SlowRain reviewed The Looking Glass War by John le Carré
Review of 'Looking Glass War' on Goodreads
2 stars
A department of British military intelligence has picked up a piece of information regarding secret Soviet missiles in East Germany. An operation is mounted to train a man and send him in to verify the information.
I'm slowly going back and reading Le Carré's earlier novels. I've now read all of his espionage novels. The only one I haven't yet read is his non-espionage The Naive and Sentimental Lover. With all of that as background, I'd say not to bother with this one unless you're a Le Carré completist. While the narrative shows the early promise of the brilliant stylist that is to come, the rest of the novel falls flat.
There is some discussion of the office politics that became the hallmark of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but otherwise the characters are unremarkable. We care nothing for them, we just observe their failings from a distance. The …
A department of British military intelligence has picked up a piece of information regarding secret Soviet missiles in East Germany. An operation is mounted to train a man and send him in to verify the information.
I'm slowly going back and reading Le Carré's earlier novels. I've now read all of his espionage novels. The only one I haven't yet read is his non-espionage The Naive and Sentimental Lover. With all of that as background, I'd say not to bother with this one unless you're a Le Carré completist. While the narrative shows the early promise of the brilliant stylist that is to come, the rest of the novel falls flat.
There is some discussion of the office politics that became the hallmark of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but otherwise the characters are unremarkable. We care nothing for them, we just observe their failings from a distance. The plot lacks the complexity of his later novels, and there is no sense of suspense or intrigue. Part of this is because of the lengthy training, which le Carré handles infinitely better in novels like The Little Drummer Girl and The Russia House.
The ending of the novel improves a bit, but it's a little too late at that point. It also gets a bit sentimental as well, which feels incongruent to the lead-up.
Le Carré was at his best from 1974 to 1989. That's the place to focus. His post-Cold War novels are hit-and-miss, but they're still better than his early works when he was still developing his craft.
