Bookshot #34: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

I'll be totally honest with you: I purchased this book because there's a movie version coming out in December and I wanted to read the book before the movie came out. The movie, by the way, looks amazing- even though early reviews seem to be of the mind that the late 70s BBC mini series with Alec Guiness starring as George Smiley. The new movie has Gary Oldman taking over as Smiley and an all star cast of British talent including Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch and Ciaran Hinds- and a few other people I recognize from various movie but whose names escape me at the moment. The trailer is filled with foreboding and stretched taut with tension.

But did the book measure up? I'm happy to say that I have a sneaking suspicion that the book is, in fact, better than the movie or the mini series. I developed an addiction to Tom Clancy novels in the distant past of my youth, so the spy-thriller genre is not new to me. I've wandered from great to good to trashy and back again and I've come to the conclusion that John Le Carré (along with possibly Frederick Forsyth and Robert Ludlum) might just be among the elite authors in this genre- if not a damn good author all on his own. Le Carré brings actual intelligence experience to his writing and was credited with coining the term 'mole' which had made its way into the professional vernacular of espionage (the author's introduction reveals that, after some digging, someone was kind enough to credit Francis Bacon with inventing the term in 1641.) He also invented other bits of jargon (lamplighter, scalp-hunter, baby-sitter, honey trap and others) that have made their way into professional use- all of which made their debut with this novel. Tinker changed not only the genre of the spy novel but had an impact (albeit minor) on espionage itself.

All of which, needless to say is kind of cool.

Tinker opens in the middle of things- in medias res, making me love this book from the word go. If you're looking for James Bond style explosions and sexiness, don't bother. Le Carré is the master of subtlety and tends to examine his spies on an internal level rather than blowing shit up. Although the reader is initially puzzled by the appearance of a new teacher at a country boarding school in England- all soon becomes clear. That new teacher is Jim Prideaux- and he's eventually revealed to be laying low after a disastrous operation run by 'The Circus' (British Intelligence) goes terribly wrong. The operation has broken the health of Control, the head of the Circus and he's died. George Smiley and a host of other people have been shoved aside and there are whispers that Control was after a mole in The Circus before he died and that last, blown operation has come tantalizingly close to locating him.

Eventually Smiley comes back in from the cold and is put on the chase- and carefully, painstakingly he starts to put the pieces together and starts closing in on the mole- pawn of Smiley's Russian counterpart, the mysterious and shadowy Karla. Together, the two spies engage in a daring and subtle game of chess as loyalties are tested and piece by piece the truth is slowly revealed until finally the true identity of the mole is revealed.

Le Carré makes the reader work it with Tinker, which is awesome! There are several suspects that emerge over the course of the novel and when the true traitor is finally revealed, it's sudden, jarring and more than a little unexpected. Looking back on it, Le Carré does drop some pretty subtle hints, but never confirms them, always leaves the reader wondering- again, awesome! And it's the delicate subtle touch that permeates his writing which really brings the characters and the narrative to life. I think we've fallen into a tendency to view spies in terms of body counts, explosions and martinis- when in reality, the business of espionage is most likely one of dark corners and eavesdropping on telephone conversation- entirely more grubby and a lot less sexy than it's made out to be by Hollywood.

Tinker succeeds in no small part because it fiercely resists glamorizing anything- you read this book and it almost gives you chills, because you get the feeling this may well be more indicative of what espionage is really like than another other book out there.

Overall: Mind-blowingly good. They're not joking when they say this is the novel that re-invented an entire genre. Can't wait for the movie- and if I can get ahold of the mini series, I expect I'll watch that too. Oh- and although George Smiley shows up in a lot of Le Carré novels, Tinker forms the first of a Trilogy- The Honorable Schoolboy and Smiley's People have already been added to my Amazon.com wishlist for Christmas.