You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
Book 2 of the Karla trilogy suffers from middle book in a rilogy itis in a big way. Its also rather disjointed at points. But its still an excellent spy novel and well recommended.
Rereading this I'd have to agree with jess, its a weak LeCarre novel and doesn't have the resonance for me that Tinker, Tailor and Simley's People has.
Oof. That was a slog. This book has some lovely passages, but is the slowest read for me.
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Slow moving in the first several chapters. Didn’t quite grab me like other le Carré novels. That said once you’re immersed in the story, the pages fly by. I think I still prefer Tinker, Tailor….but this was a good follow up.
“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world”
“It is also the pardonable vanity of lonely people everywhere to assume that they have no counterpart.”
“A lot of people see doubt as legitimate philosophical posture. They think of themselves in the middle, whereas of course really, they’re nowhere.”
“In the breaking of tragic news there is no transition. One minute a concept stands; the next it lies smashed, and for the affected the world has altered irrevocably.”
“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world”
“It is also the pardonable vanity of lonely people everywhere to assume that they have no counterpart.”
“A lot of people see doubt as legitimate philosophical posture. They think of themselves in the middle, whereas of course really, they’re nowhere.”
“In the breaking of tragic news there is no transition. One minute a concept stands; the next it lies smashed, and for the affected the world has altered irrevocably.”
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
this whole review is gonna be spoilers because i'm not convinced anyone will ever find it. but in case you do, consider yourself forewarned
this for me lacked the crackling character work of spy who came in from the cold, looking glass war, and my beloved tinker tailor—i think something about just how many people are in it—where the others have very limited casts of characters and le carré can really make hay with their tangled relationships with each other, there are just so many players in this one. but the book still has its really strong moments: ricardo suddenly calling jerry "horse-writer" in farewell, the upsetting payoff of ricardo's throwaway remark that he heard jerry was completely dead, the ending. one thing le carré did that i really admired the hell out of was when he took advantage of the fact that so much time had elapsed since frost had been involved or mentioned that readers like me would have totally forgotten him and not even considered him as a potential victim when a white guy corpse showed up. i always love when writers do that—if you really must write a long-ass book, make sure to take advantage of the fact that i won't be able to hold all of it in my mind at once.
i also just love how realistic the characters he portrays are. i love when he gives them odd and meaningless little traits, i love how people (e.g. fucking jerry westerby) so often don't do things for any explicable ideological reason but just because of personal feelings, i love how characters get told off and then sulk about it. i wasn't nearly as drawn in by this story as i was by the personal intrigues of tinker tailor—and besides, i really didn't have enough knowledge about communism in southeast asia in the 1950s through the 1970s to follow a lot of it that well—but le carré remains an incredible and deeply human writer.
stray thoughts:
this for me lacked the crackling character work of spy who came in from the cold, looking glass war, and my beloved tinker tailor—i think something about just how many people are in it—where the others have very limited casts of characters and le carré can really make hay with their tangled relationships with each other, there are just so many players in this one. but the book still has its really strong moments: ricardo suddenly calling jerry "horse-writer" in farewell, the upsetting payoff of ricardo's throwaway remark that he heard jerry was completely dead, the ending. one thing le carré did that i really admired the hell out of was when he took advantage of the fact that so much time had elapsed since frost had been involved or mentioned that readers like me would have totally forgotten him and not even considered him as a potential victim when a white guy corpse showed up. i always love when writers do that—if you really must write a long-ass book, make sure to take advantage of the fact that i won't be able to hold all of it in my mind at once.
i also just love how realistic the characters he portrays are. i love when he gives them odd and meaningless little traits, i love how people (e.g. fucking jerry westerby) so often don't do things for any explicable ideological reason but just because of personal feelings, i love how characters get told off and then sulk about it. i wasn't nearly as drawn in by this story as i was by the personal intrigues of tinker tailor—and besides, i really didn't have enough knowledge about communism in southeast asia in the 1950s through the 1970s to follow a lot of it that well—but le carré remains an incredible and deeply human writer.
stray thoughts:
- LOST HIS TITLE OF "PEOPLE'S CHAMPION": FAWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i felt personally betrayed!!!!!!!!!!!! i was SO excited when FAWN was reintroduced and so DEVASTATED when he BROKE BOTH OF A GUY'S ARMS FOR NO REASON WHILE PETER GUILLAM COULDN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT IS WITH EVERYONE IN THIS BOOK AND COMMITTING ACTS OF WANTON VIOLENCE WHILE PETER GUILLAM IS BUSY PLAYING DESIGNATED DRIVER!!!!!!!! IT'S NOT RIGHT!!!!!!!!!
- STILL THE PEOPLE'S, TRULY MORE THAN EVER: The People's Peter Guillam, our beloved...i love peter guillam so fucking much. he's tall and handsome and graceful. he's a huge bitch who is seemingly permanently annoyed by everyone around him, except for smiley whom he dotes on, except also sometimes by smiley. HE FUCKS AND SUCKS CONSTANTLY; his only interest outside of spying seems to be fucking and sucking. (there are so many men in these books who are horny in indecent ways, but peter guillam, the absolute king of fucking and sucking, the horniest man on the fifth floor—and/or in brixton, as the case may be (RIP...)—is very above-board with his fucking and sucking, which i like about him.) he doodles a flower with rain falling on it during a meeting because he gets bored when people sit around talking for too long. he is left to talk to lacon's racist wife at a dinner party and solemnly pours salt on the table when wine is spilt. he is in many ways a very serious 40-year-old man in a very serious job that he takes very seriously, but he also tiptoes around comically and undergoes private agonies and rehearses personal grudges every time he has to speak to another human being. he sits at meetings between the beautiful young woman he is sleeping with and his sexless toad husbandfather and gets antsy because people are really just saying shit and he wants to go Do Something. he gets yelled at by his little sexless toad husbandfather (george smiley is peter guillam's foil in that he neither fucks nor sucks) and then gets his own collarbone ignominiously broken but still tries to physically fight a guy who raises his voice at smiley. Mother I Love Him. probably my favorite The People's Peter Guillam moment in this book is when they're meeting with the whitehall folks from whom they're trying to get permission to proceed with the operation, and smiley puts in a last-minute, never-before-mentioned, absolutely-not-agreed-upon request to reopen the hong kong residency, and no sooner has peter guillam desperately thought that smiley has completely blown everything both of them have worked for and that he's lost his touch entirely than he decides "i'll stick with him. i'll go down with the ship. we'll open a chicken farm together"—something something the line about his conscious loyalties. what a character. he's venal and petty, he's a huge bitch, he's as horny as the day is long...but he's very loyal. such a good character. he's so long-suffering and so incredibly funny.
- SPEAKING OF LONG-SUFFERING: PETER GUILLAM SENT BACK TO BRIXTON FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER TWO YEARS??? SAY IT ISN'T SO!!!!!!!!!!!
- SPEAKING OF INDIGNITIES SUFFERED BY PETER GUILLAM: other than the whole everything and the multiple attacks while he is innocently trying to drive a car...why did smiley have to be SUCH an asshole to him so repeatedly in this!!! if i were george smiley i would simply not keep secrets from peter guillam, and if i did i would simply not get mad at him when, owing to the lack of information he's gotten from me, he starts to get paranoid!!!!!!!!!! smiley receives 2 demerits for his treatment of peter guillam in this novel.
- OK BUT: this, on the heels of the hong kong residency request incident, made me laugh out loud:
- "How do you feel?" [Guillam] asked.
- "It's not a matter of feeling," Smiley replied.
- Thanks very much, thought Guillam.
- ALSO BELOVED: bill craw, the australian with the bizarre speech patterns. great character! i actually exclaimed "no!" aloud when he reappeared for one last scene only to burst into tears and run away. luke was his favorite :( he did everything he could for jerry :( craw forever
- HER?: sam collins?
- AND HERE'S MY REVIEW: not gay enough!
- WELL: if anything this book is a cautionary tale about how being straight is a disease...jim prideaux would NEVER have pulled the shit jerry westerby pulled at the end there i can tell you that for free
- ON THAT NOTE: pouring one out for my beloved jim prideaux, who did not so much as get MENTIONED in this book. i didn't expect him to be back as such and frankly i want him to stay out of the game, but how soon we forget! also strangely not mentioned: ricki tarr. i kept waiting for any reference to his pivotal escapades in hong kong pre-tinker tailor but nothing came. glad to see connie sachs back, though; puzzled but not displeased to hear from millie mccraig again; neutral to the non-disappearance of toby esterhase; devastated that the return of my once-beloved FAWN turned so bitter for us all (i.e. me and peter guillam, the only two people who liked him).
- SORRY: for being american...mostly to peter guillam whom my countrymen did so dirty
altogether looking forward to smiley's people. i hope nothing bad happens to peter guillam! she says, knowing full well that something terrible will inevitably happen to peter guillam
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Wow, this book seemed very long and was slow! It took me 3 days to read the last 40 pages or so. The language was a little tough and the main character's reasoning for his actions were never fully explained. I feel like this book needed a good editor. I really liked Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy, so was disappointed. I will still read the latest book in the trilogy, but after a break to read something lighter.
Le Carré tells a good spy tale. I loved Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and this follow up does a good job of showing George Smiley at the height of his abilities.
It's true that this is not as good as _Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy_, but it is still an expertly plotted, highly interesting novel. I've given it four stars because of the sections in the last 1/3 of the book in which Jerry Westerby wanders about war-torn southeast Asia. I'm sure these sections were probably fascinating at the time of publication due to their immediacy (an introduction indicates that they were based on Le Carre's experiences), but they don't contribute to the overall direction of the story.
SOMEWHAT SPOILERY SECTION:
I also found the deliberately engineered anticlimax of the ending to be powerful. The reader is clearly placed in a position to cheer for the Circus and its recovery after the discovery of the mole in the last book, and I expected a "victory" full of revelation and insight. This is not what Le Carre gives us. Instead, we get a portrait of the complicated place of espionage in relation to the British government and the CIA, a "warts and all" rendering of back-stabbing, bureaucracy, and American exceptionalism.
SOMEWHAT SPOILERY SECTION:
I also found the deliberately engineered anticlimax of the ending to be powerful. The reader is clearly placed in a position to cheer for the Circus and its recovery after the discovery of the mole in the last book, and I expected a "victory" full of revelation and insight. This is not what Le Carre gives us. Instead, we get a portrait of the complicated place of espionage in relation to the British government and the CIA, a "warts and all" rendering of back-stabbing, bureaucracy, and American exceptionalism.