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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
A very well written book, intricate, accomplished, slick, but for me, the central character, Jerry Westerby was a real turn-off. It did not make any sense to me, how he became so fixated on Lizzie/Liese, unless it was just because she was "hot", since there was little to no indication that his interest was reciprocated. Unless that was actually the point? Was Westerby just a misogynist, who thought he could seduce anyone (he certainly worked his way through quite a few women during the course of the novel.) In any case, this just became tedious after a time and the impression was just a bit sad. This seemed to me to clash with his rather heroic denouement. My suspicion therefore is that Westerby was an 'old-fashioned' character, kind of like Bond, but without the irony, and the end result is not very likeable. In my view a central character has to be likeable, even if he's a shit. Think of Tom Ripley! I felt sorry for Lizzie, fending off this sleazebag. Anyway, it was very well done, but not a read I shall remember with any fondness.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A well worked plot that simmers with Le Carré's anti-americanism, but it is over-long, characters pop in and out making it hard to track secondary characters until the final third of the novel, and by limiting the information we get makes it hard to follow.
Not the right vibe for the time, too complex and rambling and in places has uncomfortable attitudes to a range of charaters
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
This was my first LeCarre. I think I was sixteen. I loved the writing, the characters, the setting. I didn't have a fucking clue what was going on. The story was too complex, the real-world politics and conflicts utterly beyond me. And yet, I sat in the bus in freezing cold evening eating dry-roasted peanuts and immersed myself in world as alien to me as Middle Earth, more alien, because I knew it was really my world, to which I was an alien, and which completely defeated my comprehension.
Now I think it's an amazing book, the second in a trilogy, about the crumbling of a dreadful old world order and the establishment of a newer, even nastier and darker one. Smiley chases one slender thread from the ruins left by the mole Gerald, seeking to redeem and reinvigorate the secret service to which he has devoted his life. Even as he does so, the vultures are circling to snatch it away, and surely he's too canny an operator to be as unaware as he appears. Jerry Westerby is dispatched to Hong Kong to follow the thread, to war-torn Cambodia and Thailand and back, and the moment of triumph is debased with the humanity of his quixotic despair and futility. A bitter, thrilling epic of espionage, that somehow knits together the first and third books depicting Smiley's battles with Karla.
Now I think it's an amazing book, the second in a trilogy, about the crumbling of a dreadful old world order and the establishment of a newer, even nastier and darker one. Smiley chases one slender thread from the ruins left by the mole Gerald, seeking to redeem and reinvigorate the secret service to which he has devoted his life. Even as he does so, the vultures are circling to snatch it away, and surely he's too canny an operator to be as unaware as he appears. Jerry Westerby is dispatched to Hong Kong to follow the thread, to war-torn Cambodia and Thailand and back, and the moment of triumph is debased with the humanity of his quixotic despair and futility. A bitter, thrilling epic of espionage, that somehow knits together the first and third books depicting Smiley's battles with Karla.