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

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she's only a bit dead

mark s, Sunday, 13 October 2019 12:59 (four years ago) link

tought to improve on Spy Who Came In From the Cold film

just as the TTSS movie did nothing. noooooothing.

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 13 October 2019 14:39 (four years ago) link

six months pass...

Just read The Traitor and the Spy. I’m told this is about as good as non fiction about espionage gets, and it was good! (but still nowhere near TTSS).

π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Monday, 13 April 2020 15:30 (four years ago) link

i just got gifted that last week! cant wait to read

terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 13 April 2020 16:05 (four years ago) link

I’ve probably already said this but Spy / Counterspy is tremendous and while almost certainly not completely true it’s totally gripping and β€œnon-fiction” in a, uh broader sense.

Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Monday, 13 April 2020 16:26 (four years ago) link

The Deadly Affair is unfortunately fairly weak. Don't bother with it.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Monday, 15 August 2011 20:27 (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is fair advice

some nice supporting turns but they absolutely butchered smiley/anne and shouldve really left that whole strand out

steer calmer (darraghmac), Saturday, 18 April 2020 22:36 (four years ago) link

two months pass...

Currently listening to the audiobook of a perfect spy, read fantastically by David jayston (Peter Guillam from the tv series)

π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Wednesday, 24 June 2020 05:21 (three years ago) link

Oh I forgot to update

I finished The Traitor & The Spy and it was remarkable. I had to keep reminding myself that it was true, it was so unbelievably tense and (sometimes completely absurd!) it truly felt like a novel. Incredible stuff, highly HIGHLY recommend.

terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 24 June 2020 05:45 (three years ago) link

Truly a ripping yarn!

π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Wednesday, 24 June 2020 06:00 (three years ago) link

not read it but when it was book of the week on R4 a couple of years it caught my attention, because normally their books of the week are quite dull and this was not!

calzino, Wednesday, 24 June 2020 06:38 (three years ago) link

years back

calzino, Wednesday, 24 June 2020 06:38 (three years ago) link

As great as was, I was even more spellbound by, earlier Kim Philby book.

Ben Macintyre's true spy storytelling is better than almost any spy fiction. Right up there with The Traitor & The Spy, I'd recommend his Kim Philby book, A Spy Among Friends and Double Cross: the True Story of D-Day Spies.

punning display, Wednesday, 24 June 2020 20:42 (three years ago) link

As great as was, I was even more spellbound by, earlier Kim Philby book.

punning display, Wednesday, 24 June 2020 20:43 (three years ago) link

If you can find a copy (it's probably out of print), I really recommend Take Nine Spies by Fitzroy Maclean. It's got a great chapter about Kim Philby and another really good one about Operation Mincemeat.

Greetings from CHAZbury Park (Lily Dale), Wednesday, 24 June 2020 21:05 (three years ago) link

Michael Jayston I think you mean, who I am delighted to see is still alive.

Future England Captain (Tom D.), Wednesday, 24 June 2020 21:14 (three years ago) link

the Donald Maclean book, A Spy Named Orphan is a not bad read. Not much tension in it though, because the British establishment was so numb-brained back then about their posho diplomats that if "one of theirs" got shitfaced on vodka and started singing The Internationale and drunkenly telling anyone in earshot that they are a traitor, it still wouldn't be enough to arouse suspicion. whereas Gordievsky had an absolutely sadistic, switched on, paranoid evil bastard, possessed with low cunning type boss who was suspicious of all his underlings, so he is on much less borrowed time.

calzino, Wednesday, 24 June 2020 21:40 (three years ago) link

xp no i meant david jason ha

i was staggered when i looked up the reader. he must be 1000 years old but it's an incredibly spry performance! tons of accents. can you imagine your reaction as a audiobook reader when the author creates a character originally from france with a bronx accent? admittedly the american accents aren't great, but he sounds about 50.

π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Wednesday, 24 June 2020 21:42 (three years ago) link

he's 84!

π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Wednesday, 24 June 2020 21:43 (three years ago) link

looks like he's recorded lots of le carre audiobooks

π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Wednesday, 24 June 2020 21:44 (three years ago) link

He has got an excellent voice.

Future England Captain (Tom D.), Wednesday, 24 June 2020 22:00 (three years ago) link

A Perfect Spy is a perfect book. (I read it just before lockdown, so it might be improved in memory).

remy bean, Wednesday, 24 June 2020 22:57 (three years ago) link

watched the bbc miniseries a couple months ago and it was great and also amazing how much ~space~ there was. any recent adaptation would ratchet up the tension so much more, e.g. guillam would have had to sweat much harder when lifting documents from the circus, tarr would have been shot at, etc.

also a couple of smiley's antagonists are such *exquisite* assholes, notably alleline and (from the first episode) roddy martindale. esterhase wasn't quite up to snuff imo. and while i'll admit it's a tough role, tarr's russian girlfriend was wholly unconvincing as a legit source of information.

the string quartet ruled

mookieproof, Thursday, 25 June 2020 00:23 (three years ago) link

Listening to the perfect spy scene in which brotherhood interviews an eccentric old catholic while surrounded by his grandchildren and wearing a β€œdisgraceful” pullover. I’m in heaven.

π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Thursday, 25 June 2020 01:29 (three years ago) link

one month passes...

did we talk about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bureau_(TV_series) anywhere?

π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Monday, 3 August 2020 05:10 (three years ago) link

Maybe. Should I binge watch this rather than going outside and enjoying the rest of summer?

lukas, Monday, 3 August 2020 05:17 (three years ago) link

i don't know! i want to know if it's any good.

π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Monday, 3 August 2020 05:21 (three years ago) link

I've binged all of those The Bureau seasons. It's somehow a huge phenomenon and casual mainstream reference point over here (in Norway).

I have actually made the "Tinker" comparison while talking about it before. There's not as much nostalgic pathos in the conversations, perhaps, but like Tinker it's brilliant at making thrilling television out of office work and careful smoking out of spies, mules and state secrets. It takes the spy work extremely seriously but it's still got plenty of larger than life characters. As a TV thriller it's one of the best.

abcfsk, Monday, 3 August 2020 08:52 (three years ago) link

agreed. it’s tremendous. kassowitz is incredible but you’ve got other absolute giants of cinema in there too. and the operations, and the centrality of the middle east, are (from what i understand) based on very detailed research.

Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Monday, 3 August 2020 10:43 (three years ago) link

Similar vein, is the 2007 adaptation of Robert Littel's 'The Company' any good?

American Fear of Scampos (Ed), Monday, 3 August 2020 11:49 (three years ago) link

three months pass...

looks like he's recorded lots of le carre audiobooks

― π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Wednesday, June 24, 2020 5:44 PM (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

He has got an excellent voice.

― Future England Captain (Tom D.), Wednesday, June 24, 2020 6:00 PM (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

now listening to jayston's TTSS. flawless performance.

π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Tuesday, 17 November 2020 01:06 (three years ago) link

Watched episode one last night and every second guinness is on screen is incredible

spruce springclean (darraghmac), Saturday, 21 November 2020 12:40 (three years ago) link

It may require a post idk

spruce springclean (darraghmac), Saturday, 21 November 2020 12:40 (three years ago) link

yes and yes.

Fizzles, Saturday, 21 November 2020 13:08 (three years ago) link

also thanks for the recommendation of the bureau itt. it’s not ttss but i’m very much enjoying it which is more than i can say about anything else on television.

Fizzles, Saturday, 21 November 2020 13:09 (three years ago) link

yw! i'm still sitting on the most recent season like a bottle of wine you don't want to drink yet.

Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 21 November 2020 13:38 (three years ago) link

I literally started the novel in bed this morning and have already ordered the BBC blu ray. (I've seen, and enjoyed, the Alfredson version.)

Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Saturday, 21 November 2020 13:44 (three years ago) link

Oh man, jealous

spruce springclean (darraghmac), Saturday, 21 November 2020 13:50 (three years ago) link

Michael Jayston does a extremely good impression of Alec Guinness for his smiley voice in the audiobook.

π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Saturday, 21 November 2020 15:28 (three years ago) link

darraghmac, would love to read your full impression

Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Saturday, 21 November 2020 17:13 (three years ago) link

deems' Alec Guinness is even better than Jayston's.

Boring blighters bloaters (Tom D.), Saturday, 21 November 2020 17:37 (three years ago) link

Right let me see

spruce springclean (darraghmac), Monday, 23 November 2020 21:50 (three years ago) link

Intro, beautiful.

But let's move to Smiley/Guinness.

NB this viewing has been stewed by previous viewings of the series, the movie, the book and indeed the remainder of the Karla trilogy and back again, nothing of the impressions gained can really be viewed as anything but projection on the part of the poster.

In addition, what Guinness/director/author have put out there as setting for the series specifically, or what is informed by book is likewise confused but we'll press on.

Guinness is first seen at the booksellers, pleasantly and relaxedly bantering. Not Smiley at all.

Spots Guillam, smoothly moves to evade without breaking character. Sends book by post, to what end I had a thought on but now cannot recall (if this irritates perhaps skip the post there may be a lot of this murkiness- I feel it befits the material however).

In the evasion he bumps into Martindale and what on first viewing was a painful inescapable dinner encounter (which is, from the book, at least that much genuine tbf) in Guinness' hands on this particular rewatch as smooth a decision to be caught as the decision to evade was in the booksellers. He fends Roddy off with studied (and tbf expected) irritation, paying the clumsier efforts to rise him with exasperated contempt, the gentler ones with a carefully (and likewise easily seen through from Martindale's pov) mournful helplessness. The whole time he's extracting the catch-up information he has decided (all along? since spotting Guillam? For the purposes, and again presuming it's not explicit in the book I prefer, this time, the latter) he is going to need while playing Smiley the defeated, retired, bitter cuckold as suits. Not Smiley, but at least Smiley in a conscious mode- an outer-Matryoshka Smiley, then.

Soused and slightly stumbling Smiley muttering indulgently to himself en route home with pieces to fit together- well we know from many book passages (to my greater recollection, from The Honourable Schoolboy tbh but again I'm due a TTSS re-read) that this is a genuine Smiley, but more a part of him that floats free while the machinations underneath receive his own fuller attention.

Guillam revealed- crotchety, verbose, im-going-to-the-cotswolds Smiley fusses around as he again pries and pushes to see -not what's up, we know on this watch that George knows the most part of at least the summoner and the approximate topic already- but the precise nature of the motivation for the approach that has activated him today. The wizard-gone-to-seed Smiley, total performance but for Guillam a different performance than was used to entice Martindale, a performance to demonstrate and re-establish connection as the niceties are observed between a former acolyte sent to summon his willing better.

The car- Smiley testing still, more a personable superior with Guillam than we will later see to be his habitual manner in his role, therefore again striking me as performance, save for the first flash of True Smiley- when Guillam provides a wittily evasive and circular response to a lazily-direct query to the heart of the matter, a resonant yet clipped approving "Quite right, Peter!" that exudes a relish for the game that is totally at odds with the sullen press and meander so far.

Smiley and Lacon passing mannerly time while Guillam is sent to make himself presentable for the interrogation of the unworthy Tarr (what a beautiful touch, btw)- Guinness positively thrumming to attention now, the game truly afoot and the path in now becoming clear, he stands upright and alert and bristling to go, Lacon hasn't made a play nor offer yet but Smiley the procedural bloodhound has already dropped all pretence that this isn't the breadcrumb that he has been waiting for through the long hibernation.

Finally, Smiley the interrogator- the scene & moment paid rightful tribute above and many other places, the boiled-down, five-steps-ahead archivist of the past and present who is merely waiting for Tarr to confirm which of the two or three paths he has already mapped out is to be the one we follow to the quarry, the look that pins the butterfly Tarr, the precision of tone and phrase designed and brilliantly executed to let the interrogated (and we the audience) know that Smiley was never being informed here, he was merely waiting to see what Tarr was able to reveal to the benighted Lacon to ensure that the quest may be correctly provisioned and outfitted. Essential Smiley, the pursuer Smiley, no mumbles no protests no hesitation Smiley, Smiley the cat at stalk.

I could, I'm sure, watch it again and pick out more but that's as I recall devouring the detail of the performance in real time, sheer bliss that is far above even the excellence around it. Absolute magic.

spruce springclean (darraghmac), Monday, 23 November 2020 22:40 (three years ago) link

but you knew better, didn't you, mr. smiley? he only beat it further in.

difficult listening hour, Monday, 23 November 2020 23:30 (three years ago) link

i also thought i knew at one stage why he decided to trust the book to the post office, but now can't remember - is it in the book?

Fizzles, Wednesday, 25 November 2020 18:57 (three years ago) link

otm about the utterly compelling scene in the car. it *is* performance, he's working Guillam - it's a magical bit of acting and directing that we're both able to see that, doubt it and in the gap between the two recognise an underlying set of competences and dynamic, recognise intelligence at work.

Fizzles, Wednesday, 25 November 2020 19:05 (three years ago) link

excellent post imo, makes me want to watch again.

Fizzles, Wednesday, 25 November 2020 19:05 (three years ago) link

i do think the muttering section is the 'real' smiley (you are right to be cautious), it's late, he's feeling peevish, irritable and justifiably *out of sorts*. but equally as you say, much is floating free at that point. it's almost like polishing your shoes, just something you do in the quotidian.

Fizzles, Wednesday, 25 November 2020 19:07 (three years ago) link

Shiney

spruce springclean (darraghmac), Wednesday, 25 November 2020 19:45 (three years ago) link

from memory the book (in the book) is left at the shop bcz he doesn't want to be carrying it round and after he meets and drinks with martindale he's crossly too late to pick it up as he meant to and is instead going to call them and ask for it to be posted?

this sounds slightly different to the tv version

grimmelshausen is an interesting hinted if unexpanded glimpse into his mind (le carre was also a germanist and presumably knows it as a consequence)): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplicius_Simplicissimus

mark s, Wednesday, 25 November 2020 20:03 (three years ago) link

Love this line in the first smiley chapter describing his reaction to something foolish martindale says:

β€œThe monstrosity of this, reaching Smiley through a thickening wall of spiritual exhaustion, left him momentarily speechless.”

π” π”žπ”’π”¨ (caek), Wednesday, 25 November 2020 20:23 (three years ago) link


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