Date: 26 February 2021
Location: Zoom
A dozen bookers participated in the Zoom session. About half of us actually made it through this classic 1974 spy novel by John le Carré (David Cornwell).
This was a complex book–not something you could just skim though. Numerous characters came and went throughout the story, and keeping them all straight required paying attention. Also, much of the jargon was unfamiliar. Some terms would become clear from their context; others were best figured out by Googling the many references to the novel.
The story itself centers around George Smiley’s attempt to root out a mole (a Soviet double agent) filling one of the highest positions in the Circus, Britain’s intelligence service MI5. Smiley and the former head of the Circus, the now deceased Control, had been kicked out of the organization when an important operation ended in disaster. Of course, this was all orchestrated by Karla, the head of Moscow Center, and the mole who now held one of the top four positions in the Circus.
When Ministers overseeing the Circus received solid information about the presence of a mole, Smiley was clandestinely charged to find out which of the four top officials was the double agent working for Karla. He began secretly seeking information from former colleagues about different operations and the individuals involved. He also tasked reliable Circus employees into getting (stealing) copies of classified files and records which were not available to him. Needless to say, there was a lot of skullduggery going on, involving a host of different people. Eventually, of course, Smiley devises a plot that forces the mole to take drastic action and betray himself in the trap that Smiley had laid.
Many of us watched the 2011 movie based on the novel. While there were some differences, the main story line in the movie was fairly close to that of the book. Smiley’s search for the mole was compelling and believable, and the heightening of the tension was well done. The ending to the movie was more dramatic than that of the book; and to me it was more satisfying–there was no ambiguity about who did what to whom, and Smiley’s return to the Circus as Control was a nice touch.
— Bob