"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" John Le Carre's world

John le Carre’s name is always associated with a specific genre, the spy novel. But this has not stopped him from writing some of the great novels of the twentieth century. Given he was writing about one of the great facts of the twentieth century, the cold War, the clash between civilisations, the West, the Communists, the Terrorists, his books give an insight and ponder they way we were living in that era – and indeed, still live.

His greatest creation is undoubtedly George Smiley. Fat, short, old, academic, intellectual, and cuckolded he is indeed the anti-Bond. But as a Bond novel or a movie is an entertainment for a few hours, time spent with Smiley is time spent considering the nature of our society, its flaws, its strengths and what we will do to defend it, or what we will not do. Which are not ideas that evaporate quickly.

While le Carre’s plots are byzantine, the power of his novels come from what Graham Greene, in one of his spy novels, called the human factor. Who are these people who put themselves on a shadowy front line, commit themselves to a life which means that they can never be truly secure even in their own home, or competely honest with anyone? Which is why a story like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy can be re-read even when you know already who that spy is. Le Carre loves watching the watchers, and he shares that fascination with us.

I have recently re-read what is known as the Karla trilogy (aka The Quest for Karla or in its latest incarnation Smiley versus Karla): Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People. The first is easy found in bookstores and libraries due to the recent, very good film. The latter two it seems are either found in second-hand bookstores or in bulky volumes carrying all three novels.

I borrowed one of these from my local library, and it has two disadvantages. One, its bulk makes it uncomfortable to read on the couch or in bed, and too large to sit in your backpack all day if you want to make it your commute read. Secondly, one feels compelled to read them through one after the other which may become like having too much of anything, slightly sickening and leaves one, as Basil Fawly remarked, wanting less. This compulsion is exacerbated when you have access to the book for only three weeks.

Luckily, I was only reading two novels, and the tone changes between both. The Honourable Schoolboy ranges from London to Hong Kong and is mainly concerned with Jerry Westerby who is a part-time agent chosen by Smiley to follow a lead of Karla’s money being funnelled to a Hong Kong bank.  (Le Carre has said it would have been a better story if he had not made it a Smiley novel. Perhaps he is right.) Smiley’s People is a more intimate story, Smiley following up on the murder of an old agent, which leads to his second direct confrontation with his nemesis Karla. It does form a satisfying trilogy, all the more so because Karla remains unknowable, even to Smiley, and so the strongest conflicts remain those between friends and colleagues.

In the 70s, the BBC televised Tinker Tailor and Smiley’s People, but The Honourable Schoolboy was too expensive to film, and though important was not essential to the duel between Smiley and Karla. The producers of 2011’s Tinker Tailor look like going down the same route. And I have to say, Alec Guiness is still the essential Smiley to me. While Gary Oldman gave a great performance, physically he is all wrong. Still I don’t suppose this keeps him or his producers up at night.

Le Carre’s novels revel in the moral murkiness of espionage, where the good man may have to do bad things for a noble purpose. And ultimately that man’s soul is a casualty of the conflict. In The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley states his faith:

          To be inhuman in defence of our humanity he had said, harsh in our defense 
          of compassion. To be single-minded in defense of our disparity.  

  

His political masters find this distasteful, and it contributes to his precarious position within the Secret Service. But if we can conjure with the idea of a just war, we may have to accept this as part of the price we pay for our freedom. And hope that there is always someone else who is prepared to pay it.