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

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.

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.

he's 84!

looks like he's recorded lots of le carre audiobooks

He has got an excellent voice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

looks like he's recorded lots of le carre audiobooks

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (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.

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

It may require a post idk

yes and yes.

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.

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

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.)

Oh man, jealous

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

darraghmac, would love to read your full impression

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

Right let me see

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.

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

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?

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.

excellent post imo, makes me want to watch again.

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.

Shiney

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

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

“The monstrosity of this, reaching Smiley through a thickening wall of spiritual exhaustion, left him momentarily speechless.”

In the TV show he spots Guillam, says to the bookseller "do you know I rather think that we might trust this to the royal mail, after all" and asks for a back entrance

It's worth pondering because a piece of this quality is simply fun and rich enough to ponder

Episode V

This time around, having read THS, Ackland really packs in all the Westerby detail and tics, it's a lovely little role and a lovely performance in it

Esterhase interrogation is far better in this, obviously, a real catharsis and Hepton hits all his spots very nicely too

Ackland’s performance really is something else. that compelling mixture you get in the book - both vivid social/class type and person. le carré v good at snobbery (and its victims like westerby).

A victim of his lack of aggression as opposed to his status, as performed here I think

But perhaps I'm missing things here, I thought he was quite posh but shamblingly, disappointingly so as I recall him in THS- is he meant to be a cut below the top dogs in the circus classwise here?

Again, how much of this is stewed versions coming together as projection or how much is deliberate subtext agreed between director and actors is possibly moot, but Esterhase was the wrong person, as far as the TV version has it, to send back to Jerry to squash his Czech report.

Fits with his being (as suggested by Smiley) the lapdog inclusion in the gang of four Witchcraft privileged, the one useful for errands, the one most eager, but certainly Ackland's Westerby bridles at being savaged by this clotheaten specimen- driving him to write the letter to Smiley

The second-best moment of actual direction so far- the camera remaining at the bar when Jerry and George sneak off into the corner to conspire

"clotheaten" not right, tbf, but not the stuff of any of the other title pieces certainly

A victim of his lack of aggression

yes absolutely. it's not a class thing, but an *in-class* thing.

Tbh I've watched one each night the past five nights and

i. everything bar the most recent has already faded back into the roiling, bubbling mix of novel/film/series

ii. not unrelated, I could watch those first four starting right now again and enjoy them as much and, I think, see different things in them than I did last week

the richness is almost too much in real time

i played them last night because i couldn't sleep.

incidentally, just on this bloody book. i'd forgotten that in the novel, Smiley, irritated at Ann's spending, decides to *sell* his copy of Grimmelshausen at the bookseller. he bumps into Martingdale before he gets there, and leaves the Grimmelshausen at the club, the realisation of which later causes him, after a bout of peevish muttering, to burst out sopra voce 'oh damn, damn, damn' in the street. in the series, this is completely detached from any cause, other than an overplus of sadness, frustration, self-loathing, irritation, age and boredom.

one thing regularly seen in the series, and can now be considered historical documentary evidence - the easy camaraderie of cigarettes.

Ah we've only bloody been watching the six episode version ffs

Have to do the full one again after christmas

wait what do you mean “the full one”?

Int the UK miniseries 7 eps?

the original UK version is 7 eps, the us version is 6 eps (i guess to fit US schedules? #whoknow)