Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Bantam Doubleday Dell (1984), Edition: First Edition, Mass Market Paperback
Description
In this enthralling and thought-provoking novel of Middle Eastern intrigue, Charlie, a brilliant and beautiful young actress, is lured into 'the theatre of the real' by an Israeli intelligence officer. Forced to play her ultimate role, she is plunged into a deceptive and delicate trap set to ensnare an elusive Palestinian terrorist. THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL is a thrilling, deeply moving and courageous novel of our times.
Media reviews
Mr. le Carré's novel is certainly the most mature, inventive and powerful book about terrorists-come-to-life this reader has experienced. It transcends the genre by reason of the will and the interests of the author. The story line interests him but does not dominate him. He is interested in
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writing interestingly about things interesting and not interesting. Terrorism and counterterrorism, intelligence work and espionage are, then, merely the vehicle for a book about love, anomie, cruelty, determination and love of country. ''The Little Drummer Girl'' is about spies as ''Madame Bovary'' is about adultery or ''Crime and Punishment'' about crime. Mr. le Carré easily establishes that he is not beholden to the form he elects to use. This book will permanently raise him out of the espionage league, narrowly viewed. Show Less
Guardian
The conversion of Charlie into the goat tethered to catch the lion (Kurtz’s phrase) is a remarkable piece of writing. It takes a long time to get the goat tethered, and some of the Kurtz-Litvak activities seem drawn out or unlikely, in particular a passage of knockabout comedy with Charlie’s
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agent. Yet when the operation begins, and Charlie moves deeper and deeper into the Palestine terrorist movement, one sees that the preparations were necessary to our full belief and understanding. The balance between the two violent idealisms is finely kept, and there is a glimpse or anticipation of ‘the ultimate recourse’, the brutal invasion of Lebanon that actually took place. Among a large cast of convincing minor characters the German terrorist Helga and the foxy political middleman Dr Alexis are particularly good. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member Larou
One thing I like and admire about John Le Carré’s work is that he is not content to rest on his (by this, his tenth published novel, considerable) laurels, but time and again ventures out of his comfort zones into unexplored territory. The departure in The Little Drummer Girl is not quite as
Another thing I like and admire about John Le Carré’s novels (of which I have read ten now, mostly in chronological order; unfortunately my reading Smiley’s People fell in the middle of a writing slump, though, so there is no review by me on that) and in fact what I consider his main importance and greatest impact as a writer is the way he uses genre plots to tell a completely different story from the one he appears to be telling. He is often praised for his realism, and while I suppose his deptiction of the world of spies and spooks as one of intrigue and bureaucracy comes closer to what is actually going on in secret service than Ian Fleming’s James Bond, I do not think that realism is what makes him such an outstanding author. What fascinates me most about his novels are the things going on underneath the surface of the plot, whole caverns of glittering metaphor and dazzling allegories which Le Carré both hides and reveals by sleight of hand, making me think of him as the stage magician among British 20th century authors. Or maybe more a juggler than a magician (a title that, for various reasons, might be more appropriate to Christopher Priest – another author who manages to strike surprising literary sparks from genre flint) in the way he keeps not only a complicated, intrigue-filled plot in the air but also deep, fascinating character studies and the above mentioned allegorical sub-texts with apparent ease and only very rarely dropping anything.
The Little Drummer Girl seems to split Le Carré’s reading public in those that think it one of his worst and those that consider it one of his best; interestingly, there appears to not much middle ground between the two positions. To not keep in anyone in suspension (I’m sure you’re all holding your breath right now) – I’m among the latter, and find myself having great difficulties to understand why this brilliant novel has attracted so much fervent dislike. One reason for it is probably precisely the novel’s unfamiliar setting, and I suspect that another might be another area where Le Carré here leaves his comfort zone, namely by making a female character the protagonist of this novel.
There is a persistent opinion that Le Carré cannot write female characters – something I personally think he conclusively refuted with Maria Ostrokova in Smiley’s People and now does again with Charlie, the titular protagonist of The Little Drummer Girl. One does sense the effort he put into getting the female perspective right (in fact, one maybe senses it just a bit too much – I am certain that for this novel Le Carré researched the female experience just as thoroughly and meticulously as he did the Isreali-Palestinian conflict) and I think he largely succeeded, making her one of his most fascinating characters and her increasingly despairing descent into confusion about what her real feelings are and who she really is both compelling and harrowing to read.
Even with those differences from most of his previous work, The Little Drummer Girl is on one, and the most immediately accessible, level a story of espionage; and that the opposing sides are not Great Britain and the Soviet Union but rather Israel and Palestine serves only to make ethical matters even more gray and doubtful – in Cold War stories, however much they might show morals as irretrievably muddled, there still is a firm underlying certainty that capitalism and freedom is preferable to communism and dictatorship. Nothing of the kind in this conflict – Le Carré takes great pain to present arguments for and against both sides of the conflict, to show the suffering as well as the ruthlessness of both Israelis and Palestinians. Readers who before reading The Little Drummer Girl were inclined towards one side or the other might find that – at least if they keep an open mind – by the end of the novel they have lost many of their certainties regarding it.
This is certainly what happens to Charlie, except in a much more radical way. She is emphatically left-wing and pro-Palestinian at the novel’s beginning; but she is also an actress, and from the start there is a slight but pervasive doubt whether her political convictions are truly felt or just a role she assumes. While there is a multitude of characters and viewpoints, Charlie is clearly at the centre of the novel: the whole plot revolves ultimately around her, she is both seduced and seducer, victim to as well as spinner of the intrigues that drive the novel forward. But in a way that centre is empty, or rather indeterminate, a kind of epistemological smear.
Charlie is an actress, so her identity is somewhat uncertain to start with, always dissolving into the roles she plays or has played, which she in turn makes vivid by infusing them with her own personality. She falls in love during a vacation in Greece, unaware that the man she finds herself attracted to is a member of the Israeli secret service which has plans for her. She is to help finding a Palestinian terrorist the Israeli are after, by posing as the fictitious lover of his brother. But while Charlie never met the brother, and the story is a hence a fake, she has met and fallen in love with the Israeli agent who poses as said brother, and hence the story is true. I do not want to go into too much detail here to not spoil the deft and clever ways in which Le Carré spins his intrigues, but it soon becomes obvious that the true focus of The Little Drummer Girl is (not really surprisingly) not so much te espionage story but rather the way the reality and fiction spin around each other in dizzying tempo until they blur into each other and finally become pretty much indistinguishable. Between her fictitious lover and her real one, her political convictions and the acts of espionage that directly contradict those, between her memories and the fake documents of her life the Israeli secret services produces Charlie finds it harder and not only to distinguish between outside reality and fiction but feels any certainties about her inner life slipping away from her, too, until she know hardly any more what she really feels and who she really is.
All of this is orchestrated by Le Carré in a manner that not only keeps the reader engaged but also involves him to some part – the great number of narrative points of view, the large personnel and the opaque intrigues, small details like that most characters in this novel have more than one name add up to keep readers not only on the edges of their seats but also themselves on the edge of confusion and while that confusion obviously never becomes as existential as Charlie’s, it does make it palpable to some degree, hopefully pushing readers to give some thought about the matters of reality and identity The Little Drummer Girl chiefly is about underneath its surface – as well as about the way those matters relate back into the political conflict which fuels the surface the plot (and of course they do relate back, in a multitude of ways).
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radical as it was in The Naive and Sentimental Lover where he left the thriller genre completely, but here we find him moving away not only from his protagonist George Smiley but also the Cold War setting where he seemed to have found his narrative home and instead turn his writerly attention to the Israeli-Palestine conflict instead.Another thing I like and admire about John Le Carré’s novels (of which I have read ten now, mostly in chronological order; unfortunately my reading Smiley’s People fell in the middle of a writing slump, though, so there is no review by me on that) and in fact what I consider his main importance and greatest impact as a writer is the way he uses genre plots to tell a completely different story from the one he appears to be telling. He is often praised for his realism, and while I suppose his deptiction of the world of spies and spooks as one of intrigue and bureaucracy comes closer to what is actually going on in secret service than Ian Fleming’s James Bond, I do not think that realism is what makes him such an outstanding author. What fascinates me most about his novels are the things going on underneath the surface of the plot, whole caverns of glittering metaphor and dazzling allegories which Le Carré both hides and reveals by sleight of hand, making me think of him as the stage magician among British 20th century authors. Or maybe more a juggler than a magician (a title that, for various reasons, might be more appropriate to Christopher Priest – another author who manages to strike surprising literary sparks from genre flint) in the way he keeps not only a complicated, intrigue-filled plot in the air but also deep, fascinating character studies and the above mentioned allegorical sub-texts with apparent ease and only very rarely dropping anything.
The Little Drummer Girl seems to split Le Carré’s reading public in those that think it one of his worst and those that consider it one of his best; interestingly, there appears to not much middle ground between the two positions. To not keep in anyone in suspension (I’m sure you’re all holding your breath right now) – I’m among the latter, and find myself having great difficulties to understand why this brilliant novel has attracted so much fervent dislike. One reason for it is probably precisely the novel’s unfamiliar setting, and I suspect that another might be another area where Le Carré here leaves his comfort zone, namely by making a female character the protagonist of this novel.
There is a persistent opinion that Le Carré cannot write female characters – something I personally think he conclusively refuted with Maria Ostrokova in Smiley’s People and now does again with Charlie, the titular protagonist of The Little Drummer Girl. One does sense the effort he put into getting the female perspective right (in fact, one maybe senses it just a bit too much – I am certain that for this novel Le Carré researched the female experience just as thoroughly and meticulously as he did the Isreali-Palestinian conflict) and I think he largely succeeded, making her one of his most fascinating characters and her increasingly despairing descent into confusion about what her real feelings are and who she really is both compelling and harrowing to read.
Even with those differences from most of his previous work, The Little Drummer Girl is on one, and the most immediately accessible, level a story of espionage; and that the opposing sides are not Great Britain and the Soviet Union but rather Israel and Palestine serves only to make ethical matters even more gray and doubtful – in Cold War stories, however much they might show morals as irretrievably muddled, there still is a firm underlying certainty that capitalism and freedom is preferable to communism and dictatorship. Nothing of the kind in this conflict – Le Carré takes great pain to present arguments for and against both sides of the conflict, to show the suffering as well as the ruthlessness of both Israelis and Palestinians. Readers who before reading The Little Drummer Girl were inclined towards one side or the other might find that – at least if they keep an open mind – by the end of the novel they have lost many of their certainties regarding it.
This is certainly what happens to Charlie, except in a much more radical way. She is emphatically left-wing and pro-Palestinian at the novel’s beginning; but she is also an actress, and from the start there is a slight but pervasive doubt whether her political convictions are truly felt or just a role she assumes. While there is a multitude of characters and viewpoints, Charlie is clearly at the centre of the novel: the whole plot revolves ultimately around her, she is both seduced and seducer, victim to as well as spinner of the intrigues that drive the novel forward. But in a way that centre is empty, or rather indeterminate, a kind of epistemological smear.
Charlie is an actress, so her identity is somewhat uncertain to start with, always dissolving into the roles she plays or has played, which she in turn makes vivid by infusing them with her own personality. She falls in love during a vacation in Greece, unaware that the man she finds herself attracted to is a member of the Israeli secret service which has plans for her. She is to help finding a Palestinian terrorist the Israeli are after, by posing as the fictitious lover of his brother. But while Charlie never met the brother, and the story is a hence a fake, she has met and fallen in love with the Israeli agent who poses as said brother, and hence the story is true. I do not want to go into too much detail here to not spoil the deft and clever ways in which Le Carré spins his intrigues, but it soon becomes obvious that the true focus of The Little Drummer Girl is (not really surprisingly) not so much te espionage story but rather the way the reality and fiction spin around each other in dizzying tempo until they blur into each other and finally become pretty much indistinguishable. Between her fictitious lover and her real one, her political convictions and the acts of espionage that directly contradict those, between her memories and the fake documents of her life the Israeli secret services produces Charlie finds it harder and not only to distinguish between outside reality and fiction but feels any certainties about her inner life slipping away from her, too, until she know hardly any more what she really feels and who she really is.
All of this is orchestrated by Le Carré in a manner that not only keeps the reader engaged but also involves him to some part – the great number of narrative points of view, the large personnel and the opaque intrigues, small details like that most characters in this novel have more than one name add up to keep readers not only on the edges of their seats but also themselves on the edge of confusion and while that confusion obviously never becomes as existential as Charlie’s, it does make it palpable to some degree, hopefully pushing readers to give some thought about the matters of reality and identity The Little Drummer Girl chiefly is about underneath its surface – as well as about the way those matters relate back into the political conflict which fuels the surface the plot (and of course they do relate back, in a multitude of ways).
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LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
It begins with the 19th Century picture of the child with the smashed drum facing a number of irritated soldiers. The caption relates that the drum was smashed by the French Drummer boy rather than the boy take up a new life drumming for the German soldiers who are fighting Napoleon. The story of
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how Mossad recruits a sympathizer with the Palestinians and finally uses/betrays her into being part of an-anti-Hezbollah operation. First rate about how it's done in the shadow world of international intrigue. An excellent cautionary tale. Don't read the last half when depressed already. Show Less
LibraryThing member awilson
I have read this twice and it's time to read it again.
LibraryThing member BBcummings
One of his best. I enjoyed this book on many levels. Le Carre does a good job in developing the character of Charlie, a cut-rate actress with radical left leanings suffering from low self-esteem, who is recruited as a mole to ferret out a terrorist bomber. The Mossad operatives are also well
Events in the story are disturbingly realistic showing the ruthlessness required for the counter-terrorist game. The author spent a lot of time researching this book in Lebanon and other places in the Mid-East, and clearly shows sympathies to the Palestinian plight. I liked it so much I read it twice. Not recommended for those readers only interested in thrills and action, which is general advice for all of Le Carre's works.
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portrayed as cold and vengeful.Events in the story are disturbingly realistic showing the ruthlessness required for the counter-terrorist game. The author spent a lot of time researching this book in Lebanon and other places in the Mid-East, and clearly shows sympathies to the Palestinian plight. I liked it so much I read it twice. Not recommended for those readers only interested in thrills and action, which is general advice for all of Le Carre's works.
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LibraryThing member jwrudn
After watching the TV miniseries on AMC, I decided to re-read this book. The plot is Israeli intelligence recruits a left leaning British actress for the theater of the real: She is to pose as Palestine sympathizer to trap a bomber who uses young women to carry out his missions. Although it is
I enjoyed the book on this second reading, particularly, the writing and sophisticated plot. Although I found it a bit slow moving, it does accelerate to a climax. Again, as typical in Le Carré’s novels, the climax leaves much unresolved.
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necessary that she be indoctrinated in the Palestinian point-of-view, she falls in love with her Israeli handler. Through vivid pictures of place, character and psychology, Le Carré makes this implausible plot plausible. As usual the spy craft is meticulous. The description of the Israeli vs. Palestinian conflict is sophisticated and not simplified to good vs. bad, and, as usual in Le Carré’s novels, neither side is innocent.I enjoyed the book on this second reading, particularly, the writing and sophisticated plot. Although I found it a bit slow moving, it does accelerate to a climax. Again, as typical in Le Carré’s novels, the climax leaves much unresolved.
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LibraryThing member sinaloa237
Certainly a masterpiece from JohnLe Carré but for some reason I don't understand I have been very slow in getting to the end.
Interesting mix between a spy game and a love affair, surrounded by matters of terrorism between Palestin and Israel. Beautiful portrait of a woman who finds herself in the
Interesting mix between a spy game and a love affair, surrounded by matters of terrorism between Palestin and Israel. Beautiful portrait of a woman who finds herself in the
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middle of a game she does not master. Show Less
LibraryThing member libraryhermit
I was visiting a used bookstore in a small city (Stettler, Alberta)and found a little section at the back where you could fill a whole plastic grocery shopping bag for $14. The books that were eligible were all racked up on a kind of table and each book had a triangle-shaped small section snipped
For some bizarre and irrational reason, I had resisted reading this author up until then because I thought that the only book I knew about, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, was too old, and maybe out of date. I still have not read it, and have maintained my preference for work from the 1980s forward through the reading of about 6 books so far. Of course the whole idea that I started out with makes no sense at all, and when I finally get around to reading some of his earlier work, I am sure I will not be disappointed.
The way I started on this author is very similar to how I started on another author, Len Deighton. I was in an Edmonton shop that has since closed, unfortunately. It was just north of the Whyte Avenue Chapters store and I think it was called Athabasca Books. They consistently had a table of $1 books, and I found 7 or 8 Len Deighton books, and scooped them all up. Since then I have read every single one of them, and more, and am completely delighted.
Perhaps I will get around to reviewing them. As a new member of Library Thing, I only have a very few books listed in my collection. I like to review every book that I list, and therefore, logging on all the books that I have been reading for the last 35 years will take a very long time, if I ever get finished. I do observe that some people have listed close to the full number of all the books that they claim to have read. Quite admirable, I must say.
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off the front cover. I think this was how that store indicated their last ditch effort to sell these books. In that pile, I found about 4 or 5 Pan editions of John le Carre books, and of course I took them all. That was the first time I ever read John le Carre and have read several of his books since then.For some bizarre and irrational reason, I had resisted reading this author up until then because I thought that the only book I knew about, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, was too old, and maybe out of date. I still have not read it, and have maintained my preference for work from the 1980s forward through the reading of about 6 books so far. Of course the whole idea that I started out with makes no sense at all, and when I finally get around to reading some of his earlier work, I am sure I will not be disappointed.
The way I started on this author is very similar to how I started on another author, Len Deighton. I was in an Edmonton shop that has since closed, unfortunately. It was just north of the Whyte Avenue Chapters store and I think it was called Athabasca Books. They consistently had a table of $1 books, and I found 7 or 8 Len Deighton books, and scooped them all up. Since then I have read every single one of them, and more, and am completely delighted.
Perhaps I will get around to reviewing them. As a new member of Library Thing, I only have a very few books listed in my collection. I like to review every book that I list, and therefore, logging on all the books that I have been reading for the last 35 years will take a very long time, if I ever get finished. I do observe that some people have listed close to the full number of all the books that they claim to have read. Quite admirable, I must say.
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LibraryThing member JoAnnSmithAinsworth
I drool at his ability to create complex characters. I’m trying to learn as I read, but we write in such different styles.
LibraryThing member br77rino
Le Carre leaves Britain behind and heads for southern Europe and the Levant. The Israelis are the agent runners in this one, although it's not well explained how they got the agent, Charlie, to run. She seemed mostly unwilling, but for unexplained reasons did it anyway.
This is one of Le Carre's
I've been reading all of Le Carre's spy novels chronologically and this is the weakest of the lot since "A Small Town In Germany," which was marginally better.
This is one of Le Carre's
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bigger books, at 534 pages. Le Carre spent an enormous amount of time on the "interview" of Charlie by the Israelis. (Way too much. It should have been cut down, especially since it didn't really add much to the story, other than letting us know that the Israelis spent an enormous amount of time talking endlessly to Charlie.)I've been reading all of Le Carre's spy novels chronologically and this is the weakest of the lot since "A Small Town In Germany," which was marginally better.
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LibraryThing member tzelman
His best. An Israeli plant in a terrorist circl.e. Charlie's some actress
LibraryThing member BooksForDinner
Typically great Le Carre. He is always great at letting things unfold at a slow pace, and a few times in this novel I thought it might have been a bit TOO slow, but overall excellent. As always, his characters are living, breathing people. Looking forward to the AMC production later this fall.
LibraryThing member PDCRead
Classic spy novel by Le Carré, with a blackmail and sting operation
LibraryThing member christinejoseph
Actress Charlie, double agent - acting in theater of real for Joseph - Israeli - Terrorists
In this thrilling and thought-provoking novel of Middle Eastern intrigue, Charlie, a brilliant and beautiful young English actress, is lured into "the theatre of the real" by an Israeli intelligence officer.
In this thrilling and thought-provoking novel of Middle Eastern intrigue, Charlie, a brilliant and beautiful young English actress, is lured into "the theatre of the real" by an Israeli intelligence officer.
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Forced to play her ultimate role, she is plunged into a deceptive and delicate trap set to ensnare an elusive Palestinian terrorist. Show Less
LibraryThing member tmph
A re-read. It's long. It's seemingly tedious at some points. But, boy, is it good and powerful with a very clean, though abrupt end.
LibraryThing member applemcg
My 2nd and last le Carré. My mistake was drawing a route map of handles and associations of spycraft. The master of fog remains impenetrable.
LibraryThing member Daniel_M_Oz
Whilst a spy genre novel, the narrative here is quite a different approach and focuses more on the physiological aspects of the main protagonist. The book is slow to get moving (it’s around 500pgs) but the second half is quite engaging.
The story shows how spy’s can be selected but more so, how
Whilst not Le Carre’s best work it is well worth a read for those interested in exploring the spy genre in more depth and breadth
.
The story shows how spy’s can be selected but more so, how
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well double agents can be trained so as to appear genuine. It also shows how they be motivated to work in such a complex and murky world.Whilst not Le Carre’s best work it is well worth a read for those interested in exploring the spy genre in more depth and breadth
.
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LibraryThing member thisisstephenbetts
The plot revolves around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rather than Le Carré's familiar milieu of the cold war. That said, he does kinda fit his plot into his familiar cold war devices - and this is essentially a story of espionage. This initially caused me a few reservations, as I'd expected
I thought the writing was excellent too - skillfully edging the narrative voice into the subjective reality of the protagonist just enough to give an impression of their mindset and smear our objective clarity, without it becoming too tricksy or distracting.
Actually not a bad introductory Le Carré I think.
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it to be less like his previous novels than it appeared on first flush - there's an analogue for Smiley, and even for his occassional cadre of misfits; he returns again to England-on-the-wane than. But despite the superficial similarities - his tradecraft as he might himself have it - this book definitely moves beyond Le Carré's previous works, and is better for it. He manages to pull off an international setting without the histrionics of The Honourable Schoolboy. On the conflict itself, Le Carré is at pains to be even-handed - showing people of all stripes on all sides - though it is very clear that he believes that horrors have been committed against innocent Palestinians. In part this 'balances' the Palestinian villains of the piece, though that would be an over-simplification of Le Carré's nuanced portayal.I thought the writing was excellent too - skillfully edging the narrative voice into the subjective reality of the protagonist just enough to give an impression of their mindset and smear our objective clarity, without it becoming too tricksy or distracting.
Actually not a bad introductory Le Carré I think.
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LibraryThing member thorold
We're in the late 70s, and a Palestinian terrorist group has been making a series of successful attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets in Western Europe. The Israelis recruit a young British woman, the radical actor Charlie, and set up an ingenious and complicated backstory that will allow her to
As usual in le Carré, this is not so much an action thriller as a dark study of the psychology of deception, especially about the deep need we have to believe in something, and about the complicated relationship between personal love and affection and the loyalty we have to ideologies and nations. Charlie has no particular affection for the state of Israel, but is led into the Israeli service by the bond she has built up with her handlers; when she finds herself in Lebanon with the Palestinians she starts to build up equally strong personal bonds of loyalty and affection with them, until she's in a situation where she is going to have to betray one or both. I suppose you could say that Le Carré has been writing different versions of the same book ever since The spy who came in from the cold, but there's nothing necessarily wrong with that.
This is obviously Le Carré trying to get away from George Smiley and the Cold War after Smiley's people, and he's careful to distance himself from the safe home ground of his earlier books, bringing the British spy agencies in only to remind us what a mess they made in Palestine in the 1940s. Equally, he tries to avoid taking sides in the Middle East, showing us what the conflict looks like both from the Palestinian point of view and the Israeli point of view. If he is pushing a moral line, it's in a rather low-key way: Both sides have suffered appalling wrongs which can't sensibly be compared, and both sides are committing further unjustifiable atrocities in trying to avenge those wrongs, but the Israelis are doing so from a position of overwhelming force, making their actions far worse. Which is about the level of moral guidance we are entitled to expect from popular fiction. And we can't really criticise John le Carré for not coming up with a solution to the Middle East crisis in 1983, given that 35 years later, and several wars and Nobel Peace Prizes further on, the situation still seems as irreconcilable as ever.
Le Carré has said in interviews and in The pigeon tunnel that the character of Charlie was loosely inspired by his sister the actress Charlotte Cornwell. However, there's a weird twist to this: the fictional Charlie claims to have had a childhood that has a lot in common with the real background of the Cornwell family - con-man father going to prison, unpaid school fees, bankruptcy, etc. - but it turns out that this is just a romantic fiction she has made up because she found her real middle-class, suburban background too ordinary for drama-school.
Another oddity: Charlie is said at one point to be repairing "an embroidery picture ... showing Lotte in Weimar pining to death over Werther’s tomb." This is obviously meant as some sort of sophisticated joke for readers "in the know" - le Carré studied German and is not the sort of person to get his German literature mixed up unintentionally - but there's no kind of follow-up to it, it simply sits there. Strange.
Not one of his most successful books, perhaps, but it has some very good bits in it, notably the big scene where the Israeli agent Kurtz persuades Charlie to work for him.
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infiltrate the group and lead them to Khalil, its the elusive leader. As usual in le Carré, this is not so much an action thriller as a dark study of the psychology of deception, especially about the deep need we have to believe in something, and about the complicated relationship between personal love and affection and the loyalty we have to ideologies and nations. Charlie has no particular affection for the state of Israel, but is led into the Israeli service by the bond she has built up with her handlers; when she finds herself in Lebanon with the Palestinians she starts to build up equally strong personal bonds of loyalty and affection with them, until she's in a situation where she is going to have to betray one or both. I suppose you could say that Le Carré has been writing different versions of the same book ever since The spy who came in from the cold, but there's nothing necessarily wrong with that.
This is obviously Le Carré trying to get away from George Smiley and the Cold War after Smiley's people, and he's careful to distance himself from the safe home ground of his earlier books, bringing the British spy agencies in only to remind us what a mess they made in Palestine in the 1940s. Equally, he tries to avoid taking sides in the Middle East, showing us what the conflict looks like both from the Palestinian point of view and the Israeli point of view. If he is pushing a moral line, it's in a rather low-key way: Both sides have suffered appalling wrongs which can't sensibly be compared, and both sides are committing further unjustifiable atrocities in trying to avenge those wrongs, but the Israelis are doing so from a position of overwhelming force, making their actions far worse. Which is about the level of moral guidance we are entitled to expect from popular fiction. And we can't really criticise John le Carré for not coming up with a solution to the Middle East crisis in 1983, given that 35 years later, and several wars and Nobel Peace Prizes further on, the situation still seems as irreconcilable as ever.
Le Carré has said in interviews and in The pigeon tunnel that the character of Charlie was loosely inspired by his sister the actress Charlotte Cornwell. However, there's a weird twist to this: the fictional Charlie claims to have had a childhood that has a lot in common with the real background of the Cornwell family - con-man father going to prison, unpaid school fees, bankruptcy, etc. - but it turns out that this is just a romantic fiction she has made up because she found her real middle-class, suburban background too ordinary for drama-school.
Another oddity: Charlie is said at one point to be repairing "an embroidery picture ... showing Lotte in Weimar pining to death over Werther’s tomb." This is obviously meant as some sort of sophisticated joke for readers "in the know" - le Carré studied German and is not the sort of person to get his German literature mixed up unintentionally - but there's no kind of follow-up to it, it simply sits there. Strange.
Not one of his most successful books, perhaps, but it has some very good bits in it, notably the big scene where the Israeli agent Kurtz persuades Charlie to work for him.
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LibraryThing member picardyrose
My favorite after the Smiley books. The movie wasn't as bad as its reviews.
LibraryThing member jklugman
A vapid, vaguely radical actor is recruited by noble Israeli spies to infiltrate a Palestinian terrorist cell, populated mostly by dumb people killing Jews in the diaspora, who nevertheless kind of have a point (at least about their grievances). Given the course of the occupation, and the benefit
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of hindsight, it is hard to take this novel seriously, especially since Palestinian organizations have not targeted the diaspora. It kind of has a quality of shrugging your shoulders and saying "what are you going to do" and seems to be mostly sympathetic to the Israelis and their super capable, cunning, nearly omniscient intelligence services who can surgically target violent militants while maintaining ethical commitments (...yeah, that has not been born out). The psychological trauma inflicted on Charlie, the protagonist, and the double consciousness she experiences, is kind of interesting, but early on in the novel she did not seem that deep to really be bothered by the facade. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Edgar Award (Nominee — Novel — 1984)
LA Times Book Prize (Finalist — Fiction — 1983)
Language
Original publication date
1983
Physical description
6.7 inches
ISBN
0553239813 / 9780553239812
Local notes
OCLC = 3357