The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (John le Carré) - Four Stars
This novel has been called by many the ultimate spy novel, and I can see why. It's free of the dapper tuxedo and martini bullshit of the James Bond world: there's no hot scientist babes in bikinis, no nuclear missile aimed at the Queen's head (or other similar hyperbolic plot device) and negligible gunplay (spies are not Rambo: their whole objective is to stay hidden and avoid attention-drawing firefights). The spies in ...Cold are grim, disillusioned, ruthless men in old trenchcoats. Men addicted to vices like booze and strippers and run down by the constant strain of pushing their brains to overdrive trying to conceive and cover every possible angle. I cannot detail the plot, because it would be a crime to spoil the great mysteries of the book. I will say that the reader should be on alert from page one, as even seemingly innocuous moments of exposition often come back into play further into the novel. Just about every detail provided to the reader is a necessary detail.
...Cold is painted in broad strokes, and the characters (with the exception of Leamas and maybe one or two others) are not delved into with great detail. The pace of the story is brisk and the plot complications numerous for such a short novel. One of ...Cold's crowning achievements is that it leads the reader along without patronizing or condescending. The astute reader will be able to unravel the plot twists, but the brilliance in the novel lies in the fact that whenever the reader unravels a particular plot twist the story itself is already two more plot twists ahead.
The book is not flawless. Stephen King has stated that "the road to hell is paved with adverbs," and John le Carre skips right along down that road. Almost all of the dialogue is graced with unnecessary adverbs (he replied cryptically, she added vaguely, he shouted angrily, she continued thoughtfully, etc.); it really only proved a minor annoyance to me, but I know it bothers some other people a great deal. Also, the coda of the book seemed a little rushed and almost haphazardly tacked on to the end of the book. The last chapter (#25 - The Wall), while perfectly in line with the realism of the novel, is a misstep in tone—a hurried, almost careless rush to the finish that doesn't flow with the clockwork precision of the rest of the novel. It should be noted that the specific details of the end didn't bother me, just the way they were set down on the page.
I wonder how well this book will age. It depicts wonderfully the animosity and cold-war tensions that gripped the world for forty years. However, I think my generation will be the last to truly understand it, as we lived through its sunset hours. The experience of living through, at the very least, the early-to-mid 1980s (or prior) is necessary to fully appreciate the novel, I think.
This novel has been called by many the ultimate spy novel, and I can see why. It's free of the dapper tuxedo and martini bullshit of the James Bond world: there's no hot scientist babes in bikinis, no nuclear missile aimed at the Queen's head (or other similar hyperbolic plot device) and negligible gunplay (spies are not Rambo: their whole objective is to stay hidden and avoid attention-drawing firefights). The spies in ...Cold are grim, disillusioned, ruthless men in old trenchcoats. Men addicted to vices like booze and strippers and run down by the constant strain of pushing their brains to overdrive trying to conceive and cover every possible angle. I cannot detail the plot, because it would be a crime to spoil the great mysteries of the book. I will say that the reader should be on alert from page one, as even seemingly innocuous moments of exposition often come back into play further into the novel. Just about every detail provided to the reader is a necessary detail.
...Cold is painted in broad strokes, and the characters (with the exception of Leamas and maybe one or two others) are not delved into with great detail. The pace of the story is brisk and the plot complications numerous for such a short novel. One of ...Cold's crowning achievements is that it leads the reader along without patronizing or condescending. The astute reader will be able to unravel the plot twists, but the brilliance in the novel lies in the fact that whenever the reader unravels a particular plot twist the story itself is already two more plot twists ahead.
The book is not flawless. Stephen King has stated that "the road to hell is paved with adverbs," and John le Carre skips right along down that road. Almost all of the dialogue is graced with unnecessary adverbs (he replied cryptically, she added vaguely, he shouted angrily, she continued thoughtfully, etc.); it really only proved a minor annoyance to me, but I know it bothers some other people a great deal. Also, the coda of the book seemed a little rushed and almost haphazardly tacked on to the end of the book. The last chapter (#25 - The Wall), while perfectly in line with the realism of the novel, is a misstep in tone—a hurried, almost careless rush to the finish that doesn't flow with the clockwork precision of the rest of the novel. It should be noted that the specific details of the end didn't bother me, just the way they were set down on the page.
I wonder how well this book will age. It depicts wonderfully the animosity and cold-war tensions that gripped the world for forty years. However, I think my generation will be the last to truly understand it, as we lived through its sunset hours. The experience of living through, at the very least, the early-to-mid 1980s (or prior) is necessary to fully appreciate the novel, I think.
"What do you think spies are: priests, saints, martyrs? They're a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London, balancing the rights and wrongs?"
posted by Kevin at 11:10 AM
1 Comments:
You know, in "The Shining," Stephen King wrote possibly the worst phrase I've ever seen, something like "The radio chirped happily, and he switched it off angrily." I've read a lot of bad pulp fiction, and I have yet to see a line that tops that one.
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