Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré

I remember seeing the 2011 film version in theaters and thinking it was the perfect moody spy movie. I even made a poster for the film in a graphic design class I was taking at the time. Naturally, I wanted more. And twelve years later here I am. The only other le Carré book I’ve read is The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. I wanted to read one of his knowing he is the king of spy thrillers, and that was the one that people suggested. But I’ve always wanted to read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy because I loved the movie so much.

And now I have. While reading I kept trying to associate the scenes and characters to the movie. It’s been so long since I’ve seen the movie though, so everything—except the big reveal at the end—was a surprise to me. The movie perfectly matches the mood and tone of the book, which is exactly what I wanted.

The plot is complex and I feel like I need to reread the book already to really understand what was all going on. I’m not very good at stopping to fully understand a scene if I don’t get it at first read through. Sometimes I will reread sentences and even paragraphs if I feel like my mind was drifting. But I’m not the kind of reader to stop and analyze what just happened after every paragraph. I feel it ruins the flow of reading. If there is a word I don’t know and can’t figure out from context clues, I rarely will look it up. I know this is a bad habit that will reduce my comprehension and not enlarge my vocabulary. But I also just want to know what the story is. So I keep reading.

This is all to say that I did not pick up on some of the nuances of the book. And I forgot who some characters were exactly. I hope this is something that most people reading this book over a two-week-plus span encounter, and not a special deficiency of mine. I did feel like I was under a time crunch because this is the rare book where I need to have it read by a certain time to discuss it with others. I always feel like I’m in a time crunch though, because there’s so much else I want to read and to do in the limited time I have in a day and in this life.

Much like the movie, the experience of the book is more about the setting and the mood and less about the story. Like Star Trek: The Next Generation, it’s a world I want to inhabit—just be a part of it.

Highlights

Out of date, but loyal to his own time. At a certain moment, after all, every man chooses: will he go forward, will he go back? There was nothing dishonourable in not being blown about by every little modern wind. Better to have worth, to entrench, to be an oak of one’s own generation.

Lacon had this red castle and a sense of Christian ethic that promises him no reward except a knighthood, the respect of his peers, a fat pension, and a couple of charitable directorships in the City.

He told it plainly but precisely, the way a good soldier recalls a battle, not to win or lose any more, but simple to remember.