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Sto caricando le informazioni... Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: A George Smiley Novel (originale 1974; edizione 2011)di John le Carré (Autore)
Informazioni sull'operaLa talpa di John le Carré (1974)
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cold war spy fiction (1974) set in UK, London. I guess this is supposed to be suspenseful (as in which of these spies is the mole? Trust no one!) but I feel like it's kind of pointless to keep talking to the rest of the spy network (who can't give straight answers anyway) when you could just talk to Jim Prideau. lots of coded spy dialogue (which I found confusing, which I guess is the point?) and men being arrogant and acting superior, but otherwise interesting atmospheric prose descriptions of mood/place, whenever actual story is allowed to take place. This is not a plot-driven novel so much as a confusing whodunnit where you can't really trust anyone to tell the truth and every piece of the mystery takes pages of oblique dialogue to uncover. You'd have to be really into the genre to enjoy it, I think. picked up from Little Free Library, author I've not read before, 2024 reading challenge: book to movie/adapted for screen.
10 of the Greatest Cold War Spy Novels “Like Fleming, Le Carré (real name: David John Moore Cornwall) worked for British intelligence. But where Fleming used his WW 2 experiences as a springboard for fantasy, Le Carre turned his Cold War service into grimly realistic novels. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963) trumped Deighton as a response to James Bond’s glamourous world of espionage, and he continues to turn out fine work to this day. Tinker charts the search for a Soviet mole in the upper echelons of British intelligence, providing Le Carré’s signature character – the low-key professional George Smiley – with a late-in-the-game chance to reclaim his standing in the Circus (MI6), made bittersweet by betrayal. A fine BBC serialization in 1974 was followed by an equally well-received feature-film version in 2011.” Karla is finally lured across a Berlin bridge and into the West. But, again, what figure is cut by the evil mastermind when he appears? “He wore a grimy shirt and a black tie: he looked like a poor man going to the funeral of a friend.” Le Carré has never written a better sentence, one so impatient of ideology and so attentive to what he, following W. H. Auden, describes plainly as “the human situation.” The television series of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” has lost none of its grip, and the new film will recruit new friends to the cause; but if we seek George Smiley and his people, with their full complement of terrors, illusions, and shames, we should follow the example of the ever-retiring Smiley, and go back to our books. That’s the truth The power of the novel is that le Carré transfigured espionage – its techniques, failures and deceptions – into a rich metaphor combining national decay, the disintegration of certainties with advancing age, the impossibility of knowing another human being's mind, the fragility of all trust and loyalty. "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is fluently written; it is full of vivid character sketches of secret agents and bureaucrats from all levels of British society , and the dialogue catches their voices well. The social and physical details of English life and the day to day activities of the intelligence service at home and abroad are convincing. Unlike many writers Le Carré is at his best showing men hard at work; he is fascinated by the office politics of the agency since the war. Appartiene alle SerieGeorge Smiley (5) Karla Trilogy (1) Appartiene alle Collane EditorialiPremi e riconoscimentiMenzioniElenchi di rilievo
British agent George Smiley hunts for a mole in the Secret Service and begins his epic game of international chess with his Soviet counterpart, an agent named Karla. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
Discussioni correntiTinker Tailor Soldier Spy LE??! in Folio Society Devotees Copertine popolari
Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)823.914Literature English English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Classificazione LCVotoMedia:
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What surprised me on listening to this was the quality of the writing style and the characterisation. I was immediately captured by this description, early in the first chapter, of Jim Prideaux’s arrival as a temporary teacher at a boy’s boarding school (I imagine we’re talking about the 1960s, here):
"Jim Prideaux arrived on a Friday in a rainstorm. The rain rolled like gun-smoke down the brown combes of the Quantocks, then raced across the empty cricket fields into the sandstone of the crumbling facades. He arrived just after lunch, driving an old red Alvis and towing a second-hand caravan that had once been blue. Early afternoons at Thursgood’s are a tranquil time, a brief truce in the running fight of each school day. The boys are sent to rest in their dormitories, the staff sit in the common room over coffee reading newspapers or correcting boys’ work… Of the whole school therefore only little Bill Roach actually saw Jim arrive, saw the steam belching from the Alvis’ bonnet as it wheezed its way down the pitted drive, windscreen wipers going full pelt and the caravan shuddering through the puddles in pursuit… Roach decided later that [Jim] must have made a reconnaissance or studied maps. Even when he reached the yard he didn’t stop but drove straight on to the wet grass, travelling at speed to keep the momentum. Then over the hummock into the Dip, head first and out of sight. Roach half expected the caravan to jack-knife on the brink, Jim took it over so fast, but instead it just lifted its tail and disappeared like a giant rabbit into its hole."
This little scene tells us so much about Jim’s circumstances and character even though we haven’t met him yet, and so much about the young schoolboy Bill Roach, the watcher. It’s lovely writing, I think.
It’s a spy story, yes. But despite the intricacies of the Cold War plot it’s mostly a story about character. About Jim Prideaux, the ex-agent who has been terribly betrayed. About the quiet, unassuming George Smiley, with a razor sharp mind, patiently and secretly trying to identify who and what was behind that betrayal. About the cast of characters in charge of the Circus, London headquarters of the spy agency. ( )