John Le Carre doesn\u2019t give a shit what you want.\u00a0 You combine that with a career in intelligence; you\u2019ve already got most of a writer.<\/p>\n
John\u2019s spy yarns, probably not that well known among the post cold war generations, leave the reader feeling breathless and abused.\u00a0 The events of his stories unfold with no hint of \u00a0mercy, either for the reader or the characters.\u00a0 Le Carre\u2019s universe, not unlike our own, is indifferent.\u00a0 This cosmic indifference gives the reader the sense that what he is reading has happened somewhere.\u00a0 It must have.\u00a0 It can\u2019t be just a story.\u00a0 Which is Le Carre\u2019s gift.<\/p>\n
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a Le Carre story I have not yet read.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read others and I own this one, but I decided to delay after I heard Gary Oldman was playing George Smiley in a feature film adaptation.\u00a0 And I was right; the movie was fantastic.<\/p>\n
Smiley is brought out of retirement by \u2018The Circus\u2019 (MI5 and MI6) to find a very highly placed Soviet mole.\u00a0 It looks like this occurs in the later 70\u2019s judging by hair and clothing.\u00a0 He is working directly for the Prime Minister and nobody in MI6 knows he\u2019s investigating.\u00a0 He is brought back because it has to be one of a group of his friends that is the mole and it\u2019s obviously not him because he was forced to retire after losing an undercover operative.\u00a0 So the operation is bare bones and is only Smiley and another man who still works for the circus (the awesome Benedict Cumberbatch).\u00a0 One of Benedict\u2019s main functions is to steal classified material from the circus (makes for some very tense entertainment).<\/p>\n
Apparently there\u2019s a classic british mini-series version of this story with Alec Guiness that I\u2019m going to have to track down.\u00a0 That\u2019s how good this movie was, I now want to track down a longer older version just to bask in the story longer.\u00a0 But, seriously, this film is almost nothing besides notable British actors talking in rooms.\u00a0 And it\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n
**Spoiler (kind of)<\/p>\n
Best line: Smiley comes face to face with the mole and asks him whether the Russians had planned for him to become head of the circus.\u00a0 The mole remarks,\u201d I\u2019m not their bloody office boy.\u201d\u00a0 Smiley\u2019s reply,\u201d Then what are you?\u201d\u00a0 with all of Oldman\u2019s quiet thunder.<\/p>\n
See this film, it\u2019s good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Le Carre doesn\u2019t give a shit what you want.\u00a0 You combine that with a career in intelligence; you\u2019ve already got most of a writer. John\u2019s spy yarns, probably not that well known among the post cold war generations, leave … Continue reading