I have yet to read Graham Greene’s famous spy satire Our Man in Havana, but I’m familiar with the premise and am well aware that John Le Carré is aping it here. He’s having a blast splattering colored paint on the immaculately white walls of British imperialism. Until he remembers that these characters have stories, hearts and lives too. That’s what makes The Tailor of Panama so fascinating. Transparently a satire of western intelligence work, Le Carré also paints vivid portraits of characters whose lives are impacted by […]
A spy, a Scottish detective, and a gender-less narrator walk into a book
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: 3/5 Stars Sometimes when I have seen the movie version of a book first, I run out the same day and find a copy of the book. Sometimes I even go read books for movies coming out even if I have no desire to see the movie, just in case I ACCIDENTALLY see the movie. I am not saying it’s sane; it’s just what I do. With this one, I saw the movie a few years back and I think I […]
My First Le Carre
So this book was originally published in the 1960’s I believe. You can tell only a little bit in my opinion. Obviously the technology is very dated, and the way of doing things is a little bit too. It didn’t really bother me though. I got caught up in the action and the stories. George Smiley has a lot of stories. This is the first book where Smiley appears. There’s apparently seven books with him as the main character. I like him. It’s really hard […]
“Any country that would sacrifice a little liberty to gain a little security, deserves neither and will lose both”
When I was younger, my father told me that it is important to read the classics, the old masters. However, a person who only reads old stuffy tomes, tends to be a bit pretentious and what is worse, often boring. To avoid this worse-than-death fate, my father advised me to also be sure to read silly, weightless books, junk food for the mind he called it. And so when I was a child I picked up authors that would never be taught in any literature […]