Anyone read it yet?
Just finished / reeling.
Just finished / reeling.
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In a good way?Originally posted by DracoM View Post
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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Oh yes, in a VERY good way. But it is quite unlike any other Le Carre novel in structure and style and certainly outcome, so......I shall say n more!Comment
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Tempted!Originally posted by DracoM View Post"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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I bought my copy on the day of publication and started reading it immediately. DracoM is right both about the novel and outcome. It's very difficult to say more without giving away too much so, like DracoM, I'll say no more either!Originally posted by DracoM View Post"The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard HaitinkComment
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Can we talk about this now? It’s been out a few months.Originally posted by antongould View Post
I am very confused about what happened to Christoph. One moment he is about to off Guillam, then he seems to have stomach virus. Who was the man in the Volkswagen?
And Liz Gold? How does she undermine her lover at the “Stasi trial”? And why?
As for the notion of a “fair trial” that pitted the two Stasi operatives against each other: would such a trial have been possible in the GDR? Weren’t the trials just show trials where a coerced defendant would just read an admission of guilt?
Nonetheless, this was vintage LeCarre, and I think the theme of people being held accountable in their doteage for their professional actions of decades earlier is what compels us to read and ignore the deficiencies in the plotting of the octogenarian authorComment
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I normally read a new Le Carré twice, I've only had one run-through!
Now you come to mention it......that'll become clearer on the re-read. A lot to take in.....Originally posted by richardfinegold View Post
Surely this refers to the events in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold?And Liz Gold? How does she undermine her lover at the “Stasi trial”? And why?This was, surely, the deadly game being played out between rival factions within the Stasi (see above), with the invisible hand of the British Secret Service pulling strings, with the unpredictable wild card of Liz Gold being thrown in.....As for the notion of a “fair trial” that pitted the two Stasi operatives against each other: would such a trial have been possible in the GDR? Weren’t the trials just show trials where a coerced defendant would just read an admission of guilt?
Agree with the first bit, but not not with the suggestion the author is in his dotage! I was delighted with the skill with which JLeC tied up loose ends, filled in missing pieces of the jigsaw, pulling together the various threads from Call for the Dead, TSWCIFTC, Tinker Tailor, and even Smiley's People (we learn how Karla ended up)....it takes us back to the opening pages of "Spy" (the death of Karl Riemeck).... The key events here take place between Call for the Dead and TSWCIFTC.... Very much as with Philby, we learn the extent to which Bill Haydon had pulled the secret service inside out - the plot to use Mundt to find out who the mole was frustrated by the mole....Nonetheless, this was vintage LeCarre, and I think the theme of people being held accountable in their doteage for their professional actions of decades earlier is what compels us to read and ignore the deficiencies in the plotting of the octogenarian author
If Le Carré had his time over again, and any idea where this would all lead, I wonder if he'd have made Smiley just a bit younger in "Call for the Dead" - his old age seems to have stretched out indefinitely, he would (as Bryan Appleyard pointed out in the Sunday Times) be about 111 by now!
PS I liked Guillam's role as unreliable narrator, keeping back/only revealing key bits of information as the story develops..... The structure quite procedural, but Le Carré's ability to bring characters to life even in file notes and memos a rare gift....Last edited by Guest; 19-11-17, 15:53.Comment
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I'm just re-reading 'A Spy Who Came etc ' now. I absolutely agree with puzzles above and felt that a re-read of that would help.
BTW, strongly recommend Le Carre's 'The Pigeon Tunnel'. Series of short chapters win which he explains his life in the Service, the kinds of meetings some events in the novels came out of, some of the people ditto. Fascinating and beautifully written in his 'less-is-more' style.
Also just finishing 'A Murder of Quality' - bit of a Le Carre buffet at the mo!!Comment
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I'd recommend starting with a (re)read of Call for the Dead, which is where it begins and where we first meet both Smiley and Mundt - the main events in Legacy of Spies taking place between the two....Originally posted by DracoM View Post
A Murder of Quality was written after Call for the Dead and before Spy - set in a cross between the school he attended and the school he taught at
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<< A Murder of Quality was written after Call for the Dead and before Spy - set in a cross between the school he attended and the school he taught at.>>
Well, wherever it comes from, it gets poisonous, covert snootiness in claustrophobic societies bang to rights, IMO!!Comment
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I haven'tread either A Call For The Dead or A Murder etc..., having progressed from Spy to the Karla Trilogy and then beyond. So now I will go back and read those two. However, I don’t think that it would be necessary to have done so to at least answer some of my queries. Such as, what happens to Christoph?
And again, as for the notion that a Stasi Operative would be given a fair trial in the GDR, with the right to defend himself....stretches credulity. Surely that isn’t the way the “Justice System” played out in the Workers Paradise.
I did read The Pigeon Tunnel, and that and other interviews that Cornwell has given make for interesting Psychological background. His father was an abusive con man whose elaborate fictions and betrayals didn’t stop at home. The authorities terrorized the household trying to catch their man. This may explain the moral ambiguities that Le Carré has mined for a lifetime, why he makes the Bad Guys—be the Russian, East Germans, Palestinians , or whatever—sympathetic characters whose are morally at least equivalent with, or at least superior to, the putative good guys.
Le Carré must have been very drawn to the character of Kim Philby, who becomes Bill Haydon in his fictions. Haydon is always portrayed as the charming, socially correct and connected member of the club, while his nemesis Smiley is more the lumpen petit bourgeois who is forever disliked by the Aristocratic Dons of the Service for exposing one of their own.
Btw, I find Smiley’s protestations that he is a pan Europeinist at the conclusion ringing somewhat hollow. Is Le Carré taking a shot at the Brexit supporters? Or is that portrayal of Smiley a consistent one?Comment
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I'll get back to you on Christoph - give it a week or twoOriginally posted by richardfinegold View Post
. But Call for the Dead (no indefinite article) the essential starting point IMV, especially in view of A Legacy of Spies. It's where it begins - but in all the many interviews with JLeC I've ever read, I'm not sure if anyone's ever asked him how much, if at all, he was aware of what might lie ahead when he started writing it on the train commuting to his job at, we now know, MI6 (he described this to us when he spoke to a small group of us at school back in 1966). Probably not at all, given the stuff he wrote between Spy and Tinker Tailor...., the latter his towering masterpiece.
It's why I so enjoyed Legacy... on a first run-through - all those threads finally pulled together, everything finally fallen into place, 66 years later...it's as if he, through Guillam, can only now see how it all fitted together.
A Murder of Quality is a time-out for Smiley - the second novel, the character taking shape, but nothing to do with the narrative arc begun in Call....
Yes I wasn't convinced by that final protestation from Smiley about what he had been fighting for all this time, I thought that was the Hampstead anti-Brexiteer speakingIs Le Carré taking a shot at the Brexit supporters? Or is that portrayal of Smiley a consistent one?
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