Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (novel, miniseries, and forthcoming film to be directed by Tomas Alfredson)

Slightly off-topic, but if you exhaust the Le Carre spy goodness, Peter Wright's "Spycatcher" is a good real-life fix

i have so much trouble with le carre's writing and i'm not sure what it is, i've started TTSS and perfect spy at different times and i just can't get through them. i have to read some of his sentences three/four times before i can figure out what he's saying. everyone loves him so it's got to be a personal block.

for a guy who has a rep as a "beach read" kind of writer, le carre is sort of boring. i think in a good way!

yeah I read John Banville's The Untouchable in one gulp and loved it and the guy's a mandarin compared to Le Carre.

i will read all the george smiley books.

My library copy, which smelled awful, looked like it'd been in a dog's mouth.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

this is deliberate imo

in the spy world it's called "dogdipping"

early le carré/smiley novels are worth reading. call for the dead is one, can't remember others off the top of my head. curious intersection of a type of v late golden era crime and detection thriller and cold war spy thriller, convey a great sense of drabness of post-war England. saloon/public bar shibboleths and divisions, dilapidation, spivvery & paranoia. it shd be said that the books themselves are drab.

earlier this summer i picked up a copy of "a perfect spy" at a yard sale with the intention of re-reading it, but then i realized the dust jacket was wrong and it was "little drummer girl" instead. which i read. it was pretty decent. kurtz is a well-realized & compelling character, but nowhere near as fascinating as smiley imho.

i liked LDG when i first read it but re-reading it in my binge last year i wasnt quite as into it. still probably better than his last 3-4 books

barmy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii7b3vwW9zI

What busy hands he has. Imagine if he'd been in minority report- he'd have broken the machine!

i'm with s1ocki here, i thought this was a dope versh of TTSS that stands entirely separate from the miniseries, and does so in a manner that doesn't cause one to overshadow the other. i can imagine watching either one for vv different rewards. ricki tarr's whole arc is a bit more heartbreaking than in the mini, holding out for hope and probably never knowing the truth of what happened.

in some ways this would have been a better backstory for bane

Watched this again last night, having caught the bbc version and the novel since.

Oldman can't compare tbh, and i kept filling in details from the other versions (which was p enriching actually) but it's still excellent across the board.

i fell asleep during this. not proud of it.

I'm terrible at remembering names in Le Carre things, but - I thought Tom Hardy in the new film played the character differently, but just as well as, the one in the TV series, but I thought the new Irina was better.

In the series there's a wonderfully evil man in a white suit who comes along and taunts Smiley ('Everyone likes Anne'). I think he's meant to be a double agent? Does he turn up in the film?

In the film I thought the baddies who take over the secret service and are actually in the pay of the enemy were brilliant, each one so ugly, and all together riffing off each other, just stylised enough to work but just short of being too ridiculous.

Will admit to liking Le Carre more and more after reading up on the controversy between him and Rushdie.

His insight during the Rushdie affair - he felt 'more worried about the girl at Penguin books having her hands blown off by a letter bomb' than he did about 'Mister Rushdie's royalties'. It's a certain kind of cynicism that's very, very difficult to achieve and people who go for cynicism as a thing often end up just being grey vampires or Guardian comment is free commenters.

i.e. it would be quite easy to trot out a line about the two sides in the cold war being just as bad as each other, but he does it in the right way

In the series there's a wonderfully evil man in a white suit who comes along and taunts Smiley ('/Everyone/ likes Anne'). I think he's meant to be a double agent? Does he turn up in the film?

Freddy Something-de-something or other?

anyway my recollection is that he's just supposed to be a pompous gossipy bore rather than a double agent. Wasn't in the film.

From Wikipedia:

Roddy Martindale. A highly annoying, pompous bore, not employed by the Circus, but “haunted the fringes of the secret world". Works for the Foreign Office. “Affected buttonholes and pale suits". “Spoke in a confiding, upper-class bellow".

ah, thanks dubmill. at least I got the pompous bore bit right.

In the TV series (and presumably in the book as well), Smiley runs into him in Burlington Arcade or somewhere like that near Piccadilly. He's been shopping (I think) but is on his way home. He allows himself to be talked into going out for dinner, which eventually becomes an ordeal. The episode seems to be put in to illustrate how socially awkward and constrained by politeness he is -- he could have simply said he was too busy, but he doesn't seem to be very good at dealing with things like that, which contrasts with his steeliness during intelligence operations.

Im not sure there's "people" plural in the circus that are in the pay of karla's lot, cardamom? just the one, as far as TTSS is concerned at least.

In the TV series (and presumably in the book as well), Smiley runs into him in Burlington Arcade or somewhere like that near Piccadilly. He's been shopping (I think) but is on his way home. He allows himself to be talked into going out for dinner, which eventually becomes an ordeal. The episode seems to be put in to illustrate how socially awkward and constrained by politeness he is -- he could have simply said he was too busy, but he doesn't seem to be very good at dealing with things like that, which contrasts with his steeliness during intelligence operations.

― dubmill, Tuesday, 23 July 2013 08:20 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's also the early establishment of Smiley's intellectual space - Martindale is a vulgar upper-class snob, with all the anti-intellectualism that implies. How good Smiley's compass is in this respect is a thread throughout TTSS - the aesthete/fine art set from which Haydon is drawn, is not the same as Smiley's gloomy protestant German romantic poetry sympathies, but it is something, along with Haydon's wryness - his intellectual snobbery if you like - that Smiley appreciates. That, along with the deliberate exploitation of his Anne-weakness, is as much the thing he has to get to the centre of as the long, confusing trail of paperwork.

There's been occasional talk of Smiley's People being a possibility forAlfredson/Oldman, but it just occurred to me that if they did Honourable Schoolboy they might be able to get some of that sweet sweet China money. Though perhaps not, considering the content.

I'd really like to see them do Smiley's People - thought the TV series was a dreadful hash, and the book ponderous. feel the virtues the film of TTSS wd be double with SP.

Honourable Schoolboy is such an odd book with a central character i really do not like very much, but would be interesting to see Stephen Graham reprizing the role, he might make it quite a different take

it's certainly the weakest of the Smiley trilogy, though I have problems with Le Carre's style generally anyway. The adaptations are way better, though of course comparisons between media are invidious.

"Spoke in a confiding, upper-class bellow"

ha otm

in some ways this would have been a better backstory for bane

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Saturday, August 4, 2012 11:54 AM (11 months ago) Bookmark

me otm

Bbc 4 rerunning this. Missed til now but double header 6 and 7 on just there. Thats the night sorted.

So fuckin good, must rewatch entire over xmas

the perfect winter watch with a stiff one in hand

a drink i mean

*smiley face*
{=_=}

It is seven hours of drinking hard spirits from seemingly randomly sourced containers, another reason its a christmas watch imo

loved this re-run despite its imperfection and now i've traded the last 3 eps for Chelsea-Sunderland and a Bayern Munich training exercise :/

Imperfection!

i dunno if you've read the book but having watched the first 4 eps of this for the first time in forever i feel like it had flaws like the movie but different flaws - the whole Ricky Tarr ep is pretty tacky here

Agreed its def a part the movie does much better, but mainly cos hywel bennett is so fuckin funny looking maybe

Esterhazy is amazing on rewatch.

i think Hywel Bennett is way cool mostly - there's a def 70s dramarama feel to some of the scripting acting that you'd reject in say I Claudius but they haven't completely got away from theatre school yet

i mean fuck it, it's still excellent, these are quibbles. but some of the pacing has surprised me

sorry i meant "Hywel Bennett is way cool mostly in his career but not really in this"

the perfect winter watch with a stiff one in hand

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Tuesday, December 17, 2013 7:05 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I literally snickered when I read this

did u obtain much stiff one

i think his characterization of ricky tarr is a bit too smug in places, hardy got the right balance of cocky followed by desperate and lost. but the material overcomes it and i think his episode at the end packs a pretty strong punch.

real mature btw s1ocki, you'll note i subsequently adjusted my post

;-)

your version of Tarr = fair. i'm definitely not trying to run down the TV version, it's just been an interesting experience having not watched it since i was a kid compared to having read the book and watched the movie in the last 2 years

Yeah i just meant in this re hywel

I reject all the act8ng in i claudius but id reconsider did you put a strong word on it