| Plot Summary of Smiley's People |
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"John Le Carre is acknowledged to be one of the best writers to day in the league of Graham Greene etc. For people used to Ludlum, Ian Fleming, Tom Clancy, Alistair Maclean etc. Lecarre is an enigma, something very different and difficult to get used to. Le carre is like Japanese Sushi, you have to work towards developing a taste for it, and then there is nothing like it.
After having read the likes of Ian Fleming, etc, and having seen a number of James Bond type spy-thriller movies, one has an image of spy-world being glamorous, action packed, thrilling and adventurous. Lecarre demolishes the image and tells us the scene as it really is. Lecarre seems to have an insider knowledge having worked with British Intelligence.
The world of spies, who are nothing but another variety of civil servants/bureaucrats, these people too are victims of same problems as anyone else, lowly paid salaries, office-politics,messed-up personal lives, whimsical bosses, never ending drudgery of work,limited resources, and bureaucratic inertia and hurdles, There is no fast paced action, no bag-bag, no glamour, no glitz, rather Lecarre goes out of the way to deglamorise the whole thing, and shows us really how the spies work. Endless hours of poring over files, painstaking analysis, inquiries, interrogations, putting together millions of bits of information and trying to make sense, find a pattern. Lecarre describes all this in authentic detail.
Lecarre's books have credible characters who are ordinary mortals, very much fallible, very much human, compelling storylines, seamless continuity, phenomenal attention to details, and hard realism without sensationalism.
Smiley's people is the best of Lecarre, the swansong of George Smiley, the brilliant master-spy who appears in many of Lecarre books.
Smiley, the retired chief of Secret service is called back to solve a puzzling case. The reluctant, recluse, tottering old man starts investigation, which leads him to case of very high level involvement. Methodical, painstaking analysis, apologetic interrogations, journeys back into the murky world which he had left behind, and a lot of hard work leads Smiley to achieve one of the biggest victories for the free world, especially for the British Intelligence.
The last scene, which makes you bite nails till climax, also makes you sad when Smiley doesn't even want to be around to receive the accolades. He quietly melts away into anonymity.
This book is highly recommended to the spy story lovers, and especially for those who haven't read Lecarre earlier. This is good book to start reading Lecarre because all his other books are much more difficult to like and appreciate
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r b siddhanti, Resident Scholar
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"Information falls into the hands of Britains MI-5 (counterintel) that a spymaster for the KGB, codename KARLA, has a mentally ill daughter, secreted in a Swiss institution, without the knowledge, or permission, of KARLA's superiors. This information is used by George Smiley, an introverted, recently cuckholded (by a KGB mole, nonetheless, placed by KARLA) to blackmail KARLA into defecting to the UK. "
Pete McKenna, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Smiley's People |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Composition of Book
descript. of violence and chases - 10%
Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 65%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 20%
Tone of story
- depressing/sad
Time/era of story:
- 1960's-1970's
Spying/Terrorism Thriller
Yes
Cloak & Dagger Plotlets:
- political blackmail
- main char. spying/sabotage
- stopping a saboteur/spy
- kidnap/rescue
Kid or adult book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Who's the terrorist enemy here?
- spy ring
Main Character
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- unemployed
- spy
Age:
- 60's-90's
How much violence does he/she use?
- none
Ethnicity/Race
- British
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
- Very much smarter than other characters
Physique
- healthy but a geeky weakling
- quite fatty
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- 40's-50's
- 60's-90's
Profession/status:
- spy
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- a moderate amount
- an above average amount
Motive of antagonist
- power
The antagonists are:
- KGB
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
- Genius
Physique
- average physique
Setting
Europe
Yes
European country:
- England/UK
- Germany
- Eastern Europe
- Switzerland
Asia/Pacific
Yes
Asian country:
- Russia
Misc setting
- prison
Style
Part of a series?
Yes
Person
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
How many deaths?
- 0 (not a murder mystery)
Unusual forms of death
- run over
- crushed
Unusual form of death?
Yes
Amount of dialog
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
- significantly more descript than dialog
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