Scan barcode
A review by the_sunken_library
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
3.0
Good but depressing. Well written but not enough action. I want glitz and glamour from my spies not gritty realistic misery where everything feels futile.
I can see why this is such a classic but I wasn't drawn into the story or characters.
That's just me though. Perhaps this is a holiday read where you can look up and see sun, sand and beauty and that helps battle the ugliness of humanity and the dreary setting.
To be fair, the protagonist himself berates a key character on the expectations of espionage:
"What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not. They're just a bunch of seedy squalid bastards like me, little men, drunkards, queers, henpecked husbands, civil servants playing "Cowboys and Indians" to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?"
Squalid is correct and I guess I just wasn't in the mood for that.
I can see why this is such a classic but I wasn't drawn into the story or characters.
That's just me though. Perhaps this is a holiday read where you can look up and see sun, sand and beauty and that helps battle the ugliness of humanity and the dreary setting.
To be fair, the protagonist himself berates a key character on the expectations of espionage:
"What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not. They're just a bunch of seedy squalid bastards like me, little men, drunkards, queers, henpecked husbands, civil servants playing "Cowboys and Indians" to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?"
Squalid is correct and I guess I just wasn't in the mood for that.