[Wellsy]

Anything by le carre is worth reading and you could just start with order of publication and read Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality, both of which are more murder mystery books with Smiley investigating Deaths.

His first proper spy thriller is The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, which is great. Not really a Smiley book but he often references characters through his works.

The Karla trilogy is where Smiley comes back and is Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People, all of which are amongst his best.

So basically depends how many of his books you have time for. But they are all bloody good so really you could just start with Call For The Dead and go from there.

[adam w]

D

I've never read any John le Carre - where does one begin?

Depends a bit on which part of modern history you're interested in. Cold War,  Post-Cold War etc. Most books are stand alone, but the books featuring George Smiley benefit from being read in order. I think the Smiley novels are the "classic" Carre so I'd start with them even though he doesn't really get into his stride until The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_le_Carr%C3%A9#George_Smiley_and_related_novels

[spidermonkey09]

I'd start with The Spy Who Came in From The Cold. Definitely the most accessible from those that I've read.

Small Town in Germany is also good, and I enjoyed The Constant Gardener from his more recent work. Tinker Tailor is brilliant as well. I still haven't to reading the other two in the trilogy yet.

One I didn't get on with was A Perfect Spy, just found it really opaque and hard to get into. I would highly recommend reading this article before you get going, as it explains a lot about his idiosyncratic style and his curious habit of making the reader feel like a moron; its not you, its a deliberate technique!

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/fiction/2021/01/prose-style-john-le-carr

Le Carré does have his cake and eat it all the time. He will tell you the facts he wants you to know and then he will deliberately withhold information. A significant part of the famous complexity of Le Carré’s fiction comes from the adroit manipulation of these double standards.

One instance will have to suffice. In The Honourable Schoolboy there is a classic example of this withholding technique. Halfway through this long novel (by far Le Carré’s longest) George Smiley receives a report from an agent named Craw about a key target’s movements in and out of mainland China. This report gives Smiley “a rare moment of pleasure”. Clearly, Smiley has spotted a solution to a vital mystery.

“But don’t you see?” [Smiley] protested to Guillam… “Don’t you understand, Peter?” – shoving Craw’s dates under his nose… “Oh, you are a dunce.” “I’m nothing of the kind,” Guillam retorted. “I just don’t happen to have a direct line to God, that’s all.”

Le Carré, the novelist, knows the significance of Craw’s report. So does George Smiley, a character in the novel. But Peter Guillam, another character, doesn’t know. And, of course, neither does the reader. This feeling of not wholly understanding what’s going on, of missing the point, is something Le Carré finesses regularly, with great skill.

This is a genuine Le Carré device – almost his trademark. The immediate consequence is that readers feel a bit stupid; they urge themselves to pay more attention; to read more closely – but there’s nothing they can do. In fact Le Carré, if he is to play by the strict rules of omniscient narration, shouldn’t be indulging in this. He could easily tell us what the significance of Craw’s report is, but in this instance he chooses not to. This pointed withholding is an illicit trick, in literary terms, but very, very effective in a novel of espionage. “God” in this instance is the novelist, and Le Carré has just cut the lines of communication.

[Will Hunt]

Thanks all. I think I'll start with TSWCIFTC and see how it goes from there. Last question: if I've watched the Tinker Tailor film (2011) and the TV adaptation, do I need to read Tinker Tailor before moving to the second book of the Karla trilogy. I picked up on a lot of subtext in the TV adaptation which I don't think was there in the film (I've seen it a couple of times and I don't think I noticed/it wasn't described the relationship between Haydon and Prideaux, which gives the final scene of the film a very different context) - maybe there's more that's important to reading the second book?

[Duma]

I know nothing about the series or book, but the haydon prideaux relationship is definitely implied in the film.

[Will Hunt]

I know nothing about the series or book, but the haydon prideaux relationship is definitely implied in the film.

I must have been too busy trying to figure out everything else that was going on 

[seankenny]

Just finished "Goodbye to All That" by Robert Graves. It's a memoir of his early life, starting at Charterhouse and mostly covering his years as an officer in the WW1 trenches. It's good if somewhat understated on the horrors of trench warfare. I found "All Quiet on the Western Front" to have far stronger imagery, but the thing was so awful a little goes a long way: the wounded officer stuck in a no man's land crater within shouting distance of his platoon whose body was found with his fist in his mouth, to prevent him crying out and so sparing his men the risk of an almost certainl fatal rescue attempt.

Graves is particularly good on his first "show", the Battle of Loos, in which officers order the attack go ahead despite the engineers warning against it. Poison gas gets blown back on the British soldiers, it's total chaos, A and B platoons get massacred, Graves clearly only survives because he's leading D and by that point they decided to pause for a moment. Coming on the back of a year of upper class incompetence and callousness I felt that we'd not come so far in a century.

What really pissed me off about the book is Graves' attitudes to class and race. Only the officers get named, the rank and file are just "the men" and he shows little real interest in them. His racial attitudes are awful: he clearly regards French North African soldiers as savages and regards them purely as figures of fun. The presence of non-white soldiers in Europe is regarded as an abomination, and Graves makes it clear he shares that view. Just typical of the attitudes of his age? Well, Graves makes a lot in his book of how he becomes a socialist, abandons religion and grows to hate the English ruling classes. And by this point Tagore has already won the Nobel for literature (something a fellow poet must surely have been aware of), the likes of Nehru and Jinnah had studied in the UK and Dadabhai Naoroji had become Britain's first Asian MP. Graves clearly sees the world through a racial, religious and sectarian prism, with English and German Protestants at the top and an order entirely as you would expect, and this is far more salient than any new-found egalitarianism.

[andy popp]

I've never read any Graves and still wish I had, despite your observations.

On class and race, when I'm reading a historical document (which a biography is), then I treat it as a degree of access, however imperfect, to that person's thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes. It's who they were that matters and is interesting (I don't say this from a position of complete disconnect. My maternal grandfather, whom I knew, was an ordinary gunner in Royal Artillery Corps during WW1 and fought on the Somme, where he was gassed). I'm currently reading the hundreds of unpublished letters of a young Ohio couple exchanged during 1917-18. Because I'm in contact with their granddaughter I know they led good lives and were active in unionism and suffragism. And in their youth they were shockingly racist, talking about "race suicide" and more. Those comments reveal to me so much about the culture in which they lived, much more than it does about them personally. Not saying you're wrong to feel pissed off with Graves though.

The other great British WW1 novel is Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End: a masterpiece. I'd also recommend a relatively unknown French novel, Henri Barbusse's Under Fire, based on his own service. Remarkably, it was published in 1916. Be warned, it makes All Quiet on the Western Front look like a pleasant picnic.

[Johnny Brown]

I read The White Goddess about twenty years back, after Julian Cope made much mention of it in The Modern Antiquarian. It had quite an influence on me at the time but I suspect my adult scepticism may have hardened to a point where it is unwise to revisit.

Only first world war novel I've read is Birdsong, which I was very impressed by, some powerful imagery. I gave up on the Tv adaptation though... didn't have a strong image of the lead character in my head but the guy they cast just seemed completely wrong.

[seankenny]

I really enjoyed I, Claudius, it's a great romp and so much fun. I saw the TV adaptation of Parade's End and it was amazing.

I went back to the literature of the Edwardian period because, as I think I've mentioned to Andy elsewhere but not on here, I've been given a copy of my grandfather's diaries, from the early 1920s to the early 1980s, and I wanted to get some light on the world he grew out of. (I've been meaning to write something on this "book" for this thread...) My grandad was a deeply progressive man and I've found no sign of racism or anti-semitism at all - the worst is using the n-word in a description of someone who's been cleaning out a coal bunker, which seems pretty mild for the 1940s. As the 1930s progress he is visibly upset by the treatment of the Jews in Germany and Italy, and he describes Gandhi's assassination as "an awful affair, one of the outstanding world figures gone."

As you say, this says something about the culture my grandad came out of - comfortably middle class, liberal and outward looking but not particularly socialist. Admittedly the examples above come a few years after Graves wrote his book, but Graves was a self-proclaimed radical and a writer, not a provincial architect. That's what left the bad taste in my mouth. I actually went back to the biography of Nehru and the like to see just what the most go-ahead of the Empire's subjects were doing at the time, to get a sense of what a well-informed Englishman could expect - or was dismissing. In a similar vein I also checked out some of the VCs awarded to soldiers in the British Indian Army. Clearly I'm not familiar with the radical politics and attitudes of the early 20th century, but I had the same sense I got when reading Doris Lessing on the Sixties. Anger and rebellion, but with the essence of things staying the same.

[andy popp]

I went back to the literature of the Edwardian period because, as I think I've mentioned to Andy elsewhere but not on here, I've been given a copy of my grandfather's diaries, from the early 1920s to the early 1980s, and I wanted to get some light on the world he grew out of. (I've been meaning to write something on this "book" for this thread...) My grandad was a deeply progressive man and I've found no sign of racism or anti-semitism at all -

As you say, this says something about the culture my grandad came out of - comfortably middle class, liberal and outward looking but not particularly socialist. Admittedly the examples above come a few years after Graves wrote his book, but Graves was a self-proclaimed radical and a writer, not a provincial architect. That's what left the bad taste in my mouth.

It's trite, but true - history is messy and people are awkward and contrary, often escaping our (and their) boxes. As your grandad clearly did. I would love to read more about his diaries one day.

I thought with Graves it might be largely down to class, the British upper classes of the day being, in general, pretty antisemitic, so I went looking and he was very solidly middle class.

Interesting aside; Graves' mother was Amalie Elisabeth Sophie von Ranke, niece of Leopold Von Ranke, who can be fairly described as the founding father of history as practiced today, famous for the dictum that the role of the historian was to tell "Wie es eigentlich gewesen it"  ("the way it really was").

[andy popp]

And he was taught by George Mallory at Charterhouse.

[remus]

A Memory Called Empire & A Desolation Called Peace (Arkady Martine, Tor Books)

Thanks again for the recommendation jwi, I finished A Memory Called Empire a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. I thought it had a bit of a Dune vibe about it: lots of politics, lots of setup and a big expansive universe that you can get lost in.

Started A Desolation Called Peace yesterday and psyched to get stuck in!

Other recent reads:

All quiet on the western front by Erich Maria Remarque and translated by Brian Murdoch. Rightly famous, and makes me extremely glad I've never been involved in a war.

The Hard Truth: Simple Ways to Become a Better Climber by Kris Hampton (aka Power Company Climbing). Kinda interesting, but it's a collection of blog posts and it shows. You'd be better off just reading the original blogs.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. 'Easy reading' doesn't get much easier! It's about some residents of a retirement village who solve crimes. Interspersed with some pretty bleak scenes of everyone around them getting dementia, going senile and dying.

The Last Day by Andrew Hunter Murray. Interesting SciFi/dyspotian fiction, set in a world where the earth has stopped spinning. It's an interesting concept and it's explored well. I enjoyed this one, though it does feel pretty bleak in places.

[Rocksteady]

Recent reads:

On a WW1 note currently reading Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth, which is a very well-written exploration of the Great War experience as a non-combatant member of the 'lost generation'. Also makes you very glad that you didn't grow up during a war.

The Broken Empire Trilogy by Mark Lawrence. Probably the most grimdark fantasy I have read, replete with graphic violence, torture etc. At times I didn't really enjoy it because of this, but I think it's well written and in the ending I thought struck a note of hope that somewhat redeemed the monochrome bleakness of the rest of the story. If you enjoy Cormac McCarthy and like fantasy you will like this.

The Sword of Kaigen, Self-published fantasy, previous winner of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off (SPFBO). Set in a fantasy dystopian version of Japan where some people have elemental magic powers. First three-quarters is exceptionally good, reads like a Marvel superhero movie but the characters actually have emotional depth. The last quarter I felt was anti-climactic, sort of seemed to lead up to a sequel that in fact doesn't exist and apparently isn't planned. But still a solid 4* read for me, highly recommended.

The Lost War by Justin Lee Anderson. Another previous SPFBO winner, a well-written engaging story in a really interesting setting of a country that has won a war but been devastated in the process. Story has a good twist.

Orconomics & Son of a Liche by J.Zachary Pike. Final SPFBO tip. I'd give this duology 5* as it perfectly achieves what it set out to do. I think would appeal to Terry Pratchett fans. It's a satire where the author has spun out a world based on the economies of MMORPGs and Dungeons & Dragons. So essentially everything revolves around looting dungeons and powerful monsters, even to the extent that you can buy financial derivatives and packaged futures based on expectations of loot. And the behaviour of the characters in the story is dictated by the absurdity of the economy, with obvious commentary on the state of our own capitalist system. Very clever, extremely geeky, funny and good. The best of it is the story and characters are amazing and keep you really engaged throughout i.e. the conceit doesn't overwhelm the story.

[jwi]

Recent reads:


The Broken Empire Trilogy by Mark Lawrence. Probably the most grimdark fantasy I have read, replete with graphic violence, torture etc. At times I didn't really enjoy it because of this, but I think it's well written and in the ending I thought struck a note of hope that somewhat redeemed the monochrome bleakness of the rest of the story. If you enjoy Cormac McCarthy and like fantasy you will like this.

I read the The Broken Empire a few years ago. The idea for the world was very much borrowed from Zelazny's "This Immortal", mixed with some of the more unbalanced characters from the Icelandic sagas. I remember the first book as good, the second as great and the third as meh. Liked the books enough to check out his series of books about the psycho killer nuns (Red/Grey/Holy Sister). I liked those books too.

[Fiend]

The Space Between Worlds

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B084D9VSV1/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

I rather liked this. It starts with the catchy premise that after parallel universe travel has been discovered in a very class-divided post-apocalyptic society, the travellers between worlds (spies, essentially) need to be recruited from the lowest classes which have had the lowest chance of survival on alternate worlds, because reality rejects any attempt to travel to a world where the person's alternative self still exists (backed by the equally entertaining premise of some attempted travellers being returned disassembled). The endearingly nihilistic protagonist is under no illusions about her place in society, until she breaks that general rule and gets drawn into more malicious machinations... The character and background exposition is not always as clear as it could be, but I found it a smart, captivating story, including the warped cross-class romance.

[Wellsy]

Anyone read The Three Body Problem? I just finished it on the train, thought it was quality.

[Fiend]

Yup. Can't remember much at all but I did like it I'm sure.

[Muenchener]

Anyone read The Three Body Problem? I just finished it on the train, thought it was quality.

I did too, but then after reading the second volume of the trilogy I feel no particular urge to bother with the third.

[andy_e]

Helen Mort and Mo Omar on M John Harrison’s “Climbers” from R4’s A Good Read today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000rw3d

Have we talked about The Sunken Land Begins To Rise Again yet? Don't think it tops Climbers for me but that's because of a lifelong nostalgic infatuation with it. From a writing perspective, TSLBTRA is perhaps the finest and most evocative of his style, come to maturation over years of writing. The storyline is batshit crazy, but only if you don't pay any attention to detail. As ever, his portrayal of dilapidation is sickly sweet, evoking incredible feelings of the erosion of nostalgia and detail by the relentless passage of time and unrecorded events.

I also read the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy recently. Not being a space opera/sci-fi reader, this was a step into a new genre. I enjoyed Light, Nova Swing was OK, and Empty Space was good but not as good as Light. The thing that struck me the most was how vivid and enrapturing the Michael Kearney/Anna story arcs, but the ones set in the future and on a different planet seemed somehow out of grasp for me, and I had difficulty getting too enthused about those ones. His finest writing style comes out in the description of Anna's life and personal landscape (I found a lot of similarities to Victoria's character in TSLBTRA), which is probably why I found it so appealing.

[Johnny Brown]

I keep meaning to attempt one of these. Light first then?

[andy_e]

Yeah, I think they need to be read in order to make sense!

[Rocksteady]

Anyone read The Three Body Problem? I just finished it on the train, thought it was quality.

Yep I read all 3 books in the series and thought they were excellent, very thought-provoking. Some of the best sci fi I've read for years. Think I reviewed them upthread.

[remus]

The Space Between Worlds

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B084D9VSV1/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

I rather liked this. It starts with the catchy premise that after parallel universe travel has been discovered in a very class-divided post-apocalyptic society, the travellers between worlds (spies, essentially) need to be recruited from the lowest classes which have had the lowest chance of survival on alternate worlds, because reality rejects any attempt to travel to a world where the person's alternative self still exists (backed by the equally entertaining premise of some attempted travellers being returned disassembled). The endearingly nihilistic protagonist is under no illusions about her place in society, until she breaks that general rule and gets drawn into more malicious machinations... The character and background exposition is not always as clear as it could be, but I found it a smart, captivating story, including the warped cross-class romance.

This sounds right up my street, thanks for the recommendation fiend.

[Falling Down]

Hi Andy,

Yep..

A few from the Summer.

M. John Harrison, The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again. 

A brilliant and unsettling (as always) novel following Shaw, a displaced loner recovering from a breakdown who winds up with an odd job on a moored barge in London and Victoria, another unsettled soul who moves to her recently deceased mother’s house in Shropshire.   Shaw becomes tangled up in a strange job that he doesn’t quite understand. Victoria obsesses over doing up the house.   Dislocation, confusion and a sense of collapse pervades throughout with a strange, atavistic, aquatic theme.  Odd, funny and flint sharp. I loved it.

I agree that it’s his best for a very long time. Equal to Climbers (if we weren’t climbers…) and The Course of the Heart.

Light stands up to and rewards numerous re-readings I reckon. There’s a lot folded into the book that doesn’t jump out first or second time around. Cryptic crossword aficionados might get it quicker than I did.