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/lit/ - Literature

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4742326 No.4742326 [Reply] [Original]

This book.

Is amazing.

What do you guys think of John Le Carre? Guy's been writing high-grade lit disguised as spy novels for decades. I can't think of another writer I enjoy as much.

>> No.4742330

"the spy who came in from the cold" is a devastating read

>> No.4742359

>>4742330
This and The Honourable Schoolboy

>> No.4742369

>>4742359
>>4742330

Really all his novels are like that. Incredible writing and plot. A Perfect Spy is just the opus.

>> No.4742464

>>4742330
I loved Spy Who Came In From The Cold. I recommend it to everyone.

Its complexity surprised the hell out of me and made me love le Carre instantly. How the Berlin wall was the gap between the two trailer trucks (Warsaw/NATO), and how he and Liz were the family being smushed at the end. And how his slowing down, on the road that day and in his spywork ever since, got him and Liz and Fiedler used, because they dared to be actual people between the two relentless trucks. Did anyone else notice how during the trip to the wall at the end, he was speeding up and driving recklessly again, endangering Liz? Bloody brilliant m8. How does his newer stuff hold up?

>> No.4742481

>>4742464
He has new stuff?

>> No.4742705

>>4742464

I've only read the likes of Our Kind of Traitor and his latest A Delicate Truth when it comes to latter-day le Carre and they're serviceable thrillers with some thematic meat-on-the-bones but they're not among his best work. Still very enjoyable and it's not like le Carre has forgotten what he's doing like you'd think a writer of his vintage might've.

Our Kind of Traitor is a nice exercise in characterisation both when it comes with the Russian informant Dima and and with the man he meets, and our protagonist, Perry, who reads like a parody of an Ian McEwan protagonist (doubtless le Carre read The Innocent and was as disappointed as I was). The ending is nicely cynical too.

A Delicate Truth has a killer premise that's ruined a bit by the somewhat cartoonish antagonists. The whole thing needed to be more abstract and sinister.

I'm holding off on reading anymore as my more chronological read of le Carre is currently sitting on The Little Drummer Girl. Very tempted to skip it and just get into A Perfect Spy and come back to it as I got bored when it was starting to look like A Small Town in Germany just with more Jews. We shall see.

>> No.4743431

>>4742481
he has never stopped working. Constant Gardner, also a MaMoPic, was LeCarre.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, despite two adaptations, one starring Ben Kenobi, has never been surpassed as a novel.

If you run out of LeCarre, OP, Charles McCarry is his USA equal in literary espionage. The Paul Christopher novels.

>> No.4743433

>>4742326
>high-grade lit disguised as spy novels
kek. you mean pleb garbage disguised as "high grade" crap

>> No.4745012

>>4742705
>The Little Drummer Girl

It's the only one of his books that I'd say is definitely worth skipping. Had he written it like a thriller - like the Jerry Westerby sections of The Honourable Schoolboy - it would have been great but instead it's like a thriller written in the behind the scenes fashion of his other books so it just doesn't click. It's especially worth skipping with A Perfect Spy being the one after it.

I was also put off by how many Jews there are in it but he balances the conflict with the Arabs well and points out how hypocritical Israel is as often as he can, so politically it's much better than most books set in the Middle East.

>> No.4745434

>>4743431

If one runs out of le Carre, there is always Len Deighton.

>>4745012

Good to know. I will probably end up reading it (I mean Christ, two separate people GAVE me hardcovers of the bloody novel) but I'm a little more enthused about A Perfect Spy, especially since I've heard it's more autobiographical and given what I know of le Carre's "Daddy issues" the idea of le Carre basically writing fiction for catharsis intrigues me.

>> No.4745510

Love Lecarre. He is one of the few that can make two chsracters just sitting and talking a revelation. The Smile/Karla trilogy, The Tailer Of Panama, The Costant Gardner, Absolute Friends. All his books have been sch great reads.

>> No.4745529

Does it matter what order i read him in? Im asking plotwise since i just looked him up on my kindle abd it looks like they all follow this george gut?

>> No.4745537

>>4745529
*george guy

>> No.4745598

>>4745529

I think you get more out of the Karla trilogy (Tinker Tailor/The Honourable Schoolboy/Smiley's People) having read at least The Spy Who Came in From The Cold. You're essentially book-ended by crossings of the Berlin Wall and events and themes have a habit of repeating themselves and being expanded upon in new and twisted ways.

If you're really keen you can start with A Call for the Dead (A Murder of Quality is just a curiosity) and just work your way through the novels involving Smiley and The Circus (or at least in part) in publication order.

Actually a lot of people would recommend at least adding Call for the Dead to the four essentials I mentioned as it is a solid prequel to what occurs in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

I pretty much just read everything up to and excluding Naive and Sentimental Lover and that worked well for me, but that includes stuff you can safely skip (A Murder of Quality and A Small-Town in Germany, the latter not really having anything to do with Smiley or the Circus).

>> No.4745641

>>4742326
>This book.
>Is amazing.
Ok, ill bight
You better not be lying to me, op

>> No.4745656

Le Carre and Buchan are dropping some real shit under the guise of dimestore fiction.

>not loving 39 Steps

>> No.4745780

>>4745656

Between the likes of Buchan, Ambler, Greene, le Carre, Deighton and even Fleming - spy fiction as a genre is just a lot of fun. You've got guys with real literary ambitions and thematic exploration and you've got guys playing with style and structure and actual characterisation (sci-fi writers, look out) and yet you still have the narrative drive of the thriller even in le Carre's heavier novels or Fleming's less disciplined borderline travelogues.