A Small Town in Germany

A Small Town in Germany - John le Carré Very quickly this became my favourite of le Carré's work so far. I suppose described from a distance it is most like Call For the Dead but it isn't, really, like that at all.

A small town in Germany? That small town where everyone knows everyone, and everyone closes ranks against outsiders, and everyone has secrets buried. Except it is a small town so it is more like one big interconnected web of a secret, and you don't talk about it and you certainly don't talk about it with some nosy outsider.

But also. Also! The holocaust. The elephant in the room, the elephant in every room. Carrying clear and true down the years since this was written that nobody cares about the holocaust. Nobody cares about nazis. De-nazification? Forget that, we have nations to run and advantages to secure. If you care it will break you, because nobody cares. Forget principles, we have interests at stake!

Turner is an asshole, which he kind of has to be, and a misogynist, which he does not have to be. And he breaks down just like everyone else in these novels who thought that right and wrong should matter, that principles could be held above interests. A complete turnaround for him, who began by scorning everyone at the embassy for thinking so highly of Harting, and now that he understands, desperately wishes to protect him from the embassy that will discard Harting as easily as say goodnight.

"It's happening again." […] "History really is repeating itself, and it isn't comedy at all!"

And isn't it just?