Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season369 pages, about 7 hours: the length of 1.2 typical books on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbThree reviewers describe the opening chapters as slow or hard to follow before the investigation’s shape comes into focus.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesTwo reviewers rank it above le Carré’s own The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; another likens his plots to Ibsen’s.
The case for it
on the tradecraft
“lamplighters, scalp hunters and black cars driving slowly”
a book blog on the plot
“unputdownable and practically diamond-hewn plot”
Rob Madole · Ploughshares, 2021 on the secret world
“making the reader feel we’ve been admitted to specialist knowledge of a very particular world”
a Substack review on George Smiley
“deceived in love and hate alike”
Unsigned review · Kirkus Reviews, 1974
The case against
on the opening third
“I stuck it out to 33% and then gave up”
one star · a book blog on the difficulty
“several weeks of bashing my head against the wall”
three stars · a book blog on the start
“I found it slow to start with”
a book blog on the prose style
“The novel was written in such a dense prose style as to be impenetrable.”
a book blog
