A review by cooperatoby
Smiley's People by John le Carré

5.0

It's a real pleasure to luxuriate in Cornwell's elegant prose. His sense of place is remarkable, but when I compare his marvellous word-pictures with their recreation in the television series, I think a visual medium often improves on the original - and only takes a second or two to do it. Emotionally though I think prose is superior: in the book you get a better sense of Smiley's complicated relationship with his wife Ann - on TV you wonder why he is still there. After you've seen the film version, the deduction does get a bit plodding though. By the way Alec Guinness isn't chubby enough!

I'm glad it's not mawkish like I found his father-and-son books, nor vulgar like some of his more recent ones.

Not being a practical man, Cornwell makes the odd blunder: this side of the Atlantic the trailers of articulated lorries (as parked up in Charlton by Villem) are no longer than 40 ft., certainly not 60. And why the American vocabulary like ' garbage' and 'Scotch tape'?