Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Forced into retirement after a series of catastrophes in the British foreign intelligence service paves the way for a new guard to rise and take over, George Smiley’s life is in shambles in John Le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. His wife has left him after a series of increasingly dramatic affairs; his old boss, Control, is dead; and his life is a series of aimless wanderings. That is, until a young agent known for going off book suddenly arrives back from a fraught mission in Southeast Asia with a story of attempted Russian defection, a strange lack-of-response from headquarters, and the suspicion that there is a well-placed Russian mole in British intelligence. Smiley teams up with Peter Guillam to smoke out the mole, and as they investigate, they realize the truth is very close to home and the conspiracy goes all the way to the top.

I have long been familiar with Le Carre’s work through the many film and tv adaptations that exist (I highly recommend The Night Manager mini-series!), but I had yet to read any of his books until I picked up a copy of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy a neighborhood book swap. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of John Le Carre’s quintessential spy novels and the first in his Karla trilogy, featuring George Smiley and his quest to take down his nemesis, the Russian spymaster Karla.

I really enjoyed it. It’s a bit slow going, but that’s to be expected. It is a story of true, classic spy craft in the British style, so there are lots of long conversations, contemplative walks, and moving to safe houses without much actual action or violence. It is also densely written, filled with spy jargon, a lot of which Le Carre created for his novels and then became actual intelligence jargon. However, Le Carre skillfully combines these elements in a way that slowly and steadily builds tension and dread until the final confrontation. Rather than getting bogged down in the pace, I found myself reluctant to put the book down, wishing I could just keep reading, my need to know the truth growing along with Smiley’s.

The story shifts between Smiley’s investigation, shown mainly from his perspective and occasionally from Guillam’s, and Jim Prideaux’s life as a substitute French teacher at a boy’s boarding school. Prideaux is a former agent, shot in the blown mission that resulted in Smiley, Prideaux, and Control being removed from service and the change in command. He’s laid low ever since, but he is key to Smiley’s investigation. The brilliant thing, though, is that Prideaux’s sections are never from his perspective but from that of one of his students, Roach, who recognizes a fellow hurt soul. Roach comes to both look up to Prideaux and desires to protect him without fully understanding his mysterious teacher, which both humanizes Prideaux and distances him from us the readers. We know Prideaux is important. We sense that he and Smiley are on a collision course. But Roach as audience proxy keeps the how and why obscured just enough, building suspense until the perfect moment for that collision. It’s absolutely thrilling.

Le Carre uses this tactic of deflecting focus throughout the book as a way to underline both the importance of moments and conversation and the completely different world Smiley operates in. A particular favorite moment of mine is when Guillam reads Smiley in to the situation at the country home of a government minister. After relaying an intense chain of events leading up to that moment, Le Carre suddenly ends the chapter with two paragraphs detailing the frustration of the minister’s young daughter as she tries to ride her obstinate pony in the yard just outside the room where the men are meeting. The detail, specificity, and mundanity of that moment, with Le Carre valuing her life as much as the lives of the powerful men deciding the fate of the world on the other side of the window; the complete shift in focus from them to her falling off her pony; and the incongruity of these two moments happening simultaneously is both hilarious and profoundly sobering. The world might be in danger of ending, but, until then, life goes on.

Le Carre may be the creator of some of the world’s most famous spy novels, but above all, he is a fluid, confident writer. The way he plays with language and structure is why his books are so enduring and have influenced the profession in real life. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a masterclass not just in crafting a suspenseful story of cat-and-mouse between spies but in the art of writing as well. If you are at all interested in the spy genre, you should definitely read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but I also recommend it for anyone interested in the art and craft of language.