
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre is a cold war spy novel set in the world of British intelligence, focusing on the hunt for a mole within MI6. The plot unfolds through dialogue and recounts of interactions with the Russian intelligence mastermind Karla, revealing a complex and twisty storyline. The protagonist, George Smiley, comes out of retirement to investigate and unravels the knot of betrayal and mistrust within the Circus, MI6's top intelligence unit.
The writing style of the book is described as dense, with packed pages of jargon, digressions, and names, creating a paranoid and isolated world of espionage. The conversations among characters are full of arch and Circus jargon, providing a detailed insight into the world of spies and the game played by schoolboys with real consequences in the intelligence community.
Genres:
Tropes/Plot Devices:
Topics:
Notes:
Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings include themes of betrayal, espionage, potential violence, and the psychological trauma related to intelligence work.
From The Publisher:
The man he knew as "Control" is dead, and the young Turks who forced him out now run the Circus. But George Smiley isn't quite ready for retirement-especially when a pretty, would-be defector surfaces with a shocking accusation: a Soviet mole has penetrated the highest level of British Intelligence. Relying only on his wits and a small, loyal cadre, Smiley recognizes the hand of Karla-his Moscow Centre nemesis-and sets a trap to catch the traitor.
The Oscar-nominated feature film adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is directed by Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) and features Gary Oldman as Smiley, Academy Award winner Colin Firth (The King's Speech), and Tom Hardy (Inception).
With an introduction by the author.
Ratings (20)
Incredible (2) | |
Loved It (8) | |
Liked It (7) | |
It Was OK (1) | |
Did Not Like (2) |
Reader Stats (55):
Read It (23) | |
Want To Read (24) | |
Did Not Finish (1) | |
Not Interested (7) |
2 comment(s)
I have read two books previously by John Le Carre and wasn't a huge fan of them, but gave them 3 stars. So I didn't have huge expectations for this but I was pleasantly surprised with the is novel. It was an enjoyable quite intresting spy novel. I had the idea that I'm not a huge fan of spy novels and don't read a lot of them but I think I need to read more books similar to this.
He thought about treason and wondered whether there was mindless treason in the same way, supposedly, as there was mindless violence.
I don’t have much to say about
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Coming off of the fantastic and thrilling
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold I had high hopes, but this installment was much longer, drier, and more confusing. I struggled to keep the characters straight, which is probably why I felt no emotional investment in them or the eventual outcome. (Most of the female characters felt nonsensically written, with the notable exception of Ann.) There were a few thrilling moments of tradecraft, and a few nice passages, but overall it felt like a chore to get through. Not terrible, but not especially enjoyable. Shame because I really
wanted to like it.
I had such a good experience with my first George Smiley novel that I still do plan to continue on, perhaps even with the Karla trilogy. But I’m going to give le Carré a bit of a break.
Some favorite passages:
Out of date, perhaps, but who wasn’t these days? Out of date, but loyal to his own time. At a certain moment, after all, every man chooses: will he go forward, will he go back? There was nothing dishonourable in not being blown about by every little modern wind. Better to have worth, to entrench, to be an oak of one’s own generation.
But Smiley had a second reason, which was fear, the secret fear that follows every professional to his grave. Namely, that one day, out of a past so complex that he himself could not remember all the enemies he might have made, one of them would find him and demand the reckoning.
The rain had stopped, but as Smiley stepped into the fresh air he heard all round him the restless ticking of wet leaves.
He would have liked a little coffee from the percolator but somehow he didn’t feel able to ask. Also he remembered it was terrible.
After a lifetime of living by his wits and his considerable memory, he had given himself full time to the profession of forgetting.
“There are always a dozen reasons for doing nothing,” Ann liked to say—it was a favourite apologia, indeed, for many of her misdemeanours—“There is only one reason for doing something. And that’s because you want to.” Or have to? Ann would furiously deny it: coercion, she would say, is just another word for doing what you want; or for not doing what you are afraid of.
a handful of routine circulars that might be useful as background reading. These included a belly-ache from Admin., on the state of safe houses in the London area (“Kindly treat them as if they were your own”), and another about the misuse of unlisted Circus telephones for private calls.
“Operation Witchcraft,” read the title on the first volume Lacon had brought to him that first night. “Policy regarding distribution of Special Product.” The rest of the cover was obliterated by warning labels and handling instructions, including one that quaintly advised the accidental finder to “return the file UNREAD” to the Chief Registrar at the Cabinet Office.
“The source is extremely secret, Peter. It may sound to you like ordinary flight information but it isn’t that at all. It’s ultra, ultra sensitive.” “Ah, well, in that case I’ll try to keep my mouth ultra shut,” said Guillam to Porteous,
And the time ticked away again without anyone using it.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor. Alleline was Tinker, Haydon was Tailor, Bland was Soldier, and Toby Esterhase was Poorman. We dropped Sailor because it rhymed with Tailor. You were Beggarman,” Jim said.
He knew silence would be impossible and that for his own sanity, or survival, there had to be a dialogue, and at the end of it they had to think he had told them what he knew, all he knew.
They were working him on the production-line principle, he explained: no sleep, relays of questions, a lot of disorientation, a lot of muscle, till the interrogation became to him a slow race between going a bit dotty, as he called it, and breaking completely. Naturally, he hoped he’d go dotty but that wasn’t something you could decide for yourself, because they had a way of bringing you back. A lot of the muscle was done electrically.
Survival, as Jim Prideaux liked to recall, is an infinite capacity for suspicion.
And young Guillam needs a holiday, thought Mendel. He’d seen that happen before, too: the tough ones who crack at forty. They lock it away, pretend it isn’t there, lean on grown-ups who turn out not to be so grown up after all; then one day it’s all over them, and their heroes come tumbling down and they’re sitting at their desks with the tears pouring onto the blotter.
The creak of a stair that had not creaked before; the rustle of a shutter when no wind was blowing; the car with a different number plate but the same scratch on the offside wing; the face on the Metro that you know you have seen somewhere before: for years at a time these were signs he had lived by; any one of them was reason enough to move, change towns, identities. For in that profession there is no such thing as coincidence.
A London taxi is a flying bomb. The comparison rose in him slowly, from deep in his unconscious memory. The clatter as it barges into the crescent, the metric tick-tick as the bass notes die. The cut-off: where has it stopped, which house—when all of us on the street are waiting in the dark, crouching under tables or clutching at pieces of string—which house? Then the slam of the door, the explosive anti-climax: if you can hear it, it’s not for you.
But Smiley heard it, and it was for him.
Then he heard the latch turn, one turn, two; it’s a Banham lock, he remembered—my God, we must keep Banham’s in business.
There are moments that are made up of too much stuff for them to be lived at the time they occur.
Esterhase, who would always rather have been a gentleman than a spy, seemed determined to make a gallant occasion of it, and offered his hand,
He spoke not of the decline of the West, but of its death by greed and constipation. He hated America very deeply, he said, and Smiley supposed he did.
Through the kitchen door he saw a pile of dirty crockery and he knew she used everything until it ran out, then washed it all at once.
He settled instead for a picture of one of those wooden Russian dolls that open up, revealing one person inside the other, and another inside him. Of all men living, only Karla had seen the last little doll inside Bill Haydon.
About the Author:
John le Carre was born in 1931. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy: Tinke, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honorable Schoolboy, and Smiley's People. His novels include The Little Drummer Girl, A Perfect Spy, The Russia House, Our Game, The Taileor of Panama, and Single & Single. John le Carre lives in Cornwall
When you click the Amazon link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commision, at no cost to you.