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

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)

ah right. is it cut or are the episodes just edited to different lengths?

maybe they leave it as a cliffhanger

lol

In the United States, syndicated broadcasts and DVD releases compress the seven UK episodes into six, by shortening scenes and altering the narrative sequence.

i had no idea. good excuse to watch it again tho.

Yep the new year week I reckon we'll do it all over again.

Interesting to spot what changes were made and then speculate as to why smiley allowed them

Fuck me I've only seen the six ep version and I didnt know anything else existed

tbf it's just another hour of clips of alec guinness polishing his glasses

Can never get enough of that.

I've also only ever seen the 6 episode version. Now I feel like I didn't truly understand it.

I have very distinct memories of my parents watching this when I was little. I recall being very disturbed when I caught the scene where the kid spies Jim changing and sees those bullet wounds.

if prideaux doesn't cream a flaming owl with a quidditch bat who can say this even makes sense

Is it true that all the scenes that were cut from the US version took place at Hogwarts?

karldemort

have been going through the book again:

They reached what seemed to be a hamlet but there were no lights, no people and no moon. As they got out the cold hit them and Guillam smelt a cricket field and woodsmoke and Christmas all at once;

my first impression was that this just doesn’t work; how can you smell a cricket field at midnight in winter? a space, a smell and a festival all in one. but i do know what he means, you’re smelling the atmosphere of a place. you can smell a cricket field because the pressure of cold and and damp and air is different when you pass near the flat, mown surfaces of a cricket field. and i don’t think that christmas here means mulled wine, dried fruits, pine and cinnamon but more that recurring rhythm of the time of year (“tis the year’s midnight and it is the day’s” to quote for another festival) creating a memorial sense of christmas in the blood.

let's lanch this fvcker

The smell of cricket, formula

(Smell of life) - (smell of sex)

let's lanch this fvcker

― mark s, Sunday, 29 November 2020 12:17 bookmarkflaglink

it's iNteRsTIng because one of the things about le carré is how good he is at managing his material environment, a thing at which lancho is very bad. and there are fairly regular points through his early novels especially, where in doing so he seems to capture some shabby-poetic essence of England (and England specifically), which is presumably required in some sense to create as a background flavour that sense of a fading of empire and the class of people to whom that empire belonged. I can never quite decide whether le carré is a good writer, a very good writer, or a very competent one, but that ability is definitely in the 'very good' category, as is his portrayal of class, and his ability to manage the drama of information stored in plain buff files and how that information intersects with people's lives and feelings.

the honourable schoolboy, which i've just started, having only read once before as a teenage, and *eventually* liked, starts very badly though, and his more recent novels are just barely ok imo.

What always fascinates me about Le Carré is the way his stories are primarily told in flashback. There's very little present-day action, it's always the after-action report, the sweeping-up, which gives it all an overwhelming sense of futility and is thoroughly unromantic, too, a direct counterweight to the romanticism of the typical "spy novel" where One Man is going to Save The World. The world is not going to be saved in a Le Carré novel. The main emotional note is "Well, that could have been a lot worse." Which is probably part of what makes his books so attractive to middle-aged men, at least subconsciously if not consciously — the feeling that it all went wrong a while ago and there's nothing really to be done now, but at least you can see clearly what happened.