Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy–le Carré

At WorldCon last month, I was in a session and someone recommended this book. I know that I read it in the 1980s, I’m sure of it. I also remember a certain scene and some certain specific characterizations of the main character, ousted British spy George Smiley, from decades ago. I was excited to revisit the Cold War, and started listening to it in early September.

There has been a recent upheaval in the British Secret service, and many of the top people were forced out. But when one spy comes in with a secret, that there is a high level mole in the upper echelons of the agency, who can they trust, and who can they believe?

I was absolutely enthralled with the very specific spycraft scenes (I don’t think it’s a spoiler) such as the one where one character goes to the “Circus” (a proxy for MI6) to steal a file from the library, or where another character tries to lose his pursuers in Czechoslovakia. However, I wonder how this book would land to a modern reader who didn’t grow up with the almost constant fear of nuclear annihilation. It is a relatively slow read, with long, wonderful descriptive passages of characters and their thoughts. Even the spycraft scenes are not action packed, but instead, filled with tension. Perhaps calling back to how it really was back in the 1970s. But there are no cell phones, no computers, just paper and pencil (and gun) spies working their covert operations and managing their sources abroad.

As I got closer to the end of the book, the one specific scene I remembered just wasn’t happening, and then it wasn’t there at all, so I did a quick search online and found that the scene I remember is actually in the next-next book after this one. Not “The Honourable Schoolboy,” but “Smiley’s People.” I do not remember reading those two books, but it is possible I read the omnibus edition that had all three in it? I do have a vivid memory of this book and how it looked in the bookcase in my bedroom when I was in high school, so maybe I needed to keep reading after I finished it. I certainly felt that way after finishing “Tinker Tailor,” and immediately reserved the next book for my next read.