A Perfect Spy

by John le Carré

Magnus Pym, lifetime secret agent and presently counsellor for certain unmentionable matters at the British Embassy in Vienna, is missing, believed defected.

Rick Pym, father to Magnus, founder and managing director of numberless defunct companies, self-styled Colonel, fantasist and confidence trickster extraordinary, has finally died in the arms of two whores. It is while Magnus is in England to bury Rick that he elects to disappear. Taking his secrets with him, he goes to ground in the Devon boarding house of the ancient and motherly Miss Dubber that has long been his secret hiding-place.

The chase is on: for a missing person, for the truth about a charming man. It is conducted by Pym himself as well as by his pursuers. While Pym in a desperate confession to his son recounts his quest for love and faith, and his first steps in deception, his pursuers unearth a trail of duplicity.

In this most beguiling of spy stores, John le Carré guides us effortlessly through fifty years of alternative Britain, introducing us along the way to a hilarious company of ambulance chasers, war racketeers, shady lawyers, property sharks, lovelies and fixers; and then to Occupied Austria, to Czechoslovakia, Berlin, and finally to the goal of every ambitious traitor of our time – America.

Blending wit and compassion with unflagging tension, le Carré sweeps us into a secret universe in which his essentially innocent hero strives to reconcile the conflicting elements of his very English heritage.

Genres: Fiction, Espionage, Thriller, Mystery, Spy Thriller, Audiobook, Novels

692 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 12, 1986

About the author

John le Carré, the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell (born 19 October 1931 in Poole, Dorset, England), was an English author of espionage novels. Le Carré had resided in St Buryan, Cornwall, Great Britain, for more than 40 years, where he owned a mile of cliff close to Land's End.

Reviews

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me start this review with these words; this book is devastating. It is the best writing John Le Carre has ever done, and will ever do.

That's not to say that it's a better spy novel than Tinker Tailor or The Spy Who Came in From the Cold; it's not. If spycraft is what you crave, it's here, but it definitely takes a back seat to everything else. In A Perfect Spy, Le Carre's writing rises easily to the level of the 20th Century's greatest authors.

After the death of his father, Magnus Pym, debonair, flawless British spy, has disappeared with the station’s burn box. His wife, his son, his handlers, and his friends have no idea where he is, due to the fact that he has doled each of them a different piece of the truth. In the meantime, he has checked himself into a safe house, where he is determined to write a book that will set everything straight.

A Perfect Spy is largely autobiographical. Le Carre's mother vanished when he was three, in the same way that Pym loses his mother at an early age. Like Pym's father Rick, Le Carre’s father Ronnie Cornwell was a charismatic, larger-than-life con man who spent time in prison. When the young Le Carre wasn’t away at various boarding schools, (the tuition sometimes paid for with black market dried fruit), he was palling around with his father’s unsavory acquaintances. Like Pym, he worked for the British Secret Service in Switzerland and in Austria and attended Oxford. Pym is a gifted intelligence officer, but he tells everyone that what he really wants to do is write, and good God, how Le Carre writes.

At its heart, this is a book about a boy's relationship with his father. As a parent, I am achingly aware of my responsibility; children are fragile little creatures whose fates depend completely on the mercy of the adults who take care of them. For better and for worse, it is we who teach them what is right, or wrong, or normal. It's we who teach them how to love, and who to trust, it's we who twist and shape their vulnerable little psyches. And it is we who are capable of damaging them the most. Rick loves his son, and his son loves him, and it is painfully clear how this criminally self-absorbed and self-deluding narcissist destroys "the natural humanity" in little Magnus, turning him into the perfect spy of the title. How Le Carre was able to write this stuff down without wetting every page of the manuscript with his tears is a mystery to me.

With all that, the book is surprisingly funny, full of mocking self-deprecation and gorgeous British slang. The facts make wonderful fiction. There are hilarious letters from Rick to his son and lovingly recreated conversations between his father's business associates. It is also surprisingly sexy, as the young Pym navigates between lust and yearning, all things we don't expect from John Le Carre.

A Perfect Spy is a breathtaking act of catharsis, warm and funny, wry and rueful, unexpectedly, nakedly human. Instead of burying his painful past, Mr. Le Carre illuminates it for us as a masterpiece of fiction. Happily, he has come to terms with his father, resurrecting him for us with humor and with love.

[Candi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Life is duty... It’s just a question of establishing which creditor is asking loudest. Life is paying. Life is seeing people right if it kills you."

I’ve been reading John le Carré’s espionage novels like I would that little bag of my favorite dark chocolates that I hide in the bottom drawer of my refrigerator. Not one right after the other, because honestly, there are other treats I like to indulge in as well. There are the Reese’s peanut butter cups and the Trader Joe’s roasted pistachio toffee (dark chocolate as well, naturally.) But I like to make a good thing last, savor it a while, before dipping my hand back into the bag for another best of the best. In terms of books, rather than chocolate, I have to say that I don’t recall reading an author’s work in such relatively quick succession as I have since childhood when I devoured one mystery novel after another. Despite the fact I won’t share my favorite stash of candy, I have been more than happy to share the le Carré journey with a fabulous little group of women that have the same joy in reading these over the past year or more. The adventure has been that much more rewarding as a result.

It has always been a debate rather nature versus nurture shapes us more as a person. In the case of Magnus Pym, I think it would be safe to say that both contributed a significant piece. This is not so much an espionage thriller, though it is that too, but a reflection on a man’s life and how he was shaped for the role he plays. Magnus has been dubbed the perfect spy. His childhood was one of deceit and lies, yet he yearned for love and always aimed to please. He could just as easily have been the perfect actor. He managed to create and portray the character he felt each person wanted him to be.

"Magnus is a great imitator, even when he doesn’t know it. Really I sometimes think he is entirely put together from bits of other people, poor fellow."

My heart broke for the young Magnus Pym. The elder Pym was more of an enigma to me. By book’s end, I felt little sympathy for him any longer. He was groomed from an early age to work in the spy business. He was good at it. His talents did not go unnoticed. I believe his fate was sealed in one moment in time.

"In a single Christmas, God had dished him up two saints. The one was on the run and couldn’t walk, the other was a handsome English warlord who served sherry on Boxing Day and had never had a doubt in his life. Both admired him, both loved his jokes and his voices, both were clamouring to occupy the empty spaces of his heart. In return he was giving to each man the character he seemed to be in search of."

If you’ve ever read le Carré, you’ll know that his books are not bursting with action. The spy world is not the glamorous, fast-paced one that we see depicted in most films. Rather, what draws me to his work is the fine writing, the sharp analyses of the inner workings of the agent’s mind, and the intricate dynamics between the various characters. Yes, some action-filled scenes are appreciated. In A Perfect Spy, much of what happens is relayed to the reader after the fact. These are the musings of a hunted man on the run as he writes his own book about his past and what drove him to do the things he did. As a result, I felt a bit more distanced from the man himself. Much like I would feel being stuck in the back row of the theater. I understand what is going on, but I don’t feel like a part of the drama myself. Of course, I’m unfairly comparing this one to my last le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl, which so completely absorbed me that I could not let it go for a number of weeks after finishing. The brilliant prose is still here, but the emotional pull was wanting. Don’t get me wrong though, even one of my least favorites by this best-loved author still ranks higher than most of what is out there right now!

"Love is whatever you can still betray... Betrayal can only happen if you love."

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

È NATA UNA SPIA


John Le Carré e lo schermo: da questo romanzo la BBC ha tratto una serie in sette episodi nel 1987.

Nascita di una spia, più o meno perfetta.
Come essere figlio di un bugiardo, crescere circondato dalla menzogna, dalla falsità, da realtà inventata, farne parte, sviluppare un’attitudine a usare le suddette “doti”, conduca a diventare una spia perfetta, affinché il mondo libero possa dormire tranquillo nel suo letto la notte, mentre le spie, i guardiani segreti lo vegliano con virile amore.


John Le Carré e lo schermo: Park Chan-wook dirige tutti e sei gli episodi della sua prima serie tv. Trasmessa su AMC nel 2018. Michael Shannon risplende.

Le Carré sembra godere da matto nel complicarmi la lettura.
Il racconto che Magnus Pym, la spia perfetta, scrive come forma di diario, o romanzo, o lettera, la ricostruzione della sua storia familiare, con al centro quel gran burlone imbroglione e millantatore di suo padre, un truffatore vero e proprio, un artista del raggiro, è narrato in prima persona, ‘io’ è la voce del narratore. Ma è destinato a suo figlio, e quindi qui e là, davanti e dietro, scappa fuori il ‘tu’; ma poi l’io scrive e racconta di se stesso in terza persona, e in questi casi si arriva a ‘egli’ o ‘lui’ come si dice ormai.
Un esempio:
Io non sono d’accordo. Io dico invece che mi ha quasi ammazzato. Ma Pym no – Pym trovava tutto quanto assolutamente meraviglioso e tendeva il piatto per averne dell’altro.
Io e Pym sono la stessa persona, io è Pym che scrive e racconta a 55 anni – Pym è la stessa persona una quarantina d’anni prima.


John Le Carré e lo schermo: “Our Kind of Traitor – Il traditore tipo”, film del 2016, con un buon cast e la regia della brava Susanna White, che però rimane così così, senza magia.

Se questo non bastasse, la seconda persona singolare, il ‘tu’, non è appannaggio unicamente del figlio Tom: ma anche di Jack, la spia capo. E molto più raramente il narratore si rivolge direttamente al padre.
Se questo non bastasse, ogni tanto fa capolino la prima persona plurale, un ‘noi’ che certo non semplifica le cose: noi chi, caro Le Carré, tu e Tom, o tu e Jack? Tutti insieme? E tuo padre Rick dove lo metti, è anche lui parte della combriccola ‘noi’?.


John Le Carré e lo schermo: nel 2016 la regista danese premio Oscar Susanne Bier dirige la sua prima miniserie tv, “The Night Manager” – il risultato è sotto le mie aspettative, Olivia Colman illumina, ma la Bier sulle scene d’azione mostra mancanza d’esperienza.

Aggiungo che ogni volta che finalmente memorizzavo un nome dei millemillanta personaggi del romanzo, ecco che Le Carré passava al cognome, costringendomi ad altro sforzo. Se mi appropriavo di nome e cognome, Le Carré introduceva l’acronimo o il soprannome.
Per esempio, il protagonista dotato di nome non comune, Magnus, è quasi sempre riferito come Pym, il suo cognome tutto meno che banale (almeno per me che l’Arthur Gordon Pym di Edgard Allan Poe ho divorato negli anni del liceoi insieme alla sua opera omnia), quando non invece per il nick di Titch.
E i soprannomi. E i nomi dei cavalli, delle magioni, dei paesi, delle strade, delle coline, di fiumi laghi e pozze.


John Le Carré e lo schermo: “A Most wanted Man – La spia” di Anton Corbijn del 2014 è un film che mi è piaciuto molto. Una delle ultime tutte splendide interpretazioni di Philip Seymour Hoffman, mai abbastanza compianto.

E una certa qual tendenza all’eccesso di racconto, troppe parole, troppi aggettivi, troppo sostantivi: qualcuno direbbe ‘barocco’, ma a me lo stile barocco piace eccome – questo l’ho trovato stile ‘troppo’, un po’ compiaciuto, e mi verrebbe da dire tronfio.
Allora qualcun altro direbbe rococò, ma a me piace anche il rococò, e quindi, se nessuno si dispiace, io resterei a compiaciuto e tronfio, e troppo.


John Le Carré e lo schermo: “Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy – La talpa” magnifico film diretto dal Tomas Alfredson con Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, cast da brividi. 2011

Quando Le Carré si libera un po’ dell’urgenza autobiografica, perché quel padre furfante e farbutto è costruito a specchio sul vero padre dello scrittore, quando le pagine lette hanno ampiamente superato la metà, sono andate oltre le 350, il romanzo comincia finalmente a fluire e diventare saporito: un po’ come un dolce al cucchiaio che sopra è tutta una specie di panna insapore e solo arrivando al fondo regala il gusto.
Il mondo delle spie, quello per cui Le Carré è famoso, quello che l’ha reso celebre scrittore, e quello che cerco nei suoi libri, fa capolino molto molto in là.


John Le Carré e lo schermo: “The Costant Gardner – La cospirazione” diretto dal brasiliano Fernando Meirelles nel 2005, con Ralph Fiennes e Rachel Weisz.

Ma quando succede, quando finalmente si parla di coloro che fanno il lavoro sporco così che gli innocenti possano dormire nei loro letti la notte, la pagina s’illumina. E io comincio a godere, e ritrovo lo scrittore di razza, e gli perdono la noia di quelle prime 370 pagine che ogni tanto avrei volentieri abbandonato.
Ma come posso io abbandonare un libro di Le Carré che mi racconta quel mondo che tanto mi interessa, quello dello spionaggio, sul quale proprio in questo periodo sto facendo anche una specie di ricerca (per quanto io sia interessato ad altro spionaggio, a quello definito deep state)?


John Le Carré e lo schermo: “Il sarto di Panama” diretto da John Boorman nel 2001, con Pierce Brosnan, Geoffrey Rush e Jamie Lee Curtis.

È vero: ho rimpianto molto la snellezza e asciuttezza dei primi romanzi, ho sentito la mancanza di Alec Leamas, la spia che venne dal freddo, e di George Smiley, che individuò la talpa. Ma ho comunque assaporato un lungo finale saporito (circa duecento pagine), una buona storia, che mi ha riconciliato con quell’eterno ‘inizio’.
La spia è perfetta perché sa mentire come e meglio di tutti: ha avuto un maestro illustre. Suo padre.


John Le Carré e lo schermo: “The Russia House” nel 1990 con due attori da brivido, Sean Connery e Michelle Pfeiffer, diretti da Fred Schepisi (però il risultato è così così).

No, non è un pasticcio. Per fare un pasticcio bisogna che prima ci sia ordine. Questa invece è inerzia, questa è la normalità. Quello che una volta era un grande servizio ora è diventato un ibrido inamovibile fatto per metà di burocrati e per metà di predoni, e tutti che usano gli argomenti degli uni per annullare gli altri.


John Le Carré e lo schermo: 1965 - con un salto indietro di parecchi anni, in mezzo diversi altri adattamenti, ecco il primo, “The Spy Who Came In From the Cold – La spia che venne dal freddo” con Richard Burton, regia di Martin Ritt.

[Warwick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Le Carré writes beautifully, let's get that out of the way straight off, but something about this left me a little disappointed. It did have a lot to live up to: not only is it often considered his best work, it's sometimes considered anyone's best work. Philip Pullman reckons A Perfect Spy is ‘one of the finest novels of the twentieth century’, while Philip Roth said it was ‘the best English novel since the war’. Other Philips also speak highly of it.

It begins with the arrival of a man in a small English village. He is using a false name, he is carrying a mysterious bag, he has apparently just come from a funeral. In a guest room, he sits down to write his story; and thenceforth the book alternates between an espionage thriller that crisscrosses Cold War Europe, and a personal narrative about growing up in postwar Britain.

I found the first of these strands considerably more interesting than the second, which is clearly based on le Carré's own childhood. The book therefore has much autobiographical interest (and had even more before 2016, when le Carré authorised a biography and then wrote his own). Like the book's protagonist, Magnus Pym, le Carré grew up without a mother and in the shadow of a confused relationship with his conman father, and the dynamic of this relationship is a major focus of the novel. I mostly found it a distraction, and was anxious to get back to what I felt was the main story.

Part of the problem is that the two parts never really mesh very well. The idea mooted is that growing up with an overbearing confidence trickster as a father has predisposed Pym to a life of international espionage; well, le Carré may have felt this to be true in his own case, but I don't find it very convincing in this novel. It feels like two books have been stapled together.

It's particularly frustrating because the bits that work are so excellent: beautiful descriptions of Europe, in this case mostly Austria and Switzerland (‘the spiritual home of natural spies’), a flawless depiction of how diplomats track a potential defector, and the kind of perfect thumbnail character sketches that le Carré is so consistently good at:

She had greying hair bound in a sensible bun and wore a necklace of what looked like nutmeg. When she walked, she waded through her kaftan as if she hated it. When she sat, she spread her knees and scraped at the knuckles of one hand. Yet her beauty clung to her like an identity she was trying to deny and her plainness kept slipping like a bad disguise.

His books are always able to demonstrate exactly how politics boils down to conversations between frustrated people in drab meeting-rooms. The conversations in le Carré books are the set pieces: they are as exciting as car chases or fistfights, and this book is no different. Much hinges on the cagey relationship between British ‘espiocrats’ (to use one of le Carré's later coinages) and their CIA counterparts, and the author has a lot of fun contrasting the well-spoken, supercilious clarity of the Brits with the managerial jargon of the Americans:

‘…the ah Agency position overall on this thing – at this important meeting, and at this moment in time – is that we have here an accumulation of indicators from a wide range of sources on the one hand, and new data on the other which we consider pretty much conclusive in respect of our unease.’

(This is an affliction that has long since spread to this side of the Atlantic.) At moments like these, I felt inclined to give the book the benefit of the doubt, and was willing myself to like it more than I did. But the flashbacks were just too obtrusive and took too long to get to their point – things don't really get going until a third of the way in, which for a six-hundred-page book is a hell of a long time to make people wait. There is a sneaky sensation that the author was doing this more for himself than for us (he later talked about the book as therapy).

‘Love is whatever you can betray,’ reflects the main character. ‘Betrayal can only happen if you love.’ The theme of betrayal – to one's loved ones and to one's country – is a powerful one, even if I felt it got a bit smothered. The book is studded with brilliance – but not perfect, to me, by a long shot.

[Luís · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the Cold War, A Perfect Spy by John le Carré is a compelling novel with a psychological depth rarely found in the genre. The book focuses on Magnus Pym, to whom the title alludes. Magnus is a model spy of the age; he is ambitious and glamorous with a beautiful wife and an intelligent son. Unfortunately, he is the star of British Intelligence, and unbeknownst to them, he is also fiercely loyal to a spymaster who lurks behind the Iron Curtain.
When Rick Pym, Magnus's father, dies, Magnus's world falls apart. He deserts his beautiful wife, a former spy, and seeks sanctuary in an obscure English guesthouse that has been his secret bolthole for many years.
Rick Pym has tormented Magnus throughout his life. Magnus alternately hero-worships and despises the legendary conman. These intense and conflicting feelings towards his father have given Magnus a reason to live, and when his father dies, he realizes he is nothing. Without Rick, Magnus is an empty, lost, and vulnerable man.
As the plot unfolds through a desperate search for Magnus, the reader comes to understand him so well that it almost feels like an intrusion on his privacy. This book is as powerful as a Shakespearean tragedy, and when Magnus is finally tracked down, he takes a loaded gun into the guesthouse bathroom and shoots himself. In a moment loaded with pathos, before Magnus pulls the trigger, he shrouds himself in towels to avoid inconveniencing the landlady by spattering his brains everywhere.
A Perfect Spy, published in 1986, is an excellent example of the genre and an exceptionally well-written novel. Le Carré writes with empathy and passion, which gathers the reader up and flings him into Magnus Pym's psychologically disturbed mind. This book will stay with you.

[Darwin8u · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.”
― John le Carré, A Perfect Spy



Remembrances of loyalties past. In some of le Carré's novels you feel haunted by the ghosts of Conrad, Greene, Nabokov, etc. In 'The Perfect Spy', I went back and forth about whether le Carré was building this novel to be Dickensian spy novel or a Proustian spy novel.

I still haven't quite figured it out. All I know is that it worked. It was brilliant. It was harassed by elements of Proust, Dickens, le Carré's own father, and le Carré himself. In a story about multiple fathers, why can't it be both an ode to Dickens and Proust?

'A Perfect Spy' is a novel about deception (but what spy novel isn't about deception?), memory, love and loyalty. It is a story about the sins of fathers and the absolutions of sons. It is about a character who is on the run without ever leaving a room; a room filled with hidden cabinets, burn boxes, and years and years of secrets and conflict; a room that holds a perfect spy who is running from his past, running from his present, and running from his future.

I've said this before, but I don't ever get tired of preaching it: le Carré is a novelist that WILL be read in 100 years and perhaps in 500 years because he is absolutely tapped into the global zeitgeist of the modern man and the modern nation-state. Le Carré has his finger on the pulse of what we NEED to believe, what we YEARN to believe. He has a story to tell and a map of our often hidden realities.

Le Carré's has baked a madeleine that we eventually all must choke on, because we all eventually get to that point where we refuse to swallow anymore shit.

[William2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forget that this novel happens to be written in the Cold War spy genre. That’s incidental. It is in every sense literary fiction and as such contains some truly astounding pages. One caveat: the male-female relationships seem oversexed in a way that was the convention in the 1980s. The criminal father aspect reminds somewhat of Geoffrey Wolff’s fine memoir, The Duke of Deception. The author’s very good at creating hateable males. He does it by making them misogynists.

[Georgia Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cover says it all. This is a rare depiction of a love for a father, for a son, and for a friend who is all wrong for this spy.

In an early scene, Magnus Pym (who calls himself Mr. Canterbury) observes a light in an upstairs window. "That's you all over," his landlady remarks. "Disappear for three months, come back in the middle of the night and worry about a light in someone's window. . . . You'll never change, Mr. Canterbury." Neither would the man who called himself John le Carre.

When we met, he was standing on a train platform. "Look. A woman is dancing with a child," he said to me. There in the chill of a Polish night, he saw a vision of paradise through a lit window. It made his face glow. That moment came back to me as I read A Perfect Spy, the novel which comes closest to a memoir of his own life.

He didn't have an ordinary childhood. Neither does Magnus Pym. Both men seek bonds - often in directions which can't hold - to make up for their early losses. And both have a great capacity to be hurt and to love. This is a spy as far from Bond as can be. Vulnerable is the word that comes to mind. Real, too.

[window · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked up this book since it was on a list of most influential novels according to one of my issues of Mental Floss magazine, but I just couldn't force myself to get through it. I read about 100 pages of some of the most impenetrable prose, full of confusing switches in point of view, setting, and time period before I set it aside. The army of characters that dropped in like paratroopers made it hard to keep the names straight and at some point, I stopped trying. I just never got into the story.

I always know there's trouble with a story when I have to make myself pick up the book and I'm relieved to put the bookmark in and set it back down. I'm all for novels that make a reader think, but not for those that are written in a deliberately puzzling manner as a challenge for the reader to make sense of before they can even begin to enjoy the story. The author's command of the language is impressive but this book's overly obtuse style is just not for me.

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a brilliant story. At first I wasn't going to give it any stars because it seemed more like a stream of consciousness story and not a novel as we know it. But as I got into the story and its flow, I got sucked in.

And this is a stand alone story. It has nothing to do with Smiley and The Circus. So if you have never read a LeCarre story before, this is a good introduction to his writing style.

[Lewis Weinstein · Rating 2 out of 5]

Years ago I read this and gave it 5*****. I tried to re-read it (it's included reading for our Oxford course next summer), but found it disjointed and extremely difficult to follow, with little in the way of cohesive plot. Occasional paragraphs/pages were full of tension and beautifully written but there were not enough of these. I put it aside after 142 pages.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnus Pym is a perfect spy. He is groomed for it from birth by his wretched and criminal father, Rick. He has learned to lie, to pretend, and to betray, but he has never learned who he truly is. He is a man caught between worlds and putting on a different face for everyone he knows, so that his controller, his wife, his best friend, his father and even his son, all know a different man and none of them is the real man, the Pym who talks to himself when alone.

John le Carre is, IMHO, one of the best writers who ever took pen to hand. He never writes anything simple or easy. His books are as complex as his characters, as complex as the world of espionage itself, and they always reveal something of ourselves that we hate to look into the mirror and see but that we absolutely know is there.

Love is whatever you can still betray, he thought. Betrayal can only happen if you love.

Pym loves well and deeply, often in the wrong places, and Pym betrays everything and everyone, including himself. One of the characters refers to a spy as a “licensed criminal” and I believe that is one of the major points le Carre means to make. Just because a political entity endorses it, just because the law of man condones it, does not make it right. If an act is immoral, it is immoral. And, if a man has no moral compass, what does he have?

On the surface, this is a cold war spy tale, but this is not a surface book. This book is about people-- what makes them who they are, how they are shaped into their best or worst selves, how love and betrayal can rip a man’s soul, and perhaps how little chance one has against a deck that is stacked from birth or against a man who can charm your soul and then leave you as parched as a desert.

But at the last moment, I stopped to re-evaluate my view of Magnus Pym and discovered that perhaps, as a reader, I had also been betrayed. Perhaps he is never the man I thought or wanted him to be. Perhaps he doesn't deserve my pity or my understanding or even my heartfelt consideration. Perhaps I have been conned.

In my attempt to read or reread all of John Le Carre's novels, I am struck by how even he seems not to know how deeply the depths of a man can be plumbed. When you think "that is as far as introspection can go," he manages to delve just a little deeper. There is no multi-tasking when reading this novel, either...give it full concentration, or risk losing the thread completely. On the other hand, you get back what you give in spades.

[Nigeyb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Perfect Spy (1986) by John le Carré is quite hard work for the first two thirds of the book however I stuck with it and was really glad I did. In the final third it comes together beautifully.

I was also pleased I'd already read John le Carré: The Biography by Adam Sisman, as A Perfect Spy is very autobiographical and much of the plot concerns John le Carré's own upbringing, and in particular his appalling conman father Ronnie Cornwell who masqueraded as a successful entrepreneur making and losing several fortunes whilst also being twice imprisoned for fraud.

A Perfect Spy centres on fugitive MI6 officer Magnus Pym, who it soon turns out might have been a double agent with Czech intelligence. The novel's forensic account of Pym's life and psychology beautifully exposes the kind of damaged and compromised individual who makes the perfect spy.

Whilst it's not up there with the Karla trilogy, or even The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, and despite being somewhat repetitious in the opening sections, it slowly builds into something very special.

Philip Roth described it as "the best English novel since the war". Hmmm. He's clearly not read the Sword of Honour trilogy or Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time books however it is undeniably very good. Not right up there with John le Carré's finest work, but by any ordinary writer's standard this would be an extraordinary book and a career high.

4/5

In this most beguiling of spy stores, John le Carré guides us effortlessly through fifty years of alternative Britain, introducing us along the way to a hilarious company of ambulance chasers, war racketeers, shady lawyers, property sharks, lovelies and fixers; and then to Occupied Austria, to Czechoslovakia, Berlin, and finally to the goal of every ambitious traitor of our time – America.

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Description: Magnus Pym -- son of Rick, father of Tom, and a successful career officer of British Intelligence -- has vanished, to the dismay of his friends, enemies, and wife. Who is he? Who was he? Who owns him? Who trained him? Secrets of state are at risk. As the truth about Pym gradually emerges, the reader joins Pym's pursuers to explore the unsettling life and motives of a man who fought the wars he inherited with the only weapons he knew, and so became a perfect spy.

A Perfect Spy 1987 BBC Drama Series)

Episode 1: As a young boy Magnus Pym (played by twins, Jonathan and Nicholas Haley) sees his father Rick (Ray McAnally) imprisoned for embezzlement and his mother Dorothy (Caroline John) hospitalised by the stress. Magnus fakes a fit in order to escape the abusive uncle and alcoholic aunt with whom he has been sent to live. He is rescued from hospital by his recently released father who subsequently takes him along on the con of an elderly lady.

Magnus is sent to boarding school after his father is conscripted where staff and students disapprove of the flashy “business man”. Rick returns from the war a wealthy man and involves Magnus in a plan to defraud the bomb damage compensation fund. One night Magnus is hazed by a group of boys led by his “friend” Sefton Boyd and in revenge he tags the boy's initials on the wall of the staff toilet.

Episode 2: Magnus (Benedict Taylor) is called in to help his father after the plan to defraud the bomb damage compensation fund goes awry. Baroness Weber has asked Rick to help her recover a treasure trove secreted by her late husband before the war and Magnus is sent to accompany her. Upon arrival in Switzerland the Baroness runs up a large bill, absconds with all the money, and leaves Magnus down and out in Bern, in a classic example of the scam known as the Spanish Prisoner.

Magnus eventually manages to secure a scholarship to study law at the university in Bern. He befriends a Silesian émigré poet called Axel, who calls him "Sir Magnus". British intelligence officer Jack Brotherhood (Alan Howard) recruits Magnus to inform on a left-wing student group called the Cosmo Club. Magnus steals the club’s membership list and Axel is revealed to be a secret member. Jack persuades Magnus to betray his friend to the Swiss authorities

Episode 3: Magnus (Peter Egan) is called back from his studies at Oxford University to assist in his father’s election campaign. Peggy Wentworth (Frances Tomelty) whose late husband was conned by Rick approaches him. Magnus breaks into his father’s files and sends Rick’s prison records to Peggy. Confronted at a public meeting Rick brushes off his past misdoings as youthful indiscretions. Aware of his son’s betrayal he forgives him none-the-less. However, his hopes of political office are destroyed by the incident.

Magnus is recruited into the army and posted as an intelligence officer to Graz. Sabina his translator/mistress puts him in touch with a potential defector who turns out to be Axel. Axel hands over apparently important Soviet secret files on Magnus’s guarantee of anonymity, but later when under suspicion requires Magnus to hand over secret British files in return.

Episode 4: Rick crashes his son’s wedding to Belinda and offers them the gift of a new car, which is immediately impounded. Recruited by the Foreign Office, Magnus is sent to Prague where after making a pick-up from a dead-letter-drop he is arrested by Axel, blackmailed into exchanging further secrets, and reintroduced to Sabina who joins his network of planted agents.

Abandoned by his long neglected wife and reposted to Berlin, Magnus begins to court Jack’s girlfriend Mary. Late one night he is summoned to police headquarters where he discovers his father is being held in the cells for yet another bungled con job. Axel encourages Magnus into marrying Mary in the belief that the girl may help them gain access to their eventual target, the Americans.

Episode 5: Magnus is now married to Mary with a son called Tom and on his long awaited posting to Washington. He is still passing secrets but Axel is talking of retirement as things heat up. A committee of American agents headed by Harry Wexler and guided by Magnus’s “friend” Grant Laderer (Garrick Hagon) have noticed some curiosities in the computer analysis of Magnus and his Czechoslovakian networks.

Celebrating Christmas with his family, Magnus is called out to a bar where he meets his now destitute father. The committee comes to London to put their suspicions to senior British intelligence officers but Jack dismisses it all as a Czechoslovakian attempt to frame Magnus. Recalled to London and haunted by his past, Magnus, under a false name, takes secret lodgings with Miss Dubber (Peggy Ashcroft) in his old childhood neighbourhood in Devon.

Episode 6: While on a family holiday to Corfu, Tom (Graham McGrath) witnesses a meeting between his father and Axel. Axel tries to convince Magnus to retire or even defect but the double agent refuses. Jack recalls Magnus to Vienna where he learns of his father’s death. Magnus flies to London where he arranges the funeral and arranges for the collection of his father’s files. Mary calls Jack when Magnus fails to return to Vienna.

Magnus visits Sefton Boyd (Ian McNeice) and apologises for his first betrayal back at boarding school. Jack goes to Vienna in search of Magnus and interrogates Mary. Magnus retires to his secret lodgings in Devon where he enquires into local comings and goings. Jack searches Magnus’s home uncovering references to someone codenamed Poppy and begins to suspect Magnus of betrayal.

Episode 7: Jack continues to interrogate Mary to learn more of the mysterious Poppy. Kate admits to Jack that Magnus got her to remove references to Sabine from his personnel file. Recovering the doctored info Jack learns of Magnus’s mysterious contact in Graz. Axel passes a message to Mary offering his assistance in tracking the missing Magnus down.

Members of Magnus’s Czechoslovakian networks start to go silent. Jack realises Prague is rolling up the fake network and the extent of Magnus’s betrayal is finally revealed. With both sides now racing to find Magnus, Mary meets with Axel who gives her a clue as to where he is hiding. Jack and Mary drive to Devon where a police siege of Miss Dubber's lodging house ends with a single gunshot. Although the suicide occurs off-screen the final shot is of Magnus in the bathtub with half of his face blown away.


This was great! The fab episode descriptions are plucked from wiki. The earworm was Underneath The Arches

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently found a review of this book ( here ) that notes that A Perfect Spy is a kind of what-if autobiographical account of John LeCarre himself (fictionalized, obviously). Whether this is or is not the case, this is one of the best novels I've read this year.

Magnus Pym, intelligence agent for the British, has gone to London after the news of his father Rick's death. He is supposed to return to Vienna, where he and his wife Mary are currently stationed, but instead he sends his luggage on home without him. When the suitcase arrives, without Magnus, British intelligence is left to wonder whether or not Magnus has defected, taking with him information which is beyond valuable, and jeopardizing the lives of his "joes," or the agents and intelligence network in place in Czechoslovakia. But Magnus is not behind the iron curtain; rather, he's in Devon, along the coast, in a home where he's known as Mr. Canterbury, and where he's being going for some time. This time, he's there to tell his story, racing against time, waiting for his people to come get him and bring him in. He wants to leave a record of the truth, especially for his son, Tom. What he ends up with is the life of Magnus Pym from his childhood on, reflecting especially on his relationship with his father Rick, the ultimate con man, for whom the con never stops, not even with his only son.

While different from other novels by LeCarre, it is still a book that will totally absorb you from start to finish. The characters are very real, the story is not just one story, but several that interweave throughout the novel, and it is just one of those books that you will find difficult to put down.

I'd recommend this to people who like LeCarre's work, as well as those who like stories that focus on the relationships between fathers and sons. It's a long book, but it will go by so quickly that you'll be sorry it's over. Very very good novel; LeCarre is a brilliant writer.

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hogy születik a kém?

Hát, nem a gólya hozza, azt elhihetitek. És nem is a káposztaföldről szedik össze. Alighanem kell hozzá egy elcseszett apa, aki egy utolsó szélhámos, egy börtöntöltelék, egy csaló. Mellette a gyermekkor igazi spionológiai gyorstalpaló: hogyan hazudjunk végig egy életet úgy, hogy közben őszintén hisszük, szánkból kizárólag az igazság méze csorog. Kihúzzuk szegény rokkant hadfiak zsebéből az utolsó fityinget, megkopasztjuk az özvegyeket, elkurvázzuk az árvák örökségét, és közben mégis úgy hajtjuk álomra fejünket, azzal a szilárd hittel, hogy valójában még mi tettünk jót velük. Az ifjú Magnus Pym pedig megtanulja a leckét. Bár közben elveszít egyet s mást. Hátralévő életét ez a tapasztalat határozza meg - no és a hiány. A valódi apa hiánya. Ezt az apát keresi aztán a különböző titkosszolgálatok tartótisztjeiben, tőlük várja az elismerést és szeretetet, amiben addig nem részesült. Ez az ő igazi bére és jutalma.

És milyen a tökéletes kém?

A tökéletes kém sosem áruló. Ő maga a hűség szobra. Oly magas fokon műveli a hűség művészetét, hogy képes akár egyszerre több ellentétes oldalhoz is hűnek lenni. Hűséges például a jó öreg Angliához, akinek oly sokat köszönhet. Jó, felületesen szemlélve ez nehezen fér össze azzal, hogy titkait kiárusítja a kommunistáknak – de csak mi gondolkozunk túl leegyszerűsítően. Az a Magnus ugyanis, aki a brit külügy üdvöskéje, igazi hazafi és folttalan jellem. Csak épp van egy kettes számú Magnus is, aki a másik oldalnak dolgozik. Aki a szovjetekhez hű. A két Magnus, mondjuk úgy, egymástól függetlenül létezik, nem állíthatjuk szilárdan, hogy tudnának egymásról. Következésképpen nem egy árulóról beszélünk, hanem két hűségesről. Akik egy testben lakoznak. Amíg szűk nem lesz a szállás.

„Szeretet az, amit még elárulhat az ember” - Magnus Pym, engem inkább ne szeressél.

[August · Rating 3 out of 5]

Philip Roth, himself, claims on the book's cover that it is "the best English novel since the war". I find that hard to believe, but I can understand why Roth would like it. It is structurally sound and Magnus Pym, the perfect spy, is a memorable character. Personally, though, I wasn't really impressed. It is a long book (700pages), jumping back and forth in time, lots of characters and a narrator who, somewhat schizophrenically, never refers to himself using the first-person singular pronoun. What I'm trying to get across is that it is not easy to read A Perfect Spy and it is all too seldom enjoyable. Because, although the prose is of good quality throughout - and surely much better than in most other works belonging to the spy genre - it never reaches sublime levels and what little there is of humour seldom brought a smile to my face.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book moves between two parallel stories, one focusing on the sudden disappearance of a spy and the other a long historical introduction to his upbringing and his becoming a spy. Le Carré is always a good read, but I didn’t enjoy this as much as many of his other works. The two stories didn’t really fit together well as they might have, and while the seemingly shorter sections about his vanishing peaked my interest, the seemingly longer ‘growing up’ sections left me frustrated. As always, still worth reading!

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished reading the A Perfect Spya week or so ago, and it is still occupying so much of my thought that I haven’t been able to take on anything else of substance since.

Le Carre’s repeating themes of deception and betrayal are in full play: Magnus Pym is a perfect spy because he has deceived and betrayed everyone, including himself.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Perfect Spy for me is that it is heavily autobiographical. His forlorn childhood, education, manipulative con-man father and career as a spy echo Le Carre’s own. Pym’s story, a novel within a novel, reveals a devastating familiarity with the psychology of a person seeking approval and identity, because he feels none.

Steven Poole in a Guardian review says ‘The novel’s forensic psychological account of Pym’s life represents Le Carré’s most detailed investigation into the kind of damaged and compromised person who makes, according to its brutally ironic title, the ideal espionage agent’.

I haven’t read Sisman’s biography of Le Carre, and I’m happy to leave it in the background of my reading life.

Several of the reviews I’ve read have listed the Perfect Spy as amongst Le Carre’s top novels, even perhaps his best. For instance, David Denby wrote in the New Yorker: 'By the time he wrote “A Perfect Spy,” le Carré understood that espionage is an extreme version of the human comedy, even the human tragedy. It will very likely remain his greatest book'.

It’s a complex story, brilliantly told with a strong narrative style which kept me riveted, even as it switched between the objective narrative voice of the present and the, at first confusing, voice of Pym as he writes about his life from childhood to the present, the novel within the novel.

It goes well beyond the genre of spy fiction and stands as a major work of literary fiction.

I’m going to finish by quoting Peter Straub in Book Forum: ‘As the acts of treachery done to him and committed by him mount up, Pym slides into a grim fragmentation intensified by le Carré’s giddy technique. Rotating between third- and first-person points of view, the book incorporates addresses by the narrator to himself-as-other, an imaginative leap I’ve never seen any other author dare to attempt. A Perfect Spy is my favorite of le Carré’s novels: Here, with no George Smiley to divert the underlying anguish into conventional spy-story channels, it flashes and gleams like the treasure it is’.


Reviews I found stimulating and informative:

John Banville on Le Carre https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023...
John Banville on the biography of Le Carre/David Cornwell https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

Frank Conroy, New York Times https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytim...

David Denby in https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cul...

Steven Poole in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

Peter Straub https://www.bookforum.com/print/1802/...

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Sunday Times reviewer calls this 'a perfect work of fiction' and le Carre's masterpiece. I can't disagree. This is a fantastic read - a real page turner, intelligently written and often very funny. I'm a fan of JleC's anyway but I'm now in awe of his artistry and expertise in reeling in and hooking his readers. It's not often these days that I struggle to put a book down. My only regret is that I've finished it and will find it a hard act to follow for the depth of the main characters, for its humour and pathos, and for just being such a damn good read.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't the type of book I would have normally bought or borrowed (although I did like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold read a few years ago) but it came to me as a birthday present last November from a relative who didn't have the foggiest idea as to my literary tastes. I would have felt guilty if I didn't at least try and read it, so, as not to interfere with my regular reading I pigeoned it in for the weekends only. It took a good hundred pages or so to truly get into it, and what I thought would just turn into another generic crime thriller, actually, didn't turn into that at all. This was such a deep book that doesn't even read like a thriller, and le Carré no doubt knows his stuff in the field of espionage, spies, and the organizations that surround them. It doesn't surprise me as a result of things like the 2011 film of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the recent mini-series of The Little Drummer Girl and The Night Manager mini-series from 2016 that his work has been given a new lease of life. Interesting that penguin books updated/re-released his back catalogue roughly at the same time.
Would I now read him again? In all probability: yes.

[Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Perfect Spy by John Le Carre - narrated by Shaun Evans - a Dreamscape production published 04 June 2024

I so, so wished that Le Carre had chosen a shorter format for this story, which would then have been perfect for me. As it was, the length was off- putting and it was only because of his good writing and the excellent narration by Shaun Evans that kept me at it.

The trails and tribulations of Magnus Pym were varied, and many but they had a single source, his father, beloved and hated at the same time. This entangled relationship and the resultant effect on the moulding of his character led Pym's choices throughout his life. His chameleon character, his need to please and be liked, his guilt. The final scene with the towels is so, so emblematic, and it is a picture I have fixed in my mind.

An ARC kindly provided by author/publisher via Netgalley

[Gretchen Rubin]

I don't usually read thrillers or spy novels, but this is a fascinating portrait of a character. It's one of those novels where your sense of reality changes from chapter to chapter.

[Wale · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got through half-way in this book and had to drop it. What did it for me were the long narratives of flashbacks into the main character's past which I suppose were meant to unveil gradually to the reader who the main character really was and the ultimate motives behind his actions. They were quite murky and tedious and I didn't have the patience to really delve into them. I my opinion they detracted from the clarity and fluidity that should be salient traits of any good prose (from the Latin word 'prosa' which means straighforward).
Since this is my first book by Le Carre I'm guessing not all his works try to use this approach and he was simply experimenting with it- which writers should be encouraged to do.
A cold war espionage thriller is meant to be thrilling- this wasn't.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting sort-of autobiography from le Carre, he writes his life as it might have come off had he taken the wrong turning. Or at least that's how it comes off. Often fascinating, often gripping, occasionally surprising, and occasionally a little dryer than is really good for it.

[Smiley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this novel formidable. As far as I know, the author wrote it based on Kim Philby's life who later defected to the then USSR as a senior citizen there till his death. The title also reminds me of 'A Perfect Crime' I read in an anthology, a book I borrowed from the College of Education Library, BKK.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4:
1/3. 'Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love.' So says Magnus Pym, the spy of the title; and he has betrayed a lot in his life - countries, friends and lovers. When Magnus disappears after his father's funeral MI6 launches an urgent manhunt to prevent his defection. Dramatised by Robert Forrest.

2/3. When Magnus Pym disappears after his father's funeral MI6 launches an urgent manhunt to prevent his defection. But Pym is on a search of his own to solve the central mystery of his life - what made him the perfect spy.

As the MI6 manhunt closes in on Magnus Pym he attempts to solve the mystery of what - or who - created his talent for deception. Was it the betrayal and lies of his con man father, Rick? Or the man who recruited him to MI6 - Jack Brotherhood? Or was it Axel, the Czech agent he has known since his teens? All of them have marked his life in some way.

Other parts are played by the cast.
Director: Bruce Young
BBC Scotland.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wmwyy

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I'm writing this review, I am sipping slowly on a glass of Ardbeg Uigeadail; certainly not the highest of top shelf single-malt scotch, but still absolutely exquisite. There is an extraordinary amount of complexity complete with smokiness and of course peat; lots of peat. This isn't a scotch you can really mix with anything and make a cocktail out of; it wouldn't produce an easy-going Old Fashioned, nor would it do too well in a Penicillin. When I first started enjoying whiskey, I hated this Scotch; it was too much, too overwhelming to my tastes, and seemed to pretend to be better than it actually was. You can't fluff this scotch up, and make it easier to drink; you can't turn it into a party-whiskey, or appeal to a wider audience. It simply is what it is, and you either love it or you don't. Now that I'm older and have a few grey hairs floating around my head, I seem to simply love this whisky. This isn't to say that my tastes have improved, or are more "refined" now, or that what I drank in my 20s is somehow low quality. My pallet has simply changed, my temperament has changed, and what I'm looking for in a whisky has changed.

John le Carre, to me, is like this Ardbeg Uigeadail. 10 years ago, I would have absolutely hated this book, but now I love it. Anyone who dislikes this book for reasons including (but not limited to), long meandering passages of useless description, boring plots, unlikable characters, the unexciting portrait of espionage work, a rambling plotline and confusing storytelling style, and musings on the heart and human soul which border on literary masturbation...the person who has these gripes against this book are absolutely justified, and any opinion of theirs that they hate this book comes from a place of rationality and sense.
...I simply love it. I love being confused as to the sequence and timeline of the plot. I love forgetting which character is whom and what they do. I love the paragraphs and paragraphs in a row of the rambling musings of some character's head as they process information or remember something from the past. I love that the first real scene of "anything happening" took until 150 pages.

I love this book, and it is simply a matter of subjective taste of which chances are you will not share. This is my first John le Carre book, and when I want that long slog of acquired taste I will gladly pick up another one of his books. If you want a spy fiction that is full of car explosions, gunfire, or dramatic stake-outs, you will not find it here; if you want a spy novel that is full of long descriptions of the tedious nature of spy work, of how it ruins the spy's personal/family life, and of the mental health issues it brings upon those who engage in it, then perhaps John le Carre is for you.

[Matthew Kresal · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are novels which can only be described by a single word: epic. John le Carre's A Perfect Spy, published originally in 1986, is one of those novels to be certain. It is a tale that stretches right across half the twentieth century in the form of the life of Magnus Pym, the perfect spy of the novel's title. The novel is also, in fine le Carre tradition, a fine cross between the spy thriller and a human drama and is all the better for it.

The story revolves around the life and times of British intelligence officer Magnus Pym from his childhood to then present day of the mid-late 1980's. As the novel reveals piece by piece Magnus's lie has been nothing but one large training ground for a future spy starting with his childhood under his conman father Ricky to years in Switzerland as a side effect of one of his father's scams that leads to him meeting his two mentors in the world of Cold War espionage right through to the then present dy. The picture that emerges is of a man forced to spend his entire life lying and betraying sometimes out of circumstance and other times just to survive with the consequence of him becoming "a perfect spy". Magnus is also a man who is ultimately always on the run from everyone including himself. All of this means that Pym is also quite possibly the best in the long tradition of le Carre's strong main characters.

A Perfect Spy also features some of le Carre's best supporting characters as well perhaps the best of which is Magnus' father Ricky who is based (by the author's own admission) on his own father. Ricky Pym is the man most responsible for his son's transformation into "a perfect spy" as a man who drifts in and out of his son's life with one con after another. Ricky is a man capable of great charisma and of being sentimental with those around him but never capable of really giving himself to any one person including Magnus himself. Much of the novel is spent as Magnus remembers his life with his father so that the theme of a son trying to figure out his relationship with his father and how it as affected his other relationships is as much a part of the novel as the spy thriller aspects are.

There are many other fine supporting characters as well of course. There is Axel and Jack Brotherhood as the two men who become mentors to a young Magnus is the game of Cold War espionage and who, as a result of their actions and attitudes, make fine literary contrasts to one another. There is Magnus's wife Mary who finds herself caught up in the world of her husband's creation and who, in the end, is trying to find her husband both physically and emotionally. There are Ricky Pym's partners in crime such as Syd Lemons who also drift in and out of Magnus's life as well or the group of CIA men who try to convince the British that Pym is not all that he seems. Each of these characters (and many others as well of course) makes for fine portraits of those who in some size, shape or form fit into the jigsaw puzzle that is the life of Magnus Pym.

For a jigsaw puzzle is exactly what Magnus Pym's life, and by consequence the novel itself, is. In chapters that virtually alternate across the 590 pages the novel switches between the present where Brotherhood and Mary search for Pym plus try to cope with what he has done and the past as Pym in letters to his son Tom (and in an oddly detached third person perspective as well) recounts his childhood and rise in British intelligence. The result is a blend of spy thriller (as the hunt for Pym intensifies along with proof of his double life) and the memoirs of a Pym who seems to fast be approaching the end of his road. In other words the present chapters are used to set up the puzzle of events that Pym is about to recount from his past. The sections where Pym recounts his past come across as much stream of consciousness as Pym seems to float from one aspect of his life to another in a not always chronological or even logical for that matter and (and least in the earliest parts chronologically) come from the author's own life as well. The result is a jigsaw puzzle that, with its lengthy chapters and at times stream of consciousness narrative, that requires the reader to pay quite a bit of attention and spend quite a bit of time on it as well (that is coming from someone who is generally a fast reader and just spent three plus months reading this). The result though is a rewarding work to read even if it is not for all tastes.

While the narrative style and page count might be off putting to some out there for others A Perfect Spy is a fine read and perhaps le Carre's best novel. From perhaps the strongest of le Carre's main characters in Magnus Pym to his fine cast of supporting characters (especially Ricky Pym) the novel is full of real flesh and blood human characters. It is also a fascinating trip down the history of the Cold War yet it is more then just that. It is also a trip down the jigsaw puzzle of what le Carre himself has called "the secret path": the path of the spy, the man who must lie and betray to survive. As much a human drama as a spy thriller A Perfect Spy isn't to be missed.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in August 2001.

One of le Carré's non-Smiley novels, A Perfect Spy is far more about the psychological pressures which create a secret agent than about the mechanics of spying itself. It is part of le Carré's move away from writing genre thrillers that really began with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Magnus Pym is quite a senior operational officer, who has been running networks of British spies in Czechoslovakia for many years. After the death of his father Rick, Pym goes missing, and it begins to look as though he has been a double agent all this time.

His father's death leads Pym to take stock of his life, and he writes its history, principally detailing his relationships with Rick Pym and Czech spy Axel. Some of this is a bit confusing, as in his memoirs Pym refers to himself in the present as "I" and in the past as "Pym". Rick is the formative influence on Pym as a person, and he is the novel's major problem as far as I am concerned. Like Shamus in The Naive and Sentimental Lover, he is meant to be charming, but comes across as obnoxious. He is a con-man, with massively grandiose schemes, alternately successful and falling through. The qualities that Magnus inherits from him are the charm and the ability to put together and carry off a successful lie, at least for a time. This, and his allegiance to himself over any patriotic sentiment makes him a perfect spy in the eyes of Axel.

Basically, if you dislike Rick, as I did, the first two thirds of the novel will be heavy going. As far as I am concerned, le Carré is unable to portray charm; it is a difficult characteristic to put across, but all his characters who are supposed to have it seem to me to be unpleasant, self-centred and unscrupulous. The novel is part of le Carré's ongoing attempt to write likeGraham Greene, but he doesn't have that kind of talent.