Year's off to a subpar pace in terms of books-read. A Perfect Spy is wonderful. At the end of the day I still think Tinker, Tailor is Le Carre's masterpiece but the two books are very different from one another. A Perfect Spy is very personal, very intimate. I heard a podcast recently in which two writers debated whether Le Carre or Ian Fleming was the greater spy novelist (nothing against Fleming but lol no contest) and the guy arguing for Le Carre pointed out that male love is a major theme of his writing. That is certainly true, and never more overtly than in A Perfect Spy. In this case, specifically about the love between sons and fathers and how searching for a father figure can go badly awry. It's a beautiful and sad story.
One quibble: He gets DC and "American" dialogue wrong. Jarring for such a careful writer, and such a master of dialogue! No one says they're "in the Mall," one is "on the Mall." The position of various monuments is dubiously described. And no American I've ever met would say, "Let's shake your hand," when they mean, "Shake my hand." Come on, John! Unless of course that's just to say consistent with the voice of the protagonist -- the book shifts from first to third person often and the first person narrative itself switches between first- and third-person references as the protagonist describes his past. But it doesn't seem consistent, the American recollections stand alone and they're out of step with the character's mastery of adaptation.
One quibble: He gets DC and "American" dialogue wrong. Jarring for such a careful writer, and such a master of dialogue! No one says they're "in the Mall," one is "on the Mall." The position of various monuments is dubiously described. And no American I've ever met would say, "Let's shake your hand," when they mean, "Shake my hand." Come on, John! Unless of course that's just to say consistent with the voice of the protagonist -- the book shifts from first to third person often and the first person narrative itself switches between first- and third-person references as the protagonist describes his past. But it doesn't seem consistent, the American recollections stand alone and they're out of step with the character's mastery of adaptation.
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