Tinker Tailor gets all the glory, and it’s such a deeply satisfying read, but I think The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and A Perfect Spy are his best, and The Honourable Schoolboy is (maybe inexplicably) my favorite
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That IS inexplicable! 😊 I ride or die for Tinker Tailor but have recently become deeply enamored of Smiley's People, from a tradecraft perspective. Love me some Jerry Westerby, though, especially Joss Ackland's portrayal of him in the Beeb series.
Ok so my read is the twisty-turny plot in THS is a red herring — it’s about the ravages of western imperialism in Asia, and holding that up against the “gentility” of the colonizers. Needs all the comedy of manners/Luigi Visconti-ish stuff for the offhandedness of the cultural violence to land hard
I will say that with many of his books, there’s a large stretch where it’s a perfectly normal response to feel adrift and unsure of what’s going on, and then it all comes together.
The way the end both makes you feel robbed and also like it could never possibly have gone another way is unbelievable. Like the inverse of a punchline.
I need to reread the Karla Trilogy I think: just did that with Ellroy’s American Tabloid Trilogy and it read as brilliantly as the first time, but differently if that makes any sense.
I read The Spy Who Came In From the Cold about a year or two ago and it was like, I don't know, breathing. It's so well written that reading it doesn't even feel like reading, it just feels automatic.
Glad I'm not the only one who thinks Honorable Schoolboy is the best of the Karla trilogy! The ending is so brutal, it makes Spy Who Came in from the Cold look like James Bond.
What I like about Le Carré is that he really really likes men. And not in the shitty abusive or melancholic cry in my beer way but just in the sense that he wants to understand his male characters’ complexity and he’s willing to spend pages on it.
ESPECIALLY when le Carré reads his own work. The three-volume (lightly abridged) set of 2-tape audiobooks of THE SECRET PILGRIM is my single favorite bit of le Carréana.
My dad was a HUGE fan of Le Carré and tried really hard to get me to read his books. Unfortunately, I found it really difficult to keep track of the different characters and moving pieces and would just end up confused.
The Honorable Schoolboy is my favorite, too, despite my loathing of the “Chip, chip, cheerio, old boy”-style dialogue of a central character, who I am sure was based on someone real and insufferable.
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(But TTSS is my favourite)