Munehito’s Comments (group member since Jan 27, 2025)

Munehito’s comments from the Espionage Aficionados group.

I'm not sure if it's properly a "spy novel," but what hooked the twelve-year-old me was The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins. I was already into history, and the story of honorable German soldiers going on a suicide mission to kill Churchill resonated with me.

Around the same time I read The Day of the Jackal, after watching its 1973 movie adaptation. The precision of the narrative along with the Jackal's ultra-professionalist character impressed me so deeply that he became...my role model? He's kind of Japanese (like being punctual and stuff).

Those two books defined my future taste. They led me to Greene, le Carre and other great writers.

From my Japanese perspective, there are big differences in "tea" itself. There are more layers.

When we say "tea" in Japan at home, it usually means drinking green tea. When we say "Let's have some tea" while being outside, it usually means black tea (like Earl Grey) or coffee. There are a lot of cafes all over Japan, and most of them are western-style ones selling non-green teas/coffee.

However, our convenience stores sell everything: green tea, oolong tea, black tea, etc. If you are asking someone to get you tea, you need to specify the kind you want. "Get bottled green tea with no sugar," for example. We also rely on popular product names, like "Ooi ocha (Hello, tea)" or "Gogo no kocha (Black tea for afternoon)."

I have visited China a few times, and had a canned tea once in Beijing. The flavor was very different from what I'd expected; it was cloyingly sweet, which astounded my uneducated tongue. However, as I didn't live there so I can't make a sweeping assessment.

I guess I drank soda while visiting South Korea as a kid back in 1998. I have no recollection of what their tea tasted like.

When I wrote a story set in East Asia (Japan, Korea, China), I incorporated the above observation: the word "tea" can mean different things with very different flavors across the area.

Interesting question; there are two different questions bundled into one, I feel.

First is; was it necessary to release a new Smiley novel and expand the universe?

Second is; did Harkaway succeed in creating a new Smiley novel (given the constrains and all)?

I believe the answer to the first question is absolutely no. I guess the publisher saw huge financial opportunities, and nudged him to write one. After all, we le Carre fans couldn't have resisted it, and I certainly couldn't. So it was an easy success for the publisher (definitely not an easy work for the author, I reckon).

The answer to the second depends on readers, however. I can see that some don't like it. The plot sometimes felt like a procession of lip services to loyal readers, especially how it focused on Hans-Dieter Mundt's character. I wondered if any new readers could fully enjoy the narrative, as the book demands in-depth knowledge about the Circus history, including the ret-conned part from A Legacy of Spies.

As a fan of le Carre and the espionage genre, I believe Harkaway did a brilliant job, considering how tightly the universe had already been crafted. He managed to insert his own tale into it while retaining a plausible, if not perfect, consistency.

In many ways this work reminds me of Trigger Mortis, a 2015 James Bond novel by Anthony Horowitz. Trigger Mortis has this similar, slightly uneasy tension being a sequel/prequel; the early part of the story features Pussy Galore from Goldfinger, while the latter half tells a completely new story.

Karla's Choice, however, had even greater difficulties to surmount than Trigger Mortis. The book had to make Karla's character consistent. Rather, it had to abide by the original setting spelled out in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and the other two trilogy novels.

Smiley met Karla only once briefly, in person, before the latter was sent back to Moscow. Smiley remembers Karla's iron determination, his strange smoking habits and his lighter. He knows about Karla's history as a boy.

The only quibble I have with Karla's Choice is that Smiley's first acknowledgement about Karla's existence was told in Tinker, where he relates to Peter Guillam about the enigmatic Russian spymaster as if he was making a confession. It was a confession on Smiley's part, actually, for having fallen for Karla for a moment that time. Karla's Choice retroactively compromises the dramatic effect of that revelation by introducing Guillam in this prequel to Tinker. That makes that Guillam had already known about Karla when Smiley made that confession in Tinker.

Still, it was a very minor issue with me. I loved how organically Jim Prideaux was integrated into the narrative. I always felt le Carre himself underused Prideaux in the original trilogy and A Legacy of Spies, favoring Guillam instead.

Overall, I enjoyed it. Yes, there are minor issues, but I don't care. We shouldn't care. A Smiley book or not, this is a well-written story, and don't we all want to read good stories?

Thank you, Feliks!

I've checked my privacy setting, and changed "Who Can Send Me Private Messages" to "Anyone" (I hope this works). I understand your policy given your role here, no worries. Excited to be part of this wonderful community!

Hi, I'm Munehito Moro and I've published two of my books this year. I'm a Japanese author living in Japan, but write in English.

One is titled Empire of Blood: An Alt-History Espionage Tale of Power, Intrigue, and War. It's my first full-length, English-language novel.

It is set in an alternate universe where the Axis won the war, with Japan retaining its colonies. The plot revolves around the assassination of a (fictional) Japanese princess and Imperial Japan's brutalities in Asia (which really happened). I wrote it as an entertaining window into the dark past of my country.


The other one is more lighthearted (though harder to write): Talking Cure: A Psychological Thriller of Depression and Rebirth in Japan. It's a story of a young American woman who suffers depression and dreams of coming to Japan for her love of anime. She then gets recruited by the CIA for a mysterious mission.

I also had clinical depression, and I fictionalized that experience to craft a spy story.

Do take a look at my profile if the above premises intrigue you.

Hello, I'm Munehito from Japan. I have grown up here devouring Fleming, le Carre, Forsyth (they were translated into Japanese). The Day of the Jackal started my craze around 12.

I wrote my BA thesis on James Bond around the time Skyfall came out. I love both books and movies.

To prove my devotion to the genre, I've also penned my own stories, too. Nice to meet you all.