Status Updates From The Incongruous Spy: Two No...

Smiley shrugged. “They dreamt of peace and freedom. Now they’re murderers and spies.”
“Christ Almighty,” said Mendel.

“You were either snoring like a saddleback or reciting Webster.”
“God.”
“Duchess of Malfi, I think it was. ‘I bade thee, when I was distracted of my wits, go kill my dearest friend, and thou hast done it!’ Dreadful nonsense, George, I’m afraid.”

He hated the Press as he hated advertising and television, he hated mass-media, the relentless persuasion of the twentieth century. Everything he admired or loved had been the product of intense individualism.

He was a man apart, a man you remember, a man who strikes a chord deep in your experience, a man with the gift of universal familiarity: to Guillam he was a living component of all our romantic dreams, he stood at the mast with Conrad, sought the lost Greece with Byron, and with Goethe visited the shades of classical and medieval hells.

“Well, you’re the crime expert,” said Smiley. “How are we doing?”
“Messy,” said Mendel. “Untidy.”
“Why?”
“Loose ends everywhere. No police work. Nothing checked. Like algebra.”
“What’s algebra got to do with it?”
“You’ve got to prove what can be proved, first. Find the constants.

He resented, too, the way in which the Faculty had tampered with his subject—his beloved German literature. And there had been a night, a terrible night in the winter of 1937, when Smiley had stood at his window and watched a great bonfire in the university court ... He knew whose books they were: Thomas Mann, Heine, Lessing and a host of others. And Smiley, watching and hating, triumphed that he knew his enemy.

What is important is seldom urgent. Urgent equals ephemeral, and ephemeral equals unimportant.

“You see, when they had the plague they left their dead in the villages and moved away; not far though, on account of their land and the church. Terrible it was, terrible.”
Somehow Mundy managed to imply that the Black Death was a fairly recent disaster in those parts, if not actually within living memory.

Watching him, Miss Brimley wondered what impression he made on those who did not know him well. She used to think of him as the most forgettable man she had ever met; short and plump, with heavy spectacles and thinning hair, he was at first sight the very prototype of an unsuccessful middle-aged bachelor in a sedentary occupation.

Such an effort being with people—on stage all the time. He hated to be alone, but people bored him. Being alone was like being tired, but unable to sleep. Some German poet had said that; he’d quoted it once, “You may sleep but I must dance.” Something like that.

[possibly "Ich möchte schlafen, aber du mußt tanzen." from "Hyazinthen" (1851) -Theodor Storm (1817-1888)?]

Omnibus edition containing the first two George Smiley novels, but strangely printed out of order with #2 A Murder of Quality first and only then #1 Call for the Dead. Available as a Kindle Deal of the Day for $3.99 Cdn. on Saturday January 13, 2025 and presumably at other eBook stores e.g. Kobo

Just started this one. Le Carre's first two novels, which by the way feature George Smiley... I read "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" decades ago when it was fashionable to do so. I'll let you know...

This may be the 3rd or 4th read, but each time I pick up this 'old friend' I learn something new about George Smiley and his approach to life. It's essential for anyone who plans to read the Karla trilogy. You must know where and how GS entered the world of espionage.