Really enjoying The Constant Gardner but also quite amused Le Carré circa 2000 thought a 40-something foreign service officer might plausibly be so computer illiterate he needs a kid to teach him what a mouse is and how to open a file in Windows.
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I’d say so. Fernando Meirelles is a much better director when he’s got a plot structure and it’s a terrific cast. Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Bill Nighy. It’s also very authentically turn-of-the-21st-century Nairobi.
There's a scene where the protagonist—again, a career foreign service officer circa 2000—has to enter a password and is confused that asterisks show up instead of the letters he's typing.
Having gotten a bit further, I’m gathering that he sort of has to do a bunch of incredibly stupid tech things for plot reasons, but it still strains credulity.
I just recently reread Absolute Friiends (2003). It really hold up.
In related news, just discovered Jason Matthews' Red Sparrow trilogy. Well-crafted & super-knowledgeable spy fiction with great characters. Best new spy author I've ffound in years.
About 3/4 through, and while the book overall remains great, hacking is essentially treated as sorcery. The corporate baddies apparently have the ability to locate and insta-brick any computer the second it goes online, anywhere in the world. (And no, the corporate baddies aren't Microsoft.)
That guy was an overrated hack.
SIS set up a safe house in London with a woman overseeing it and then forgot about it for 50 years. Sure.
George Smiley was above all a European. Right.
He also snitched on everyone he ever knew to MI5. Look it up.
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lot. Still I'll enjoy a re-read.
In related news, just discovered Jason Matthews' Red Sparrow trilogy. Well-crafted & super-knowledgeable spy fiction with great characters. Best new spy author I've ffound in years.
SIS set up a safe house in London with a woman overseeing it and then forgot about it for 50 years. Sure.
George Smiley was above all a European. Right.
He also snitched on everyone he ever knew to MI5. Look it up.