A Perfect Spy
£4.32
A perfect story - I bought this when it first appeared in 1986 (and have been first in line for every Le Carre since then), read it a couple of times, and have dipped into it occasionally over the years. I re-read it last week and was reminded all over again of Le Carre s great gift for description and dialogue. With just a few words, he can give you the voice (and a lot about the character, nationality and background) of the person speaking so exactly that they become instantly familiar. This rich vein runs throughout his writing, but it s particularly noticable when he describes a meeting - as here, when representatives from the Americans and British secret services are discussing the whereabouts of Magnus Pym, the perfect spy of the title. The story is a kind of autobiography, as Pym sets out to describe his life s journey for his son, aiming - for once - to avoid any duplicity in the telling, in addition, as others have pointed out, it contains many elements from Le Carre s own life - his crooked father, his education in Berne and Oxford, and his career in MI6. If, at the end of this memorable book, we feel we don t understand Pym as well we do the other characters we ve met - his wife, his father, his handlers (British and Czech) and his American colleagues, that could be the greatest tribute to Le Carre s powers: to have given such a detailed account of every aspect of his life, and yet to have retained an air of mystery around him.Rereading this book, I had a mild sense of nostalgia for the era it describes. I was fortunate enough to visit Czechoslovakia not long after it was published, and a couple of years before the Velvet Revolution, after which the country became (amongst other more worthy things) yet another location for Planet Hollywood, Borders and cheap stag weekends.
Deceit - Is it in the genes or is it bad parenting? - This is a whopper of a book! A great story - the piercingly honest account of a man both reacting to, and living in, the shadow of a powerful con-man father - with a vivid decription of betrayal and spycraft, and fantastic entertainment as well. But I am thoughly biased, as his prievious work, particlarly early in his writing career, has given me so many hours of pleasure. You can pick holes in it, but I m not going to. Take it for what it is - a master of fiction treating us to the anatomy of deceit from the inside. He should know - he lived it. A jewel in the crown of Le Carre acheivement and a masterpiece of autobiography.Dr Michael Rowlands
Loyalty to who & what? - Spying it seems, although an exciting occupation in some ways, is bad for the soul. If you re hoping to read a gripping, very plotty spy story you re likely to be disappointed with this book. This is a deeply personal but fascinating, philosophical book on the nature of identity, loylaty and love. For me this book is about belonging some where: to a country, to a class, to other people. Pym it seems has been searching all his life for somewhere to live where he feels he belongs. His father, a crook and professional liar is a constant disappointment but probably worst of all a deeply destablising influence in Pym s life so much so that Pym s desperation to please propels him into all sorts of trouble and betrayal. Gripping, thought-provoking intelligent, semi-autobiographical but not for lightweights.
A good book that needed a better editor to be a great one - The first and most important thing to remember about this book is that it is a semi-autobiography. The background, schooling and parents of the main character of this book are all Le Carre s own, with just the slightest veneer placed over them, and I do mean the slightest. Like Magnus Pym, the main character in this book, Le Carre, for example did have a father who was a crook, his father did fight a by-election in Norfolk under the Liberal colours and was, during it, exposed by an elderly Irishwoman, he did have to leave Eton when his father could no longer afford the fees. And like Magnus Pym, Le Carre was recruited into MI6 and probably, like Pym, was recruited while studying in Bern, although unlike Pym he left after five years to write novels. However, for anyone who knows a little of Le Carre s life story, an added frisson is added by the questions that inevitably provokes - did Le Carre get up to anything naughty with Eastern Bloc intelligence services? Unlikely, but amusing to ponder. However, the spy stuff, as beautifully crafted as it always is, is only a backdrop for the real theme of the book - Le Carre s relationship with himself, his father and his country. Yes, his country, this is as much an elegy for the English upper-middle class as anything else. A melancholy, fatalistic patriotism seeps through every page of the book, as Le Carre writes an elegy for his people - perhaps patriotism isn t quite the write word, he has no feeling for nor interest in the St. George s flag waving, football supporting masses. It s an elegy not for England, but for his England, of `sound men in tweeds and pipes emerging from Southern country towns to rule colonies, of the respectable sadism of the public school, of the sense of duty of a military class that has all but disappeared. The theme of fallen empire runs through all Le Carre s works, but nowhere more strongly than through this one and does so with characteristic brilliance. With regards to his father and himself, he says what he may not have been able to say for decades, even to himself, before, and his writing bursts forth in great, emotional, torrents. Some of it moving and powerful, some of it is unnecessary but quirkily interesting, and some of it, frankly, is twaddle that needed a good editor to batter into shape. But this was Le Carre s magnum opus, and bestselling authors are allowed a little latitude in their magna opera. That s a pity, because this could have been a great book, but at times it takes a chapter to say what a sentence should have, and at times it is so hopelessly self-indulgent that it sends one to sleep.
difficult - difficult to follow and easy to get lostspy who came in from the cold is far superior