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, ousted others [...]

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 Carr 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.So, ev [...]

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 things Books are for pe [...]

Spy novels may be best consumed in large gulps by me There is no question that John Le Carr 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 books in [...]

I m going to state the obvious and say John le Carr is a really good writer.This was my first le Carr 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 for the i [...]

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 cars and a [...]

I didn t understand half of what I just read, and yet I loved it all the same In John le Carr 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 of a psychological suspense novel than an action filled James Bond spy thriller Smiley is getting up there in years and though he s conversant with a [...]

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 adulte [...]

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 Le Carre Well, now I m going to rush out to get 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 , 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 think what put me of [...]

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 any 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 aren t like regular charac [...]

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 players wh [...]

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 and p [...]

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 have a [...]

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 ideolo [...]

Apparently I m turning into a really shitty reader.This is the first Le Carr I ve read, and whatever, I think I expected a little 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 difficult than I had intended See first note about becoming a really shitty reader And in my current mood I wanted some violence And by violence I [...]

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 reorgan [...]

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 and i [...]

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.Further, 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 perfect tense [...]

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 succession C [...]

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 one of [...]

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 follow that book with [...]

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 Carr 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 remarkable, as is [...]

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 of peo [...]

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 up Think Joe [...]

John le Carr juvenile male wish fulfillment , , , , , , , , , Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , , , , , Percy Alleline, Bill Haydon, Roy Bland, Toby Esterhase , , Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , , Oliver Lacon , , Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Poor Man, Beggar Man , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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 of those wh [...]

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 good thou [...]