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by Barnabas M Ahern
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by Judy Cooper
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by John D. Macdonald
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by John Wesley Howard
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Smiley's People
by John Le Carre
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Bantam Books (1982-05)
ISBN: 0553251988
EAN: 9780553251982
Mass Market Paperback
SKU: mon0000028532
Condition: Good
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
From the author of THE HONOURABLE SCHOOLBOY, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY and THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, a Cold War thriller in which George Smiley, chief of the British Secret Service, prepares to engage in his final battle with his Soviet counterpart.
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Customer Reviews
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I regret every moment spent on this book
Rating  (1)
Date: 2008-09-12
0 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
thiS book was given to me as a gift and was highly recommended
i really hated it
there is no surprise no action
very predictable
and the author style is annoying like when he says : " she's 31, or was she 21?" how the hell should now? you're the one telling the story
i hoped that in the end there will be some action to compensate the 22 chapters of emptyness but unfortunatly even the end was disappointing
i don't recommend this book
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needs to have the fat boiled off
Rating  (2)
Date: 2008-07-22
3 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
Sadly, I only read half the book - couldn't stomach any more than that. Yes, the book has some good stuff in there: a few flesh-and-blood characters, bright moments of tension, a decent plot underneath it all. But my god, this book PLODS, and after 190 pages I coudln't take it. Where's a good editor when you need one?
My gripes:
1) Way too much irrelevant description - about people's faces, their clothes, cityscapes, trees, apartments - AAAAH, we don't need to know!!!
2) Too many irrelevant details about the characters' personal lives. I don't CARE about Smiley's relationship with his wife or girlfriend Ann, let alone to have the same details restated fifty ways.
3) Le Carre has an annoying way of taking forever to get to the point. This technique is fine as long as there is tension, but this book lacked it.
I tried skimming for a while, but who wants to skim a spy novel? So I quit. FRUSTRATING!
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The Karla trilogy
Rating (2)
Date: 2008-03-13
1 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
Smiley's People was a bit beter for me than the others in the Karla trilogy.
But the trouble with it, like the others, is 1) its set in the cold war, in a dreary time for England (the malaise of the 1970s) and 2) its is devoid of setting.
The books don't have a reference - a way of "framing" - the setting. Its Smiley, plodding through the past via convoluted conversations with ex-Circus people that take pages and pages to get through. The fact that it lacks "action" is not by itself bad, but combined with the lack of setting it makes for a tedious and in some parts miserable read. It really just does not stimulate the reader - I wonder how many people have been turned off to serving their country by reading these books:)??
It needs more ancillary characters, more players; and less retirees.
These books do, of course, have a place in literature - but they are not for the average reader. More of a s-l-o-w drama than spy fiction...
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Back to his best
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-02-13
Le Carre picks up the thread of Smiley's pursuit of Karla as it was at the end of Tinker, Tailer . . . , the first book in the series, with barely a reference to the second. And like the first, this is a return to the spare, taut writing that makes Le Carre's best writing classic, without the overplotting and "literary" touches that marred the second.
Le Carre writes with omnipresent omniscience, getting in every character's head, selectively, sometimes pulling the story forward, sometimes pushing it forward, a style that works best with Le Carre's spare prose. And the last 100 pages push the reader forward inexorably, having reached that tipping point of good suspense or mystery writing beyond which the reader must finish without interruption.
My plan now is to stop reading Le Carre now and double back to the Vollman novel Europe Central (see my review here)
Europe Central
which retrospectively covers the same ground and see if there are touch points of similarity, congruity, or extreme difference that cast light on the time and place.so central to the history of the 20th Century but so fast fading in the distant rear view of the 21st.
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Smiley's swan song
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-10-14
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
Smiley's People is the final installment of the trilogy that tells of the struggle between George Smiley, British spy extraordinaire, and Karla, his Russian counterpart. George is called out of retirement to investigate the death of a Russian defector from his earlier days at the agency. As usual the trail is absolutely Byzantine, but it leads him toward an opportunity that could finally bring his nemesis Karla down. I won't reveal any more of the plot because novels like this depend too much on the specific twists and turns for their entertainment value.
To some extent, it's a waste of time reviewing the third book in a trilogy. If you haven't read them, you should really read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Honourable Schoolboy before even thinking about this book. If you have, and liked them, you want to know how the story ends and you'll read Smiley's People regardless of the reviews. If you didn't like them, then even glowing reviews probably won't be enough to get you across the finish line. For the few people on the fence, here's my two cents.
Le Carre' is an undisputed master of the spy novel and in many respects he's on the top of his game here. Of the three books in the trilogy, this was by far the easiest and most straightforward to read. It's the only one that uses a classic third party narrator perspective and the story is relatively simple (for a spy novel). I found the story and many of the characters interesting. It moves along at a steady pace and there was a sufficient sense of menace to feel some tension even if the stakes aren't as high as some of the other stories.
On the negative side, George and his dithering about a wife who cheats on him constantly has gotten a bit tiresome for me. And the ending seemed contrived to show us that George's life has lost all meaning both personally and professionally. This was not exactly satisfying to me after investing about 1300 pages or on the character. I would also warn readers that Le Carre' gives away the ending in the Introduction to the book... a truly foolish thing to do no matter how long it's been in print.
All in all, I recommend this book. If you've read the first two books and enjoyed them then it's worth finishing. It's also easier to read than the first two so if you've struggled with that at all, you can take heart.
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