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osprey_archerContinuing 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.
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.
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Date: 2024-10-04 07:14 pm (UTC)