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The Looking Glass War / A Small Town In Germany
A Small Town In Germany
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1965
6 people are currently reading
50 people want to read
About the author
John le Carré
378 books9,503 followersJohn 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.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 26, 2019
Among my most favorite terms in analyzing books or movies is one attributed to Alfred Hitchcock: The McGuffin.
A McGuffin is something that everyone in the story wants and acts as a complicated devise, but it is never what the story is truly about.
Another thing I like about the cold war world of John Le Carre’ is that the spy business is never about slick high-speed driving, hi tech gadgets and ladies who know what they want in lover. Le Carre’s agents are working stiffs. Making do with too little money and tracking expenses. Rarely eating richly and mostly reading the documents. Spy craft is grinding, dull and deadly when ignored.
A surface read of the Looking Glass war is that it is about spies learning trade craft and going after super some cold war super-secret whatzit. Indeed, we get lots of pages of secret meetings and training and what happens if your trade craft is not up to standard. Of course, the agent in the field can assume no one will have his back and the fate of the good guys is in his hands.
The ending of Looking Glass War has haunted me for years. Reading it one more time still has me shaken by it conclusion but seeing, if only a little better that the quest for the thing is secondary.
What is driving people? What do even the mid-level bureaucrats owe to King, country and his wife? This is the 1960’s it was always the wife back at home. Are the late nights and the secrets and the intensity really worth it?
A careful read is that the infighting between HRM’s bureaus may be more important than agent training. But ultimately John Le Carre’ is always asking about love, loyalty and duty. What are the motives of the characters? What do they really hold dear?
Also, in this volume is A Small Town in Germany. Again, and far more deliberately there are things being sought. Too many important things and the suddenly missing embassy, non-permanent, permanent local staffer who seems to have made himself too valuable and too omni present.
Headquarters trouble shooter, clean up man and no one’s friend Alan Turner arrives at the British Embassy in Bonn to determine what damage was done if the missing Leo Harting is a Soviet Spy. Making every part of his messy assignment that much more difficult is that Germany is on the threshold of electing a possible new Hitler.
Why asks Alan, does a spy steal? Why was he so visible, after the fact, in making up to, betraying and even sleeping his way into deep dust covered corners? Everyone has an opinion of and experience with Leo. No one knows him.
At the time John Le Carre; was writing these books he was doing; we still do not know what things as an employee of British Secret Agencies MI5 and MI6. Clearly, he was using as raw material what he was living. Just as clearly these are novels using the secret world to ask us to think about more than who has what plans or other secret things.
A McGuffin is something that everyone in the story wants and acts as a complicated devise, but it is never what the story is truly about.
Another thing I like about the cold war world of John Le Carre’ is that the spy business is never about slick high-speed driving, hi tech gadgets and ladies who know what they want in lover. Le Carre’s agents are working stiffs. Making do with too little money and tracking expenses. Rarely eating richly and mostly reading the documents. Spy craft is grinding, dull and deadly when ignored.
A surface read of the Looking Glass war is that it is about spies learning trade craft and going after super some cold war super-secret whatzit. Indeed, we get lots of pages of secret meetings and training and what happens if your trade craft is not up to standard. Of course, the agent in the field can assume no one will have his back and the fate of the good guys is in his hands.
The ending of Looking Glass War has haunted me for years. Reading it one more time still has me shaken by it conclusion but seeing, if only a little better that the quest for the thing is secondary.
What is driving people? What do even the mid-level bureaucrats owe to King, country and his wife? This is the 1960’s it was always the wife back at home. Are the late nights and the secrets and the intensity really worth it?
A careful read is that the infighting between HRM’s bureaus may be more important than agent training. But ultimately John Le Carre’ is always asking about love, loyalty and duty. What are the motives of the characters? What do they really hold dear?
Also, in this volume is A Small Town in Germany. Again, and far more deliberately there are things being sought. Too many important things and the suddenly missing embassy, non-permanent, permanent local staffer who seems to have made himself too valuable and too omni present.
Headquarters trouble shooter, clean up man and no one’s friend Alan Turner arrives at the British Embassy in Bonn to determine what damage was done if the missing Leo Harting is a Soviet Spy. Making every part of his messy assignment that much more difficult is that Germany is on the threshold of electing a possible new Hitler.
Why asks Alan, does a spy steal? Why was he so visible, after the fact, in making up to, betraying and even sleeping his way into deep dust covered corners? Everyone has an opinion of and experience with Leo. No one knows him.
At the time John Le Carre; was writing these books he was doing; we still do not know what things as an employee of British Secret Agencies MI5 and MI6. Clearly, he was using as raw material what he was living. Just as clearly these are novels using the secret world to ask us to think about more than who has what plans or other secret things.
March 26, 2018
2/8-2/9/18 : The Looking Glass War - 3.75* - Gives a great illustration of the mundane and tedious work that comes with being an intelligence agent, antithetical to the glamorous Bond inspired notion our culture conjures up upon hearing "British spy". In many cases (I suspect), as in this one, the tedium is to no end and for no purpose, unbeknownst to many of the players involved.
3/24-3/26/18 : A Small Town in Germany - 3.5* - More enjoyable Le Carre fare. Enjoyed the internal moral questions facing some of these characters. Found even more enjoyable that the answers to these questions are ambiguous at best, as I am still not sure what the "right" resolution was in my mind.
3/24-3/26/18 : A Small Town in Germany - 3.5* - More enjoyable Le Carre fare. Enjoyed the internal moral questions facing some of these characters. Found even more enjoyable that the answers to these questions are ambiguous at best, as I am still not sure what the "right" resolution was in my mind.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 23, 2008
Being a spy is not what it's cracked up to be.
June 27, 2012
Good stuff, always a safe fallback position if you're going away and don't want to risk being caught with a duff book. Don't read them for anything uplifting!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews