion, repressed emotions, faded dreams, and incompetence. It's palpable, and often hard to read, but remains grimly compelling throughout. It’s exactly what he set out to write: a more truthful novel that captured the internal politics, the little Englander mentality, and the complacency of the mid-60s UK intelligence service.
Compared with its predecessor The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, The Looking Glass War (George Smiley #4) was a relative flop, especially in Britain. In John le Carré's introduction, written in 1991, he addresses this...
After the success of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold I felt I had earned the right to experiment with the more fragile possibilities of the spy story than those I had explored till now. For the truth was, that the realities of spying as I had known them on the ground had been far removed from the fiendishly clever conspiracy that had entrapped my hero and heroine in The Spy. I was eager to find a way of illustrating the muddle and futility that were so much closer to life. Indeed, I felt I had to: for while The Spy Who Came In from the Cold had been heralded as the book that ripped the mask off the spy business, my private view was that it had glamourised the spy business to Kingdom Come.
So this time, I thought, I'll tell it the hard way. This time, cost what it will, I'll describe a Secret Service that is really not very good at all; that is eking out its wartime glory; that is feeding itself on Little England fantasies; is isolated, directionless, over-protected and destined ultimately to destroy itself.
Great comments.I have only read through TTSS (my turn for The Honourable Schoolboy on Libby should come up in a couple of months) so my comments are limited to TTSS and the two preceding books.
Smiley's character is an enigma to me. I find him sympathetic in that for all his intelligence and perceptiveness, he is buffeted by forces beyond his control and something of a failure at playing institutional and relationship politics. I wonder what drives his loyalty/attachment to country, the Circus and to Ann? Is it love/patriotism, habit or something else? And how is he different from Karla?
I sense that he is an enigma to himself as well. The "academic" interests he thought he had outside the Circus faded once he was drummed out and had all the time he wanted to pursue them. They were good as a "distraction" but no more than that.
Certainly a brilliant creation.
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https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cul...
Good article, but SPOILER ALERT for references to Smiley's People.
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It picks up on the power that Smiley has, the relentlessness when he has something in sight, the implacability - all those qualities we sense and which I find quite chilling, maybe because they're so quiet and hidden in him.
Interesting that le Carré considered The Spy Who Came In... as glamorising espionage as that's not how I read it. Looking Glass War is brilliant though.
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Hmm! Maybe we should pick this point up again when you've read on, Ben :)
I'm struck by your point about Smiley being an enigma to himself - yes, he thinks he's wants to retreat into academia but actually he leaps at the chance, again and again, to get back into the game.
Yep, that's exactly what I think: is there any difference between him and Karla?
I find Connie a slightly uncomfortable character here, for the reasons Susan and RC give - but she is brilliantly described. I loved her "wonderful mind that never grew up," for example.My reading has been severely restricted this week by a nasty illness and a couple of days in hospital so it's slow progress for me, but I'm enjoying it immensely. It puts most other spy thrillers completely in the shade (with some noble exceptions, of course).
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Susan wrote: "Sorry to hear you haven't been well, Sid. Hope you are on the mend?"Sort of. A lot better than last week, anyway. Thanks, Susan.
Back to bed now. (Or perhaps in a group like this, I ought to say "Let us sleep now...")
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Yes, take care, Sid. When you're feeling perkier, I'd love to hear what your 'noble exceptions' are - I'm sold on reading the entire le Carré back catalogue but are you thinking of other spy writers who I perhaps haven't read yet?
Roman Clodia wrote: "Yes, take care, Sid. When you're feeling perkier, I'd love to hear what your 'noble exceptions' are - I'm sold on reading the entire le Carré back catalogue but are you thinking of other spy writers who I perhaps haven't read yet? "Thanks, RC. Just a quick emergence to say that Len Deighton and, of course, Mick Herron spring to mind. Both very different from le Carré and from each other, but both excellent, in my view.
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Both amongst the best
Deighton’s Bernie Samson series is a winner. Adored it
We all love Herron here 🤠
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https://spywrite.com/2017/07/19/the-c...
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I have just finished, not sure who else is still reading.
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I'm still reading (and loving) it - but I remember the ending, so spoil away as far as I'm concerned.
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"Feel free to give spoilers"
If you don't know the outcome we should hold off
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I wonder if it will make you feel differently about the book. Either way I look forward to your final reaction
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Please don't wait for me. Circumstances mean I'm making much slower progress than usual and I mean it - the ending is very clearly etched in my memory, so you won't be spoiling anything for me.(I'm currently at the interview between Smiley and Jim Prideaux. Riveting.)
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I'm wondering if it's something to do with the structure and the complicated chronology of Tinker Tailor?
I've now finished, so no spoiler worries for me. Thought it was brilliant. My (brief) review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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I've always enjoyed and appreciated the Prideaux/Haydon relationship.
Particularly poignant is how Jim Prideaux's assasination of Haydon is not because he was a traitor to his country but because he betrayed him personally (and the Russians in Budapest).
This is captured brilliantly in the conclusion to the 2011 film which juxtaposes a Circus Xmas party with the moment of Haydon's death and the immediate post Haydon era, all to the unlikely but amazing soundtrack of Julio Iglesias singing La Mer. It ends with Smiley returning to Ann and becoming the new head. Cinematic perfection.
This YouTube clip has about a minute of the scene before in Jim Prideaux's caravan which is also an integral part of the climactic scene. Colin Firth as Haydon does compromised and cocky perfectly. The exchanged look between Haydon and Prideaux is really moving. Show don't tell, eh? This is gets me every time...
https://youtu.be/o_s2r1vUzAc
I loved everything about this book. Smiley, Prideaux and Guillam were my favourite characters - I liked the way Guillam ‘grew up’ and lost his illusions. He’s at a kind of crossroads now, he can become like Smiley now he’s lost his illusions, or he can become cynical in a different way and reject the Service.I guessed who the mole would be early on, because of the personal element both with Prideaux and Ann, but still loved the way Smiley dug him out (sorry!) I really enjoyed the tense episodes that had me on the edge of the seat - Sid mentioned the file stealing in his review, but I also enjoyed Prideaux’s and Max’s accounts of all the events that led up to the disastrous mission (the woman with the pram, the rendezvous with Max etc)
I also love the Herron books, but I see them as fun and the characters as caricatures. I wish they were real but I never quite feel they are. I wish the Circus le Carré paints wasn’t real, but I fear it is, and it’s very bleak. But he’s such a great storyteller.
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Pamela wrote:
"I also love the Herron books, but I see them as fun and the characters as caricatures. I wish they were real but I never quite feel they are. I wish the Circus le Carré paints wasn’t real, but I fear it is, and it’s very bleak. But he’s such a great storyteller."
You've hit the nail on the head here Pamela.
I adore Herron's Slow Horses series too but they are far more knockabout and plot-driven than JLC. That said, there is real jeopardy, brutality and hard politics at play too. Yet, for all that, I agree that JLC's world feels more authentic and complex. Particularly his characters who are invariably nuanced, flawed and totally convincing.
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On the le Carré/Herron topic, I've always thought that in a sense the Slough House books are subtly in conversation with le Carré's world: Catherine with her drinking is a cleaned up version of Connie, and River would fit into Smiley's world almost as another Peter Guillam. Jackson Lamb himself is a sort of anti-Smiley: he takes on his shabbiness and hidden power, his relentless attitude, but Smiley's surface humility and self-effacedness becomes Lamb's in your face obnoxiousness which hides much of his inner self. And I think Herron is gleefully undercutting the gentlemanly Old Boy thing with Lamb's farting and swearing.
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Very insightful parallels between le Carré/Herron. That's genius. I do feel that Herron is now the closest thing we have to JLC, and long may he continue to write such splendid books
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The end is typically more downbeat in the book - but I can understand that as a standalone film, they wanted to give it a more defined conclusion. Even Smiley's work 'triumph' is undercut though with the return of Ann so I guess they're going for the same tonal feel in the film even if the circumstances have been changed.
it's a very long time since I've read the book but I'll jump in mid month and then check back into this thread as I see quite a few have finished already. I'm listening to an audio book, a BBC dramatisation.
Lisa Bianca wrote: "I'm listening to an audio book, a BBC dramatisation. "I remember that radio dramatisation and I thought it was very good, but for me a lot of the pleasure and sheer class of the book was le Carré's prose and storytelling. I'll be interested to know what you make of the dramatised version, Lisa.
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I just finished this, and it is a four star read for me. I am not sure whether it gets clarified in subsequent novels, but why, of why, did Ann Sercombe accept George Smiley's marriage proposal?
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"...why, did Ann Sercombe accept George Smiley's marriage proposal?"
We never get a definitive answer
The Haydon affair effectively kills the relationship though, as we discover later in the trilogy
Wayne wrote: "I just finished this, and it is a four star read for me. I am not sure whether it gets clarified in subsequent novels, but why, of why, did Ann Sercombe accept George Smiley's marriage proposal?"Security?
Ben wrote: "Wayne wrote: "I just finished this, and it is a four star read for me. I am not sure whether it gets clarified in subsequent novels, but why, of why, did Ann Sercombe accept George Smiley's marriag..."I am not sure I understand Ben. Financial? She is supposed to be a member of the aristocracy, so one would imagine some means or access to it. When we first read about her, she went off with a Cuban race driver, not exactly risk-free behaviour. Maybe she married him for his brains, I don't know. I am stumped.
It was really a tongue in cheek comment. The mission of spies is to promote national security, and the traditional role of a husband was to provide the wife with security. In this case it doesn't really fit.So, I agree with you, it's a bit of a mystery.
Perhaps a youthful mistake.
Or perhaps it wasn't much of a focus for Mr Le Carré
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The marriage of Lady Ann Sercombe and Mr. George Smiley was about as unlikely as it was to later be dysfunctional. She was aristocratic, social, beautiful, and young. He was plain-looking, shy, undistinguished in terms of class or position, and considerably older than her. He thought that Ann was his grand coup, a validation that he was a worthwhile person in a lonely, hostile world. At his wedding he “had waddled down the aisle in search of the kiss that would turn him into a Prince” while his bride’s upper class relatives make fun of him behind his back. When Ann first leaves him, he becomes a joke that people soon forget about, the toad that had married the beautiful Ann Sercombe. She will return to him and leave him over and over again. He waits for signs that she is growing restless. She only has to leave the house without earrings for his heart to sink, because he knows she’s on her way to an assignation.
https://thealphabetician.wordpress.co...
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The relationship endures across the books, with Ann returning and leaving restlessly. I wonder if all her antics which she makes no attempt to hide are attempts to push Smiley into doing something active: a grand declaration? A final separation? And his indecision and acceptance just feed her need for drama?
Ben wrote: "It was really a tongue in cheek comment. The mission of spies is to promote national security, and the traditional role of a husband was to provide the wife with security. In this case it doesn't r...":,>)
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)
