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A review by lanceschaubert
Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré
4.0
Dima may well be the funniest, wildest, crassest character in the Le Carre canon. All in all, this is a decent book. Certainly not Le Carrie’s best, but some key moments in this book illumine all of Le Carrie’s books:
• It maddens me how meticulous a storyteller Le Carre can be. The entire story comes down, in one way or another, to a professor and a tennis match and a bit of wiring on an emergency door. The tiniest details become so significant with Le Carrie’s deft hand
• The quiet of the novel and in all of his work stands at a stark contrast to James Bond. You can have a double homicide in a Le Carre novel and the mere lack of response is precisely why builds tension
• The craft of spying is never so well written as with John.
Great to see a master at work, even in a minor work.
But, having finished it, the double tragedy of two friends caught up in the mystical and mystifying web of spies — the sheer unknowns of how these things end for any poor souls involved — leaves us with the sort of ache we might have felt had we too been mere academics asked, while on summer break, to fetch some intelligence for our various countries of origin, only to watch the key members fall and fail.
We don't know why things explode, why they perish, where they go, from whence they come — we, like the citizens of the [b:The Men in Black: Initiation · Encounter · Invocation|3298393|The Men in Black Initiation · Encounter · Invocation|Lowell Cunningham|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1478043904l/3298393._SY75_.jpg|3335104] world, can only go about our merry lives if we *do not know about it*
And so we find ourselves watching planes take off from tarmacs and ships leaving port peacefully, only to find out about some utter devastation in the papers the next day that have no cause in terror, theft, money laundering, or any other typical nefarious purpose. The peace of spies comes not in lack of violence, wholeness, or sabbath.
But simply a Wittgensteinian move: that in terms of international relations, we speak about all we can speak about, but the rest we must pass over in silence.
• It maddens me how meticulous a storyteller Le Carre can be. The entire story comes down, in one way or another, to a professor and a tennis match and a bit of wiring on an emergency door. The tiniest details become so significant with Le Carrie’s deft hand
• The quiet of the novel and in all of his work stands at a stark contrast to James Bond. You can have a double homicide in a Le Carre novel and the mere lack of response is precisely why builds tension
• The craft of spying is never so well written as with John.
Great to see a master at work, even in a minor work.
But, having finished it, the double tragedy of two friends caught up in the mystical and mystifying web of spies — the sheer unknowns of how these things end for any poor souls involved — leaves us with the sort of ache we might have felt had we too been mere academics asked, while on summer break, to fetch some intelligence for our various countries of origin, only to watch the key members fall and fail.
We don't know why things explode, why they perish, where they go, from whence they come — we, like the citizens of the [b:The Men in Black: Initiation · Encounter · Invocation|3298393|The Men in Black Initiation · Encounter · Invocation|Lowell Cunningham|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1478043904l/3298393._SY75_.jpg|3335104] world, can only go about our merry lives if we *do not know about it*
And so we find ourselves watching planes take off from tarmacs and ships leaving port peacefully, only to find out about some utter devastation in the papers the next day that have no cause in terror, theft, money laundering, or any other typical nefarious purpose. The peace of spies comes not in lack of violence, wholeness, or sabbath.
But simply a Wittgensteinian move: that in terms of international relations, we speak about all we can speak about, but the rest we must pass over in silence.