Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Book Review: Somthing to Consider Before Purchasing
Summary: 3 Stars
"Tinker, Tailor" is a critically acclaimed novel by an absolutely fantastic author. There are many great reviews here and I don't want to repeat any of their contents. I simply want to summarize a few of the major points that I feel you should consider before purchasing this book and to give a brief explanation for my 3-star ranking.
Things to consider:
1) I consider Le Carre more of a "literary" author than a "commercial" one, by some definition of "literary" vs. "commercial" that is defined by writing style, not commercial success. You're going to see more of an emphasis on character and milieu than on a fast, twisting plot.
2) The author has an incredible understanding of human nature and even his minor characters are well motivated.
3) The book is written almost entirely in exposition, with a great deal of flashback.
4) Le Carre has an uncanny way of dropping phenomenal one-sentence nuggets on the reader when (s)he least expects it.
5) Le Carre is somewhat cynical.
In the abstract, numbers 1), 3) and 5)are neither good nor bad - your take on them is a matter of personal preference. Also, these five points are a reflection of my own opinions and you might find that you feel very differently about the book.
I could only give this book 3 stars because I find exposition and flashback extremely taxing to read. I can deal with a little of each technique, but this book has way to much of both for my personal tastes. There was even a large section of the book in which the protagonist is simply reading and thinking. Reading about someone reading is too recursive for me. This might not bother you at all, in which case you may find it a much better book than I did. I love Le Carre's prose, his character-driven nature, and his wry observations on human behavior. I don't mind his cynicism at all and I think very highly of him as a writer. This just wasn't the best book for me, and I will do more research in the future before I pick up another of his novels. Certainly I don't plan to continue this series.
Book Review: Spy Games
Summary: 3 Stars
The strongest feature of this novel is the beautifully created atmosphere of psychological fog that pervades everything. You can't trust no one, you can't really know if any information is true or false or only an incomplete version of truth .... The whole novel serves as a sort of philosophical reflection on loyalty and trust in human interactions. The spy world, with its experts in deception, is a metaphor for the fact that man is such a complex creature that no one really knows another person in its entirety.
This is a British spy story but it is not a James Bond kind of a story. There are no car chases or gadgets. Our "super spy", George Smiley, is a 50 something short guy who is somewhat over weight and wear thick glasses. Unlike Bond, Smiley is not a ladies man. In fact, he is faithfully married to a beautiful unfaithful woman. Smiley's main talent is rational analysis of information and perceptiveness. The premise of story is that there is a "rotten apple" in the highest level of British intelligence That is, a high ranking member of British intelligence who is betraying his country and Smiley's job is to find him. Betrayal of all kinds, whether real or imagined, is the central obsession of the characters who populate this spy world.
The major weakness of the novel is its unnecessary complexity. For instance, the novel evolves in non-linear fashion in time. There are flash backs in time on a constant basis. One extreme instance, we had few paragraphs of past, a paragraph in present time then back to past and then back again to present and then back to past and once again to present in less than 10 pages of a 350 page novel! A relatively minor character (a Russian cultural attache who is "running'" the mole) is refered to by 4 names (his real name, a fake "cover name" for his British assignment, another fake cover name for his junior colleagues in Russian intelligence and, lastly but not least, a nickname, Poly, assigned to him by British intelligence).
There is a BBC mini-series based on the novel which is far easier to follow. You might be better off watching that than trying to decipher the novel. This might be one of the rare instances, where the adaptation exceeds the original novel.
Book Review: The anti-spy book
Summary: 5 Stars
I read "The spy who came from the cold" a while ago and liked a lot. This was my second Le Carre.
I felt more or less the same when I read "The Sound and Fury". The narrative just flows. Pure stream of consciousness. Each word is essential and it is up to the reader to grasp the meanings and digest the data. It is one of these books that deserves to be read a few times.
The real spy is the reader. I don't mean that is up for the reader to solve the puzzle in the traditional best-seller way. I knew the mole's identity. When I was reading the book, I browsed an article on Wikipedia and for my surprise it gave away the mole's identity without a spoiler notice. In reality, this is secondary.
Most actions are described in interviews. Smiley asks some questions to someone and this person responds. We know the facts from these dialogues. I enjoyed the colloquialism of the conversations. Very British. Everybody is straight to the point. Work environment is political and dysfunctional as any real work environment.
My impression is that many of these characters were introduced on previous books and Le Carre took for granted that the reader knew them. That was not my case and things were a little hazy in the first few chapters.
Book Review: The perfect spy novel
Summary: 5 Stars
I spent 35 years in the intelligence business. Unlike the hero of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, I dealt with mostly technical issues. I had a couple of dealings with the British and I came away from both thinking that a Brit with his brain, a pencil, and pad of paper routinely made an American with all his technology look brutishly impoverished in comparison. Much the same as Einstein or Isaac Newton, similarly armed, makes your typical modern scientist awash in super computers and wonders of technology pale in comparison. I also thought to myself I better check my wallet and my brain to see what's missing after the Brit departs.
This book is perhaps the most superb description of British intelligence ever written. It's hero, George Smiley, true to form of the British "Circus", a term used to mean the British equivalent of the CIA during the Cold War, is the the very essence of a top level British civil servant. Smiley is uncannily smart, bookish, well educated, and gifted with an incredible memory. Because of his basic decency, he first appears an apparent puppet and fool whose strings are easily pulled by the cynical, brutish, and typically over-educated and socialistic leaning associates who work in the Circus. George Smiley will go down in spy novel history as the epitome of excellence in a cesspool of deception. Smiley's political heart is still entwined with the British empire, then rapidly falling apart. His colleagues remind me of the typical East coast Ivy league American liberal, only worse. They are all socialists, but it is obvious, that like the East coast Ivy league liberal, they see their role as the eventual caretakers of the proletariats whose existence they loftily propose to change for the better. And like most such people they are as deadly as kraits. Of course, a left-leaning East coast liberal pales as a threat to the American way of life and average American's financial status compared to a hedge fund executive, derivatives specialist, or Wall Street crook, as we have recently learned.
The novel begins at glacial speed. Even the audiobook version tries your patience with the slow beginning which at first glance appears to have nothing to do with any spy story. This, turns out not to be the case, and Jim Prideaux is the very center of what is happening, and more important, why.
People in Smiley's world are superb "caricatures" of British intelligence agents. Their methods and cruelly pedantic administrative practices are most perfectly described by Le Carre, who knows the world of British intelligence first hand. The Circus seems to feed on documents with minutes, addenda, and distribution lists which are quintessentially the product of the well educated and bureaucratic English mind. Smiley, at the start of the novel, has been given the boot from the Circus. He is brought back because, an Australian agent who is street wise and "lower class" has learned what has escaped the brilliant minds of those who run the Circus, that they have been penetrated by a "mole", i.e. a Soviet agent who in real life is similar to Kim Philby in his ability to use British upper class pretensions and trust in the "old boy" network to pull off the major espionage coup of the early years of the Cold War.
In any event, the book, with exquisite precision, unveils this deadly battle of wits between Smiley and the nest of vipers who battle for power and glory at the upper levels of the Circus. Unlike the real life farce of Kim Philby who made at total fool not only of British intelligence, but also our own CIA's fly-fishing pal and idiot counter-intelligence chief and Anglophile, James Jesus Angleton. Philby, despite being uncovered for what he was, escaped to live out his life in the hell of the reality of the socialist world, Moscow. Fortunately, the mole in this book meets a more deserved end.
Due to my impatience and habit of skipping ahead, I have not read this book. The book is a prize for the patient and meticulous readers, who like Smiley, miss nothing.On the other hand, I have seen the DVD of this story twice, and am on my third listening of the audiobook. It just gets better each time as Le Carre weaves his masterful tale. Alas, we have no such genius as Le Carre to describe the vipers who existed in America's CIA, FBI, and US Navy such as Aldrich Ames, Robert Hannsen, the Walker family, and far too many others, probably many of whom remain unknown. It is unclear to me which group of traitors was the most dangerous.
Book Review: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy YES! (No spoilers)
Summary: 5 Stars
How do I begin to tell you about Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John LeCarre except to tell you that I've read it for pleasure numerous times and that you may want to also - or at least once or twice.
What's it about? In Spanish translation the book's title is El Topo (The Mole) because the British secret spy service, "the Circus," is failing, and some believe that a bright young man, secretly a communist, has signed up with the Service out of college and has worked his way up to senior vice-president level, at which height he has begun to sabotage the Circus's major initiatives. Missions are unsuccessful, valuable foreign networks of spies are being exposed, imprisoned, and shot, and the Circus is losing the respect of the intelligence services of friendly countries with whom they might trade secrets. Anyone at the Circus who suggests that there may be a deep penetration agent inside the agency is fired on the grounds that pointing fingers without evidence is detrimental to the morale of the enterprise.
However, in the early chapters of the book a low-level agent on a low-level mission accidentally discovers strong evidence of the existence of such a mole. (These few chapters which tell of the agent Tarr and his mission and discovery are in themselves fascinating reading, and are about as close to a Micky Spillane thriller as the methodical LeCarre has ever written.) Tarr's mid-level boss with whom he shares the evidence is wise enough not to inform the Circus superiors of it, but takes it to the Ministry office that oversees the agency. In turn, the Ministry secretly calls upon George Smiley (recently a senior v.p. of the Circus but fired for voicing the possibility of a double agent), and persuades him to follow up, test the evidence, and lay some trap to expose the mole. Although the innocents at the top level of the Circus will be unaware of Smileys mission, the mole would know that Tarr has briefly exposed him; therefore Tarr feels himself to be in extreme danger, as will be Smiley and his team if the mole gets wind of the investigation.
The tremendous emotional punch of the book comes from the story of Jim Prideaux's betrayal as a means of protecting the mole. Sent to a winter hunting lodge in Czechoslovakia to meet secretly with a discontented general, he is ambushed, shot, imprisoned, and eventually sold back to England a not-quite-broken man. You meet Jim in Chapter One; his greater story comes further on, and I promise you will never forget it. This is LeCarre, a former secret agent, writing about the life, its tradecraft, self-doubt, realities, and courage.
Smiley must secretly look people up and gently interrogate them about Prideaux's betrayal. In one lighter chapter Smiley gets the recollection of sports writer and part-time secret agent Jerry Westerby, who bought some beers for a young private in the Czech army and his girl and their friends at a lively bar and came away feeling that Prideaux's betrayal was orchestrated by Moscow,... and was seriously chastised for reporting that to the Circus. Several others tell Smiley their stories, which are tied together in Smiley's plodding, accountant-like analysis, each one leading closer to an understanding of who the mole is and how he may be caught before more good people are shot, or tortured and shot and killed.
Tinker Tailor is one of those excellent, complex books for which you might want to jot down names as they are presented. When I first reached the end I knew I had read a fascinating book with very interesting people and amazing stories but I had lost the logical thread somewhere around the introduction of Colonel Polyakov, which is to say, very early on. Eventually I read it enough times to see the whole picture, and now read it every few years for pleasure.
The book is a banquet, not pub grub: one needs time to digest the various courses and deal with the few bitters that are served in between. There is the powerful Prideaux course, the lighter Tarr course, the Westerby and Esterhase and Max courses and other pleasing courses; and for bitters there is brief, boring verbiage here and there (Guillam's ruminations about his girlfriend, Camilla, come to mind, for example) and Smiley's visit to Connie Sachs was not wonderful for me (but necessary for the tale).
In an interview, John LeCarre said that of the twenty or so books he had written, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was one of his best, along with The Spy Who Came in From The Cold. Having read all of his books, I would agree, and encourage you heartily to enjoy Tinker Tailor for yourself. -Rob E.