![]() ![]() ![]() By the way, the 1979 serial adaptation of Tinker Tailor starring Alec Guinness is probably the best TV drama ever made. This book inaugurates the “Karla trilogy”, named after Smiley’s wily Soviet counterpart, so you will want to follow it up with The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley’s People (1979). In the novel, it becomes clear that someone within the Circus is actually working for the Soviets, so Smiley – with his exhausted melancholy, his catastrophic love life, and his lovably pedantic skills of inquiry – is brought out of retirement to hunt him down. This is the definitive story of a molehunt, inspired in part by the treachery of KGB spy Kim Philby, who Le Carré has said blew his cover and ended his intelligence career. What is being spelled out here, I think, is that George’s devotion to Ann is a conscious and psychologically advanced choice, one he has made because he knows what he is about. If you have understandably forgotten the rationale behind this book’s title after seeing the exquisitely confusing film version with Gary Oldman, then one of the great pleasurable “Aha!” moments in modern fiction awaits you. ![]()
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