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by John le Carre
3.5 Stars
“There are moments that are made up of too much stuff for them to be lived at the time they occur”
George Smiley was once a top spy at British Intelligence Headquarters (aka The Circus) but has now been forcibly removed. Soon he is pulled back in to investigate the possibility of a mole at Headquarters. A double agent working for Moscow Centre. In Smiley’s quest to identify the traitor, he must revisit his own past. Investigate the overlapping incidents that not only led to his fall but also to 2 bullets in a fellow agent’s back. Only by dealing with his doubts and questions can Smiley restore integrity to the agency he dedicated his life to.
I found this book to be a challenging read. The lingo was very hard to grasp. There were a lot of terms related to the industry that felt like you had to be in the business to know. This makes sense as the author John le Carré was actually David John Moore Cornwell an MI5 British Intelligence agent.
This is a later book in the series and it may have been easier to follow the characters and plot lines if I had read the earlier books. There were a lot of internal politics between the players that were referenced and went over my head but may have been clearer if I had started from the beginning of the series. I most likely would have DNF’d this book if it weren’t for the Birthday Bestseller Challenge. It is not that the book isn’t good. This is absolutely an intriguing story with twist upon twist and you are brought along by the protagonist discovering small pieces of the puzzle as he does. I struggled with the jargon and it was enough to keep me confused and disengaged. Perhaps fans of the espionage genre will be able to connect with the material.
This book was #1 on the NY Times Bestseller list for ten weeks. A lot of its popularity was due to the political climate, with the Cold War still being felt, Vietnam happening, and recent discoveries of KGB agents infiltrating the British Secret Service. There were also strong rumors that the author was a real spy, which it was discovered much later that he was. But at the time it made readers feel like they were getting an intimate glimpse into a world that was happening in the shadows.
Another appeal of this book to readers is that on the heels of James Bond, a sexy suave elite spy, this book painted a portrait of an altogether different agent. A more relatable one with foibles and self-doubt. A decidedly unglamorous and lonely man. The TV and movie culture of the early 1970s was exploring a more gritty and darker realism and this book with its serious, straightforward protagonist was right in line with this movement.
While this book was not for me I would recommend the series to those that like a twisty-turny spy novel with complex character development and layers of intrigue.