Book Review: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

[osprey_archer]

Continuing my Smiley reread with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John le Carre’s cozy novel about a spy who came in from a blizzard to be offered a mug of hot chocolate and a Shetland Island sweater as the British spy service politely debriefed him in front of a roaring log fire…

Haha, sorry, I just had to get that out of my system before actually reviewing the book. No. John le Carre did not write a book like that. Although it would have been a great psych-out move if he gave it a shot near the end of his career, as his long-time readers would spend the whole book on tenterhooks waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is not a book that one can really discuss without spoilers, so

SMILEY HOW COULD YOU.

So, so, so. This was John le Carre’s third Smiley novel, following on two novels in which Smiley is an amateur detective: basically good-hearted, seemingly bumbling, using his own appearance of bumbling amiability to cover the sharp wits with which he pursues his inquiries and eventually cracks the case.

All of this sets up the unwary reader to assume that Smiley is basically on the side of the angels - to take at face value Control’s assertion that Smiley disapproves of this whole operation. (I’m still not sure if Control is a name or a title, which may of course be the point.)

BUT NO. Or rather, it’s entirely possible that Smiley disapproves, but he disapproves in that way where you say “I want it on record that I disapprove” and then you do the thing anyway. He’s in it neck deep!

Or so we learn at the end of the book. For most of the story, however, we’re in the POV of Leamas, an aging spy who just saw his final agent shot as he tried to cross the border in East Berlin. The ultimate culprit: Mundt, the head of East German intelligence. (Also incidentally the man who committed two murders in Call for the Dead then escaped scot free, so Smiley also has a reason to have a grudge.)

Leamas wants vengeance. The Circus wants that irritatingly competent East German spymaster dead. They come up with a plan: Leamas will pretend to be a turncoat, and oh so carefully frame Mundt as a traitor who has been selling intelligence to Great Britain.

That, anyway, is what Leamas thinks is the plan. In reality? Mundt is a traitor who is selling secrets to Great Britain. Leamas’s attempt to frame him is meant to backfire and destroy Mundt’s second in command, Fiedler, who is getting too close to unmasking Mundt. Fiedler will accuse Mundt, only to be accused in return of turning on his superior out of professional jealousy at best, or actually being a traitor himself at worst, and then get removed from the board by either being fired or shot.

And it works. Believing that he’s bringing down his enemy Mundt, Leamas saves the man he despises and destroys Fiedler, whom he’s come to quite like. And Smiley knew all along that this was the true plan, and intervened at intervals to ensure that it worked, by ever so subtly giving away to East German intelligence that British Intelligence was trying to frame Mundt…

And it’s particularly a gut punch when you come to it from the first two Smiley books, Smiley the bumbling affable ever so slightly ruthless amateur detective, and he’s still all of those things, and we’re just looking a little bit harder at what exactly that ruthlessness entails.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Yowzers! The double dealing has me in delicious cold shivers! We've been watching the Apple TV series Cold Horses, about the agents of Slough House, where failed or out-of-grace MI-5 agents are sent to moulder, and there's a LOT of that icy double dealing in that show. Not by the Slough House regulars, but by the first-rank agents. Especially the woman who's more or less (depending on the season) in charge (and when she's not in charge, she's on her way back to getting in charge), Tavener. Love watching her, such an icy operator. And it's got Gary Oldman--Sirius Black!--in the starring role as the slovenly head of Slough House. In the current season, Hugo Weaving--Elrond!--plays a baddie (back to the Matrix's Agent Smith side of things)

[kore]

THOSE BOOKS ARE SO GOOD. I've been dying to see the show but we have too many streaming services as it is....

[asakiyume]

I’m hoping it’s available on DVDs— I want to give it to my dad.

[kore]

There's Chinese bootlegs on eBay....wonder how good the quality is.

I would pay MORE for HQ home media, Apple! But I am never going to pay for your service.

[asakiyume]

Ugh, you're right: there's no legal DVDs. BUMMED OUT.

[osprey_archer]

Is it set nowadays or during the Cold War?

Anyplace called Slough House is just bad news. Shades of the Slough of Despond, etc.

[asakiyume]

It's set nowadays. And yeah, re: names!

[kore]

It's so awful. And that moment when he goes back down the wall, to Liz. What happens to Liz is so terrible. And he goes back down when he hears Smiley shouting "Where is she?" Only Smiley doesn't seem to be asking if she's alive but if she's dead. He wants Leamas back, not the innocent woman.

No wonder it made him famous, imagine how this most have hit people in what was it, 1961.

[genarti]

YEAH. Poor, poor Liz.

[kore]

And it foreshadows what happens to (spoiler) in Tinker Tailor, too.

[osprey_archer]

I had a bad feeling about what was going to happen to Liz all the way through but I kept hoping against hope and of course I was wrong to hope.

[osprey_archer]

Ah, well, she's just a Communist, no worries if she comes back or not I guess! One less fifth columnist to worry about if she dies.

(The bits about the British Communist party make it sound like a particularly sad parish jumble sale, which make the callousness with which everyone uses Liz even worse somehow, because the Party in general and Liz in particular are not any kind of threat.)

And Leamas is like "fuck you, not coming back," and GOOD FOR HIM.

[genarti]

YEAH IT'S SUCH AN INCREDIBLY EFFECTIVE RUG-PULL. Smiley's done some things he regrets, sure, he's made some moral compromises, but-- but oh, we're showing a thing he damn well should regret right here front and center from the POV of the collateral damage, are we? OH OKAY THEN.

Like, damn, Le Carré! DAMN. It's absolutely ruthless in its effectiveness as a book that just leaves you staring at the wall afterward.

[osprey_archer]

Le Carré is not pulling any punches! We are going to drill right down to what "things he regrets" and "moral compromises" look like from the point of view of the people who ended up dying of those regretted moral compromises. And not just dying! Dying realizing that they have achieved the opposite of their own personal goal, and were in fact SET UP to achieve that result by their own service which they trusted!

And even if Leamas did make it back alive, what would the rest of his life look like? He's torched his whole life for this mission, and he can't just tell everyone "Yeah, it was an elaborate double-cross," because that would undermine the whole mission! (Which at this point he probably wants to do, but I can't imagine he'd be able to get away with it...) Whole life down the drain and Liz dead to save fucking Mundt.

[littlerhymes]

It's so brutal... the way Leamas realises everything all too late. THE ENDING WITH LIZ!!!

[osprey_archer]

It all comes together for him literally in the middle of Mundt's trial when it is too late for him to do ANYTHING. And it's Liz's testimony that clues him in... she's already in the thick of it... gets shot when they're trying to get over the wall, and Leamas jumps down and gets shot beside her because fuck everyone else.

[threeplusfire]

I honestly think this might be my favorite of the Smiley books. It's such a vibe!

[osprey_archer]

It's so well done! So completely crushing! The absolute cold-bloodedness of it all. Leamas thinks he's the knight but actually he's the sacrifice pawn.

[regshoe]

[I have not read behind the spoiler cut, so my comment is:] Well, if it's as mysterious as all that then I'd better get on and read these books myself, hadn't I? :D *goes off to reserve at the library*

[osprey_archer]

Probably you can read Le Carre in any order but I do think it gains a certain something when you start the Smiley books from the beginning.

[skygiants]

I'm so glad you're doing it in proper order -- I don't regret having read the ones I did, and honestly it's STILL the same level of gut punch about Smiley if you're going a bit backwards, but my god!

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I think previous acquaintance with Smiley is necessary to get the full effect of the book, but it can be a previous acquaintance from reading a later book first. Something that would give you a reason to think that Smiley is basically on the side of the angels and wouldn't screw someone over on PURPOSE and then oh no he totally does. Like maybe he didn't mean it to end in death all around as it does, but best case scenario he was STILL wrecking Leamas's life so Leamas could inadvertently save the man he hates most in the world, and who knows how they thought Liz would come out of all of this.

[asakiyume]

Back here again because your current entry references the review, and first time around I was sidetracked thinking of the comparisons with Slow Horses, but a thing I'm thinking as I reread this is how COLD it is to count on a guy failing: that they send Leamas in to frame Mundt and it will fail. To be used in the hopes that your mission will backfire. COLD COLD COLD.

(Sidenote: there are lots of books I may never read, but I thoroughly enjoy them through your reviews. It's like Sovay's movie reviews.)

[osprey_archer]

Right, though? And then they do it AGAIN in The Looking Glass War, except instead of making their own agent the fall guy to protect an intelligent asset on the other side, they're setting up a rival intelligence agency in their own country to send an agent on a mission that will almost surely fail (and result in his death) for... kicks and giggles, I guess? An advantage in the interagency squabble that they've already essentially won? Either way! COLD.

Sometimes other people's reviews are the perfect vicarious way to enjoy a thing.