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mikeybuck's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
skycrane's review
4.0
I was introduced to le Carre with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and though I enjoyed that a lot, I had trouble getting into the sequels, and I'd read basically none of his other novels until this one caught my eye. The main narrative of this book is presented as an explanation or self-justification for the protagonist's unfortunate connection with a young man he befriends. This makes the novel into a funny sort of mystery. Instead of the classic spy novel setup where there's a double agent or some nefarious plot, instead there's an implied bureaucratic clusterfuck down the line, and you've got to sort out how exactly our hero got dragged into a position where'd he be sat down to explain how he met his badminton partner, with his career depending on his answers.
In general, this novel is very little about the foreign threats to Britain and how its intelligence services react to them, and very much about how the people within those services deal with the demands placed upon them. Bright, ambitious young people join up and are expected to lie to, blackmail, bribe, compromise, and otherwise manipulate strangers. They are expected to do all these morally reprehensible things without qualms in service of their country's interests, even when those national interests can change radically from year to year depending on who's in charge.
In general, this novel is very little about the foreign threats to Britain and how its intelligence services react to them, and very much about how the people within those services deal with the demands placed upon them. Bright, ambitious young people join up and are expected to lie to, blackmail, bribe, compromise, and otherwise manipulate strangers. They are expected to do all these morally reprehensible things without qualms in service of their country's interests, even when those national interests can change radically from year to year depending on who's in charge.
tessyoung's review against another edition
3.0
My 3 star rating is a bit tight, I would happily go to a 3.5 but not go as far as a 4. I love Le Carre and thought this would be the perfect read while I was away from home. I thought I'd race through it in the week and wouldn't need to bring it home in my limited luggage allowance. However, I found it a slow start and struggled to get into it at first. It felt like there was a lot of groundwork and pre-figuring what was to come and a certain impatience on my part to get the the denouement. When it came it was good, a little predictable with not much of a twist, but I couldn't help feeling like this book could have been more tightly written and edited. In the end I finished it on the bus to the train station...
georgesquires123's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
birdonthewire's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
qu33nofbookz's review against another edition
2.0
This was a book club read and I dove into it without reading the blurb. That being so I thought that the main character Nat was much older than he was and that the time period was also decades ago not 2019 until almost halfway into the book.
The pacing was very slow and there wasn't much actually happening to keep you interested. It was a very dry read with little detail and a plot that wasn't really always clear as different scenes came and went. There is no "showing" of events in this book just "telling". This happened and then this happened and later this happened and then that happened and so on. The timeline was also not what I thought it was. I thought what was going on happened in a few short weeks but in reality, it was months, possibly closer to a year.
Last, the swearing...for half the book the story plods along and the dialogue is flat and pretty boring than all of a sudden the characters are dropping F-bombs all over the place with a few other swear words thrown in for good measure and it was rather jarring and didn't fit with the outline of the character as you had come to know them for half the book and it just doesn't sit well. It seemed rather gratuitous and unnecessary. If you planned to put it in start at the beginning and not in the middle when you have already established the characters in the reader's mind.
If you don't like political talk you won't like the back half of this book as well as it just drops off a cliff into a pit of hate and rage for almost no reason, and again it's completely out of character from the first half of the book. If you wanted the political bit, start it at the beginning not dropping it like a bomb from the blue halfway through, then just sprinkling it in a bolster a weak plot point the author has to try and justify to make the end work, which when all is said and done didn't really work all that well.
The pacing was very slow and there wasn't much actually happening to keep you interested. It was a very dry read with little detail and a plot that wasn't really always clear as different scenes came and went. There is no "showing" of events in this book just "telling". This happened and then this happened and later this happened and then that happened and so on. The timeline was also not what I thought it was. I thought what was going on happened in a few short weeks but in reality, it was months, possibly closer to a year.
Last, the swearing...for half the book the story plods along and the dialogue is flat and pretty boring than all of a sudden the characters are dropping F-bombs all over the place with a few other swear words thrown in for good measure and it was rather jarring and didn't fit with the outline of the character as you had come to know them for half the book and it just doesn't sit well. It seemed rather gratuitous and unnecessary. If you planned to put it in start at the beginning and not in the middle when you have already established the characters in the reader's mind.
If you don't like political talk you won't like the back half of this book as well as it just drops off a cliff into a pit of hate and rage for almost no reason, and again it's completely out of character from the first half of the book. If you wanted the political bit, start it at the beginning not dropping it like a bomb from the blue halfway through, then just sprinkling it in a bolster a weak plot point the author has to try and justify to make the end work, which when all is said and done didn't really work all that well.
iceberg0's review
4.0
Wonderful story of an accidental spy. le Carre is an enticing writer with an entrancing voice.