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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
This book was completed on my second attempt of reading it and the fact it took me just shy of 2 months to read shows. In typical style this book was great at scene setting but took ages to get into the action and then it vanished for chapters on end.
And the end oh my word. I had watched the TV series so I should have known how it was going to end but I nearly threw the book across the room.
The best thing about this book is the cover and having Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie in my mind as the characters. Save yourself and watch the TV show. 2*s
And the end oh my word. I had watched the TV series so I should have known how it was going to end but I nearly threw the book across the room.
The best thing about this book is the cover and having Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie in my mind as the characters. Save yourself and watch the TV show. 2*s
"Every man has his personal devil waiting for him somewhere."
-- John le Carré, The Night Manager
"WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
-- Major General Smedley Butler, 1935
After finishing le Carré's recent memoir [b:The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life|29662443|The Pigeon Tunnel Stories from My Life|John le Carré|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1469406962s/29662443.jpg|47335121], I felt the need to climb a bit higher up on my le Carré mountain. Since BBC had recently dropped its 6 episode series of 'The Night Manager' and since it was one of the handful of le Carré I haven't read (I now have just four left: [b:Our Game|1565754|Our Game|John le Carré|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1185288563s/1565754.jpg|1558337], [b:The Naive and Sentimental Lover|1589335|The Naive and Sentimental Lover|John le Carré|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348711060s/1589335.jpg|1217022], [b:The Tailor of Panama|45783|The Tailor of Panama|John le Carré|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1442794935s/45783.jpg|827551], and [b:Absolute Friends|18997|Absolute Friends|John le Carré|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344268584s/18997.jpg|1321387]). I felt this novel was a good place, as any, to re-start JlC. I loved it. It wasn't perfect, but it was a nice exploration of the guns for drug trade that went on (and hell, probably still goes on) with tacit approval of arms producing nations (see UK, US, etc). Like most of le Carré's oeuvre it contains bureaucratic turf battles and isolated groups and individuals fighting for ideals in a corrupted world.
The book is set in the late 80s or early 90s (it was published in 1993), so I think of this as le Carré examining the underworld we didn't exactly get to see when Oliver North was testifying/obfuscating about his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Here, as always, le Carré is focused more on the UK's involvement and private arms dealing in this book. This book has received renewed attention since the 2015 BBC adaption staring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie. The adaption moves the time frame up (lucky for the adaption, arms dealing and government complicity in this ugly economy is almost timeless) to the period right around the Arab Spring.
-- John le Carré, The Night Manager
"WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
-- Major General Smedley Butler, 1935
After finishing le Carré's recent memoir [b:The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life|29662443|The Pigeon Tunnel Stories from My Life|John le Carré|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1469406962s/29662443.jpg|47335121], I felt the need to climb a bit higher up on my le Carré mountain. Since BBC had recently dropped its 6 episode series of 'The Night Manager' and since it was one of the handful of le Carré I haven't read (I now have just four left: [b:Our Game|1565754|Our Game|John le Carré|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1185288563s/1565754.jpg|1558337], [b:The Naive and Sentimental Lover|1589335|The Naive and Sentimental Lover|John le Carré|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348711060s/1589335.jpg|1217022], [b:The Tailor of Panama|45783|The Tailor of Panama|John le Carré|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1442794935s/45783.jpg|827551], and [b:Absolute Friends|18997|Absolute Friends|John le Carré|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344268584s/18997.jpg|1321387]). I felt this novel was a good place, as any, to re-start JlC. I loved it. It wasn't perfect, but it was a nice exploration of the guns for drug trade that went on (and hell, probably still goes on) with tacit approval of arms producing nations (see UK, US, etc). Like most of le Carré's oeuvre it contains bureaucratic turf battles and isolated groups and individuals fighting for ideals in a corrupted world.
The book is set in the late 80s or early 90s (it was published in 1993), so I think of this as le Carré examining the underworld we didn't exactly get to see when Oliver North was testifying/obfuscating about his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Here, as always, le Carré is focused more on the UK's involvement and private arms dealing in this book. This book has received renewed attention since the 2015 BBC adaption staring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie. The adaption moves the time frame up (lucky for the adaption, arms dealing and government complicity in this ugly economy is almost timeless) to the period right around the Arab Spring.
Read my other book reviews at booksibled.wordpress.com
I always had a suspicion I would like le Carre’s writing. Have you ever done that, just looked at a writer’s books and thought, “yeah, I could see myself reading them,” but then not read them just because you don’t have time and also what if you don’t? Well, after making my several people I know watch the BBC adaption of The Night Manager which I loved, I thought maybe it was time to read the book. First I asked to borrow my dad’s copy, but then he handed it over and it’s huge! Also it has that really thin papery paper that was so popular in books of it’s time and which falls apart at the first sight of rain, so I got my own.
The storyline is fairly similar to the adaption, if you’ve seen it. Johnathan Pine is working at a hotel in Egypt when he falls for the mistress of a small time arms dealer. She passes him information which he passes to a friend at the British Embassy, breaking her trust. She dies for his espionage, leaving him distraught and unwilling to get involved again, especially after becoming the prime suspect in her murder.
Some time later we find him working at a new hotel in the Alps at which point he is recruited by a member of the intelligence services in Britain, Leonard Burr, to infiltrate and bring down the criminal enterprise of Richard Roper, a British citizen with ties to the man who’s mistress Pine had fallen for. After thinking it over Pine agrees to renounce his entire life, his name, his history and possibly his future, to go deep under cover in Roper’s organisation and bring it down from the inside. Throughout he must keep up the balancing act of supplying Burr with what he needs while staying in Roper’s favour and steering clear of the other members of the organisation, some of whom suspect him, and then the added complication of his infatuation with Roper’s lover Jed.
I think I was always going to enjoy this book. Le Carre is an expert at what he does and is unapologetic about the research and craft that goes into his work, rightly so. I did notice some differences from book and show that I found interesting. The ending (without giving too much away) is very different. Personally I preferred the BBC ending, I found it more fulfilling but also it gave the right amount of anxiety and pay off where-as the book’s anxious moment is followed by a slightly too-long section with less obvious meaning or pay off. They both work but I do veer towards a concise ending.
I was a big fan of the change of Leonard Burr to Angela Burr. I found Angela’s story, in the BBC version, more compelling and I appreciated that it didn’t feel like they were either trying to shoehorn a woman into it or make her anything other than what Leonard Burr was. A person doing a job, trying to shut down a dangerous criminal. I think that was a great choice on the screenwriters part (or, I suppose, whoever else chose to switch her gender) and it gave us another fantastic Olivia Coleman performance so, well done them.
P.S. A brilliantly written high stakes spy thriller with so much depth and thought. I may have loved the BBC adaption a tad more for it’s varied additions but the source material is brilliant enough to have laid out everything they needed. I feel like I’ll be reading this again in the future.
I always had a suspicion I would like le Carre’s writing. Have you ever done that, just looked at a writer’s books and thought, “yeah, I could see myself reading them,” but then not read them just because you don’t have time and also what if you don’t? Well, after making my several people I know watch the BBC adaption of The Night Manager which I loved, I thought maybe it was time to read the book. First I asked to borrow my dad’s copy, but then he handed it over and it’s huge! Also it has that really thin papery paper that was so popular in books of it’s time and which falls apart at the first sight of rain, so I got my own.
The storyline is fairly similar to the adaption, if you’ve seen it. Johnathan Pine is working at a hotel in Egypt when he falls for the mistress of a small time arms dealer. She passes him information which he passes to a friend at the British Embassy, breaking her trust. She dies for his espionage, leaving him distraught and unwilling to get involved again, especially after becoming the prime suspect in her murder.
Some time later we find him working at a new hotel in the Alps at which point he is recruited by a member of the intelligence services in Britain, Leonard Burr, to infiltrate and bring down the criminal enterprise of Richard Roper, a British citizen with ties to the man who’s mistress Pine had fallen for. After thinking it over Pine agrees to renounce his entire life, his name, his history and possibly his future, to go deep under cover in Roper’s organisation and bring it down from the inside. Throughout he must keep up the balancing act of supplying Burr with what he needs while staying in Roper’s favour and steering clear of the other members of the organisation, some of whom suspect him, and then the added complication of his infatuation with Roper’s lover Jed.
I think I was always going to enjoy this book. Le Carre is an expert at what he does and is unapologetic about the research and craft that goes into his work, rightly so. I did notice some differences from book and show that I found interesting. The ending (without giving too much away) is very different. Personally I preferred the BBC ending, I found it more fulfilling but also it gave the right amount of anxiety and pay off where-as the book’s anxious moment is followed by a slightly too-long section with less obvious meaning or pay off. They both work but I do veer towards a concise ending.
I was a big fan of the change of Leonard Burr to Angela Burr. I found Angela’s story, in the BBC version, more compelling and I appreciated that it didn’t feel like they were either trying to shoehorn a woman into it or make her anything other than what Leonard Burr was. A person doing a job, trying to shut down a dangerous criminal. I think that was a great choice on the screenwriters part (or, I suppose, whoever else chose to switch her gender) and it gave us another fantastic Olivia Coleman performance so, well done them.
P.S. A brilliantly written high stakes spy thriller with so much depth and thought. I may have loved the BBC adaption a tad more for it’s varied additions but the source material is brilliant enough to have laid out everything they needed. I feel like I’ll be reading this again in the future.
Got confused with all of the characters, also didn’t appreciate Corky’s queercoding and the ending was unsatisfying. A bit confusing overall which made enjoying it difficult.
I appreciate the banality of evil as a concept but this book just dragged on and on and on for me. Very dry.
55 pages into this book before I gave up. The characters are thin and no amount of bouncing back and forth in time can make this plot interesting to me. Yawn...
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Probably no more than a 2.5.
I have absolutely loved some of le Carre's books, but this felt unnecessarily drawn out for the simplicity of the actual plot.
I have absolutely loved some of le Carre's books, but this felt unnecessarily drawn out for the simplicity of the actual plot.