Take a photo of a barcode or cover
darwin8u 's review for:
Agent Running in the Field
by John le Carré
"Nothing endures that is not fought for."
- John le Carré , Agent Running in the Field
OK Boomer.
First, amazement. I can't believe JlC is still writing great fiction at 88. There are several writers who I feel the weight of time heavy on (John le Carré, John McPhee, and Robert Caro). They all happen to be some of my favorite writers ever, so anytime one of them writes something new it is like oxygen on my reading fire.
This novel feels a bit like the 3rd* major interation of le Carré. His first novels were Cold War espionage (Smiley novels, etc), his second were post-Cold War, late stage Capitalism. This book, published when he was 88, is a hard screed against the Nationalisms of Russian, Britain, and especially Trump's America. He is angry and he writes beautiful angry prose.
Here are some of my favorite lines about Brexit and Trump:
"Do you or do you not regard Trump, which I do, as a threat and incitement to the entire civilized world, plus he is presiding over the systematic no-holds-barred Nazificaiton of the United States?"
"He's Putin's shithouse cleaner. He does everything for little Vladi that little Vladi can't do for himself; pisses on European unity, pisses on human rights, pisses on Nato. Assures us that Crimea and Ukraine belong to the Holy Russian Empire, the Middle East belongs to the Jew and the Saudis, and to hell with the world Order."
"Brexit is self-immolation. The British public is being marched over a cliff by a bunch of rich elitist carpetbaggers posing as men of the people."
The ending is a bit too clean and a bit too hopeful? I dunno. I still have to untangle it a bit. Not top-shelf le Carré, but good and solid spy fiction from the MASTER of spy fiction.
* Fourth if you count his brief flirtation with crime fiction.
- John le Carré , Agent Running in the Field
OK Boomer.
First, amazement. I can't believe JlC is still writing great fiction at 88. There are several writers who I feel the weight of time heavy on (John le Carré, John McPhee, and Robert Caro). They all happen to be some of my favorite writers ever, so anytime one of them writes something new it is like oxygen on my reading fire.
This novel feels a bit like the 3rd* major interation of le Carré. His first novels were Cold War espionage (Smiley novels, etc), his second were post-Cold War, late stage Capitalism. This book, published when he was 88, is a hard screed against the Nationalisms of Russian, Britain, and especially Trump's America. He is angry and he writes beautiful angry prose.
Here are some of my favorite lines about Brexit and Trump:
"Do you or do you not regard Trump, which I do, as a threat and incitement to the entire civilized world, plus he is presiding over the systematic no-holds-barred Nazificaiton of the United States?"
"He's Putin's shithouse cleaner. He does everything for little Vladi that little Vladi can't do for himself; pisses on European unity, pisses on human rights, pisses on Nato. Assures us that Crimea and Ukraine belong to the Holy Russian Empire, the Middle East belongs to the Jew and the Saudis, and to hell with the world Order."
"Brexit is self-immolation. The British public is being marched over a cliff by a bunch of rich elitist carpetbaggers posing as men of the people."
The ending is a bit too clean and a bit too hopeful? I dunno. I still have to untangle it a bit. Not top-shelf le Carré, but good and solid spy fiction from the MASTER of spy fiction.
* Fourth if you count his brief flirtation with crime fiction.