Perennial Favorite: Smiley
Interesting oeuvre, not one I ever expressed interest in, before, but a back door, via Mick Herron, again, as a gift of the character, Davenport and that Fucking Flowers, finds me with John Le Carre.
“The mind becomes separated from the body; it thinks without reality, rules a paper kingdom and devises without emotion the ruin of its paper victims.” Page 27, (Call for the Dead.)
Timeless observation, even against current events.
Instead of jumping in, in media res, went back and grabbed a library copy of the first in the series. From there it was on to the second.
“I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy.” Page 7.
Think I’ve observed that a time or two before, cf., this horoscope.
“We have a proverb that it always snows at Carne in the long nights. That is the traditional term here for the nights of Lent,” D’Arcy replied. Page 57.
Strange literary echo, reading this during the great ‘snow apocalypse’ of 2021, dark nights of the Lenten season, and locally, buried under inches of snow?
Reminded me of one school, chapel was compulsory — participation was not. These days? I volunteer.
Set against a background of a British public school, looks to be a private establishment in the keeping to the strictest of perceived British protocols, there is murder and mayhem afoot, and Smiley is on the hunt.
East Berlin, West Berlin, and the Cold War, against the background of the great freeze of 2021?
Set against my current surroundings, makes this one more enjoyable. Espinage. Counter-intelligence. Cold War, The.
“London won—that’s the point. It was a foul, foul operation. But it’s paid off, and that’s the only rule.” Page 202.
But I thought London Rules.
“Any writer who imagines he has a career is the fool of fashion and circumstance. He has his books, and he has his artistic conscience, which, if he is any good, is a great deal more rigorous than anybody else’s judgment.” In the introduction, from the author, added in 1991.
Then, it’s a function my sister made me aware of, yet, there it is, and I can dredge it up, based on place, time, present weather. The old airport, vestiges of it still standing, and there’s the memory. No, different airport, but the type of place, Austin’s old Mueller Airport the memory runs deep.
The opening scene in The Looking Glass War is set in minor, regional airport, and those are all the same. I was just thinking of the bar that used be at the mezzanine level in Austin’s old architecture. To have a dated novel evoke a memory? The power of the prose, or captive imagination — Mid-Century Modern predates me.
“Leclerc remarked with impish piety, ‘We should never do that to our master; our common master.’” Page 79.
Must use that. I looked over, “You know I’m the boss, right?”
“Of course you are,” she replied — with impish piety.
Words, words, words…
“And Bob’s your uncle,” as they say.
“There are always a dozen reasons for doing nothing,” Ann liked to say—it was a favourite apologia, indeed, for many of her misdemeanours—“There is only one reason for doing something. And that’s because you want to.” Or have to? Ann would furiously deny it: coercion, she would say, is just another word for doing what you want; or for not doing what you are afraid of.” Page 80.
At its heart, the nature of humanity?
