User Profile

Knowing this was book that was so popular it enabled le Carré to turn to writing full-time I thought maybe this would be the one to have a happy ending, a clear and clean victory. You know, for a change. But that wouldn't have been the clear-eyed authenticity people believed they found in his novels, would it?

I was tempted to go back to Call For the Dead and see if there was anything relevant I had missed there. But it is too soon and for now I hold to my belief that those decisions were made retrospectively. If I ever do reread it I am sure the names will remind me to be alert.

On The Spy Who Came in From the Cold itself? - that had to have been on purpose, surely. too bad of a mistake otherwise - could it be? is that what they are doing? surely not! - and it wasn't; it was worse

So I can't really blame Leamas. He did his best.

I avoided reading the back cover so as not to pick up any accidental spoilers, so it took me several chapters to twig to what kind of book this was. Unlike in Call For the Dead I did not at all pick up on what lay in the hole at the centre of the centre of the story, being perhaps too caught up in looking for some clever mechanism. Also worth catching John le Carré's afterword on the English boarding school as an institution.

A Murder of Quality shows, I think, just how close a good spy story lies to the fields of the murder mystery.

Another refreshing change. I had heard that George Smiley was created in reaction against the James Bond sort of spy-hero and, having heard this, it felt correct in the reading. I was also interested to read this novel in light of comments I had seen recently comparing it favourably against Tim Powers' Declare (which I have not yet read) in its treatment of Jewish folk and communists. I doubt I would have noticed that in a relevant way without having been pointed at it, since I am still far from as perceptive a reader as I would like to become, and aside from a couple of dimensions my experience of the world remains a rather insular, privileged one.

I don't recall if I have said explicitly that my in the fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and spy fiction genres comes a lot from a joy in puzzles unfolding, a search for moments of epiphany as what was hidden becomes clear, but I believe that is so. In that regard Smiley's careful, attentive approach suits me as well as Chandler's Marlowe, and the story is told well enough that we can see where Smiley is not looking—perhaps because he does not wish to see what he would find there.

As with Chandler's novels there is a lot that goes unstated. But, unlike some more recently published mysteries I did not feel as though the author were cheating by holding information back so as to spring a surprise upon us for the conclusion. Rather it is more that the facts of the matter are laid out for us and we are left to draw the correct conclusions from them, or not, while the protagonists acts upon their conclusions until, at the climax, the state of things becomes undeniable.

Expectations fairly well met. The central twist was fairly well telegraphed from the beginning but the journey was fun and exciting. Marlowe's disdain for cops was appreciated and there were points where my attention was careless enough to be taken in by his bald-faced lies despite that I had been along for the ride every step along the way and seen exactly what he was lying about. Still fun, and I still hope to find modern detectives more like this classic, but also a long way off the brilliant shock that was The Big Sleep.