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A review by zare_i
Agent Running in the Field by John le Carré
5.0
Nate, veteran of post Cold War operations, finally enters that season of life when operation agent needs to enter more and more support functions and slowly delegate the actual operations to junior agents. So he returns back to his central in London and gets re-assigned to second league Russian intelligence ring, one more concentrated in the local UK defense than international shenanigans. His role is simple, observe, train and handle the existing mish-mash of Russian ex-patriots and political turn overs who are now working for UK. Not much of interesting mission but it is at least something to do so Nate accepts it. It is new world for him, world where people feel more than they think, people thinking they know all there is to know and very soon one of such emotional idiots will cause a crisis, and not just that but pull unwilling (and completely unaware) Nate and his family down the sink - all in the name of ideals.
Le Carre manages to tell the story set in modern times - it is time of Brexit, it is time of Trump's presidency and entire world is in sort of an ecstasy, having identified Brexit and Trump (and Russians of course) as a single threat to what is (in their opinion) perfect world (hah!). So they let their emotions rule and make not just idiots out of them but put them and their families into deadly danger.
For Nate, and when it comes to that, for the entire group he works with, it is idiotic to allow ones emotions to rule over - world and politics have seen dumber people and dumber actions so to make drama and draw parallels between people from today with evils from the past is just a way to devalue the dangers from those evils and in some cases rehabilitate them (by that constant eternal cry of high emotions). I like Nate's thoughts on the emotional storm from one of the younger agents; it makes him smile because colleagues that get hyped by what they hear and get attached to this "righteous" nonsense, are not able to see how childish it is [and Nate recognizes it because it is standard juvenile behavior, one he is constantly in conflict with through relation with his "rebellious" daughter, one he loves very much but one that devoted her life to shock and awe her parents, as children often do].
So when pretty dirty piece of information comes to light Nate decides to help because he knows emotions are something agents like him use to manipulate people around and he cannot stand people he holds dear to suffer from the same manipulation. And what happens when he tries to help? He gets looked down upon because highly emotional people cannot control themselves, they need to be the moral purity and supreme.
Excellent book and very contemporary. It is wonderfully written and book will keep you up all night until you finish it.
Highly recommended to all fans of good spy story.
P.S.
What prevenred me from reading this book couple of years back, where some comments and reviews that were about the democracy and how "eveel" forces are tearing it apart that portrayed the book as rather preachy. Having bad experiences with "The Fox" by one of the great spy/thriller authors (Forsythe) I decided to postpone reading this book. One reviewer even said that book shows only societies that can progress are authoritarian (made my day, I was laughing for two days and decided to skip it for the time being - again confirming that opinion should be based on my own experiences.... Oh well
Le Carre manages to tell the story set in modern times - it is time of Brexit, it is time of Trump's presidency and entire world is in sort of an ecstasy, having identified Brexit and Trump (and Russians of course) as a single threat to what is (in their opinion) perfect world (hah!). So they let their emotions rule and make not just idiots out of them but put them and their families into deadly danger.
For Nate, and when it comes to that, for the entire group he works with, it is idiotic to allow ones emotions to rule over - world and politics have seen dumber people and dumber actions so to make drama and draw parallels between people from today with evils from the past is just a way to devalue the dangers from those evils and in some cases rehabilitate them (by that constant eternal cry of high emotions). I like Nate's thoughts on the emotional storm from one of the younger agents; it makes him smile because colleagues that get hyped by what they hear and get attached to this "righteous" nonsense, are not able to see how childish it is [and Nate recognizes it because it is standard juvenile behavior, one he is constantly in conflict with through relation with his "rebellious" daughter, one he loves very much but one that devoted her life to shock and awe her parents, as children often do].
So when pretty dirty piece of information comes to light Nate decides to help because he knows emotions are something agents like him use to manipulate people around and he cannot stand people he holds dear to suffer from the same manipulation. And what happens when he tries to help? He gets looked down upon because highly emotional people cannot control themselves, they need to be the moral purity and supreme.
Excellent book and very contemporary. It is wonderfully written and book will keep you up all night until you finish it.
Highly recommended to all fans of good spy story.
P.S.
What prevenred me from reading this book couple of years back, where some comments and reviews that were about the democracy and how "eveel" forces are tearing it apart that portrayed the book as rather preachy. Having bad experiences with "The Fox" by one of the great spy/thriller authors (Forsythe) I decided to postpone reading this book. One reviewer even said that book shows only societies that can progress are authoritarian (made my day, I was laughing for two days and decided to skip it for the time being - again confirming that opinion should be based on my own experiences.... Oh well