Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

"The suspicious black car did not follow me home. How am I supposed to maintain this level of paranoia with this level of incompetence?" Tweet from jkeeten's defunct Twitter account."I don't smoke but I always travel w/ a Zippo lighter in case I have to light a beautiful woman's cigarette or the wick of a Molotov cocktail." Another tweet from jkeeten's defunct Twitter account.The British Secret Service, resembling a corporation that has suffered sagging profits, has reshuffled key players, ouste [...]

I'm one of many people who think that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is the greatest espionage novel of all time. Let's take the obvious things first. Unlike most examples of this genre, it's extremely well-written. Also, having worked in espionage himself, le Carré is able to get the atmosphere right. It feels 100% authentic, and you see that spying is like most other jobs. The greater part of it is routine and office intrigues, though every now and then something unexpected and dramatic happens [...]

A few months ago a stylish looking British adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was released in theaters and I was intrigued. But I knew better. Movies are for smart people. If I had to constantly nudge my wife during Superbad to ask questions like, “so who is that guy again?” and “wait, is she the same one from before?” then I had to admit that seeing this movie would only serve to make me feel very confused and intellectually inadequate. I do better with books. Books explain thin [...]

Spy novels may be best consumed in large gulps by me. There is no question that John Le Carré is a brilliant writer, and his plots are peppered with surprise spirals throughout each novel.The one difficulty I had with this book was in the beginning, and it was my own difficulty. I had to quickly re-acquaint myself with British idiom, with spy jargon, distinguish between those two ‘languages’, and process many new players and how they related to characters I already knew from the previous 4 [...]

I'm going to state the obvious and say John le Carré is a really good writer.This was my first le Carré novel, and I can see why he's considered such a master of the spy genre. The story itself was thrilling, but what I most appreciated were his thoughtful descriptions. The writing was so insightful that it was easy to become invested in the fate of the characters.A quick plot summary: George Smiley is a retired British spy. He was forced out during a reorganization of the Circus, a nickname f [...]

Who can spy on the spies ?We are at the heart of British Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. For the initiated the Circus.Tinker, tailor, soldier, spyit’s the look at the firm from the inside. Author himself worked there for many years and thanks to it I have no problems with his credibility. We get to know world of intelligence, its structure, jargon.Babysitters, lamplighters , ferrets, shoemakers, scalphunters . Sounds really crazy.Intelligence work it is not guns and fast ca [...]

I didn't understand half of what I just read, and yet I loved it all the same!In John le Carré's (real name David Cornwell) Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a British intelligence service known as the Circus has been compromised by a mole, a supposed Soviet double agent. Former agent George Smiley is called back from retirement to ferret him out. This is more of a psychological suspense novel than an action-filled James Bond spy thriller. Smiley is getting up there in years and though he's convers [...]

Whenever I think of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, I inevitably think of love: love that grants fortitude, love that clouds judgment, love that scars the soul and roots the heart. Although it is my experience of the book that guides me, it perhaps also has to do with the 1979 BBC miniseries, with the way Alec Guinness appears stolid and wounded, like an animal to the slaughter hit in the head with a hammer, with each inevitable mention of his wife’s beauty, each smirking hint at her chain of ad [...]

I had read The Spy Who Came In From the Cold on my honeymoon in Paris, and I remember liking it, but not rushing out to get more Le Carre. Well, now I'm going to rush out to get more Le Carre. I didn't give this five stars because it was a touch slow to get moving. I think if I'd just been able to focus a little more, I would've been into the plot faster. Le Carre has this ability to make every character a mystery. So much is withheld from the reader, and yet the characters are fascinating. I th [...]

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is not my type of book. I never read stuff like this. I don’t like contemporaries (unless there are vampires or witches in them) and I rarely read mysteries. I loved the movie though (I’m a big Gary Oldman fan) so I thought what the heck, I’ll read the book. After all, it’s not really a contemporary…at least not anymore. The action takes place during the early seventies. So here I am.First off, I have to say Le Carre writes with amazing detail. These guys a [...]

I freely admit that I am not smart enough to appreciate this book.The whole thing was way too convoluted for me. First I was in one character's head, then another, then back to the first. Then there was a third character who mostly made cameo appearances and was clearly unimportant, but we spend time in his head too. As if that's not confusing enough, different people narrate different parts of the story as master spy George Smiley (highly distracting name, I must say) interviews different playe [...]

UPDATE 1-18-18 For espionage thrillers, this is as good as it gets. The setting is the Cold War, and both the Britain and Russia are tired but still engaging in lethal combat by spy. One central theme that I did not appreciate before this re-read is that the primary conflict, even when Le Carre tells the story from a British POV, is not between British spies and the Russians, but between Russia and America, with British spies taking sides, not always as expected. The conflict between personal a [...]

I remember that when I read this (and the other Karla novels) years ago, I ripped through them to the detriment of my understanding of all the twists and turns of the plot. So although I enjoyed them immensely, when I was all finished (and even during the reading) I felt confused about what story le Carre had actually told.So a couple years ago I watched (Netflix) the BBC adaptation of the books with Alec Guinness. Again, I enjoyed it no end, but while the 7 hour condensation of the story had to [...]

Just one of those perfect books.

Oft billed as the "anti-Ian Flemming," John Le Carre inverts all the typical trappings of the spy-thriller: in place of the handsome, gadget-happy g-man we're given a sacked, middle-aged cuckold whose attention to detail and intellectual virtuosity quietly derail Moscow Central's invisible vise-grip on the Circus.Note that "quietly," as the tension here is all cerebral, the violence and spectacle off-stage, and the stakes themselves, though no less dire than the fate of the world, are entirely i [...]

Apparently I'm turning into a really shitty reader.This is the first Le Carré I've read, and whatever, I think I expected a little more James Bond than, well, George Smiley - a name which every single time was mentioned (which was quite a lot) always made me think of his muppet-brother, Guy Smiley. Picturing George as a human and not a muppet made the reading more difficult than I had intended. (See first note about becoming a really shitty reader.)And in my current mood I wanted some violence. [...]

It was a great synchronicity that this popped up on one of my reading lists right now, as one of my gaming groups is about to embark on a game of Cold City, set in post-War Berlin, playing representatives of different countries in BPRD-like surroundings.Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

Veterans of Britain's secret service refer to MI6 as the Circus, and when Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy opens, our hero George Smiley has been kicked out of the show. So Smiley has not retired with dignity, but rather has been ousted for backing a jaded horse. The head of Circus, a spy so skilled that people only knew him as "Control," went out in a blaze of tragedy, and Smiley's career was one of the casualties.Unknown to most, Control was trying to find a mole. He failed and the Circus has been re [...]

How amazing--a spy novel where virtually nothing happens, and yet it's compelling and suspenseful nonetheless. It's really a testament to le Carre's writing that he pulls this off. A wonderfully cerebral work.

I caught up with a friend a few weeks ago when I had just started this book and he said he had given up on the film and drifted off to sleep as he had completely lost track of what was going on and in the end couldn’t care either way anyway. That was exactly the experience I was having with the book and had thought it was just me. But then, all of a sudden, at about the middle of this one (I imagine just as George was dozing off in the film), the pieces of the jigsaw start dropping into place [...]

First off, I understand that Tinker Tailor is a spy novel, and that Le Carre obviously wanted to achieve a certain effect appropriate to the genre, and to keep everything "realistic." But it was jargon-y to a fault, and in keeping its audience as in the dark as its protagonist, it succeeded too well.Furthermore, its characters never spoke the way they were described - it was always "'could you pass the tea please, that's a boy,' he shouted furiously." And about 95% of the book is written in past [...]

I've wanted to read the George Smiley books since watching the BBC adaptation of 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' back in the 1970s. I subsequently loved the 2011 film adaptation directed by Tomas Alfredson, which I saw in the cinema, and rewatched a few weeks ago. Everything I had heard about the source material suggested joy and wonder would await and, so far, I’m pleased to report, that’s exactly what I have found.I have read the series, up until 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy', in quick suc [...]

And thus began what would be a year and a half-long obsession with George Smiley and his British Circus. Having now read every last book in which Smiley is even cursorily mentioned, I can say steadfast that this is Le Carre's masterwork. It is a warm, immersive book. It draws you in like a warm sweater, and keeps you suspended weightless and happy in its alternate world. I literally read this book three times in a row before moving on to the next in the trilogy (The Honourable Schoolboy). It is [...]

For quite some time, this was one of the most amazing successes in the genre of espionage fiction. It reined supreme. The reading public had never seen anything quite like it. Everyone knew John LeCarre was a spy writer and that he was 'rather good'. Everyone--absolutely everyone--was aware of the landmark, the juggernaut which he had already achieved some years previously: 'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold'. But no one --I think--expected him to equal that triumph; no one expected him to follo [...]

The best espionage thriller I’ve ever read. One of the greatest living British writers hardly needs me to talk him up, but I truly am in awe of le Carré's skills.The plot is fairly simple. It’s the early 70’s and George Smiley, after a year of forced retirement, is tasked with uncovering the identity of a Soviet mole that has managed to infiltrate the highest echelons of the British secret service. But the amount of depth and complexity that le Carre manages to add to this story is remark [...]

I enjoyed this, but not as much as I enjoyed The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Le Carre has many strengths as a writer. The dialogue is crisp, idiosyncratic and understated. The scenes may as well be in HD- you can hear the rain beating against the window in Smiley's hotel room, and see the mastery and discipline in the eyes of an elusive spy who while being interrogated refuses to take even a single cigarette from a pack of his favorite brand placed on the table in front of him. Descriptions o [...]

The blurb from the back of the book: "The Circus (aka MI6) has already suffered a bad defeat and the result was two bullets in a man's back. But a bigger threat still exists. The legendary George Smiley is recruited to root out a high-level mole of thirty years' standing - though to find him means spying on the spies."Do you ever feel like you're just not on the ball? Like you're two seconds behind everyone else?? That everyone else gets things quicker than you and you are always trying to catch [...]

John le Carré-কে স্পাই নভেলিস্ট বললে আসলে তেমন কিছু পরিষ্কার হয় না। স্পাই থ্রিলার বলতে আমরা যে গতানুগতিক juvenile male wish-fulfillment টাইপ ধুন্ধুমার গোলাগুলি, দ্রুতগতির গাড়ি আর শোপিস-সুন্দরীদের আনাগোনা বুঝি, সেরকম [...]

Not for the cursory reader, this book presents an enigmatic quest by that least dashing of protagonists, Mr. George Smiley, late of the Circus (MI6). The reader is dropped, as in other LeCarre novels, into the middle of the story, and must piece together the story from Smiley’s own memories and those of others who, in one way or another have been exiled from their life’s work . Gradually, Smiley finds that the promotion of an incompetent to the leadership of the service, and the banishment o [...]

It was enjoyable - but what a mess!Structurally it was a catastrophe for me. It's part of a series, but I went in thinking it was fine reading it on its own, and it is, in a way. Smiley's case isn't linked to any previous novels - but I think some of the backstory that kept popping up here would have come across less confusing had I read any of the other books previously. As it was now it felt unfitting and interrupted in the most frustrating places, which was a downer.The spy stuff is really go [...]