A Perfect Spy: A Novel Paperback – July 20, 2011

Not just one of the best (if not the best) spy novel ever, one of the great pieces of 20th century literature. Semi-autobiographical, deeply poignant, without an ounce of jingoism (characteristic of Le Carre, but not a feature of most spy novels), it is the story of a deeply conflicted spy, husband, friend and father. Rally a must read.

Even without context, John le Carré’s A Perfect Spy—a tale of a British secret agent who betrayed his country because he couldn’t unlearn the lessons taught to him by his conman father—would still be a remarkable book. But if you read the foreword to the revised edition, you’ll see that le Carré based the conman on his own father. And if you read about le Carré, you’ll find that he used to be a spy himself. The combination recasts the novel as a self-reflective meditation on how and why we break bad.The story begins in the 1980s. Magnus Pym—the British spy and le Carré’s avatar—has disappeared following the death of his disreputable father Rick. Three countries’ worth of intelligence agencies begin looking for Magnus: the British, the Czechs, and the Americans (all of whom he’s been playing for fools). For a time, he’s able to elude them and write his confession in a series of long letters that take us back to his upbringing during and after World War II.This unfolds as a narrative tangle. The cutbacks are sudden, and the characters’ inner monologues appear without adornment. (Most authors nowadays would italicize first-person thoughts. Le Carré presents them as plain text.) More confusingly, Magnus’s letters frequently toggle between first and third person while he’s talking about himself. The inconsistency is intentional, however. Magnus is showing us his many aspects, the younger possibilities that only later fused into the present version—the one he likes least. (And the one he most often refers to as “I” and “me.” The other identities are generally just “Pym.”)Occasionally, Magnus addresses the intended recipients of his letters, which brings in second person. In a few passages, we get all three viewpoints within a few sentences. For example: “I remember asking what crowd you fought with, sir, expecting you to say ‘Fifth Airborne,’ or ‘Artists’ Rifles’ so that I could look suitably awed. Instead you went a bit gruff and said, ‘General List.’ I know now that you were exercising the double standard of diplomatic cover: you wanted it to cover you, but you also wanted Pym to see through it.” (“I” refers to Magnus in this section. “You” refers to his British spymaster. “Pym” also refers to Magnus.)But once you get used to it, this all flows wonderfully. Le Carré’s prose is both elegant and affable. What he lays out isn’t a James Bond story; barely a shot is fired (although there is plenty of sex). The focus isn’t on the spy craft, either (although what’s here feels authentic—as it should—tricks of the trade from earlier eras). Instead, le Carré spends the bulk of the book chronicling Magnus’s relationship with his father and how it shaped him, giving him the tools to charm, deceive, and manipulate, as well as an insatiable need to please. These are the traits that made him an attractive agent to various intelligence agencies; these are also the traits that led him to cheat them.Le Carré clearly isn’t a romantic about espionage—or his own childhood.As I worked through A Perfect Spy, I couldn’t help wondering if the point-of-view shifts started off subconsciously. Did le Carré write “I” instead of Magnus, realize what he’d done, and decide to make it a device? (He includes a suggestive passage near the beginning, when Magnus’s second wife recalls one of his attempts at a novel—another autobiographical overlap. “There was a Chapter Eight …” she admits. “Slipping from third to first person and staying there, whereas the [earlier chapters] were ‘he’…”)Fortunately, le Carré didn’t go down the same road as Magnus. The author managed to transcend his nurture—and maybe his nature. He even seems to have his protagonist articulate this at one point: “Putting down his pen, Pym stared at what he had written, first in fear, then gradually in relief. Finally he laughed. ‘I didn’t break,’ he whispered. ‘I stayed above the fray.’”The novel ends less hopefully. But that personal connection made A Perfect Spy an especially compelling read.

A superbly written novel which traces the motif of fathers and sons. It jumps around in time but it's all to the good because it's thematically coherent.

This a novel about the business of spying. The tale is not really about good and evil. This is its strength and weakness. The author's characterization of the spy business is revealing and amusing in some sense. But the actual plot is weak. The book is well written. Dramatic it is not, in my opinion.

Not much to add to the well-deserved praise this novel has received. I've ready many of LeCarré's novels but always skipped by this one. I took the plunge and it was well worth the trouble. I hesitated because the book has a formidable reputation. I can tell you that it is deserved. This is a long, difficult book that rewards patience and trust on the part of the reader. You will be lost at times -- unsure if you are in the past or present, young or old, Pym or his father Ricky. And that's how Pym lives his life -- he's as unstuck as Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim. The effect is mesmerizing but if you're epecting a quick Len Deighton novel you're going to be in for a shock.Some readers have expressed surprise at the ending. I don't know how. LeCarré telegraphs it in a hundred ways. But I can give this massive, confusing, complicated and difficult book my highest praise -- I slowed down my reading as I approached the end. I didn't want to get to the forgone conclusion and leave this oh so British world, these people or this maddening book. You won't either.

[NOTE: the seller sent a different version of the book with a different dust jacket and not what’s shown here]Great book! Maybe not the best SPY thriller that he ever wrote, but the best book he wrote in terms of the quality of the prose.

A new visit to the personal factor in the tradecraft. The vital and cultural clash between mandarins and bureaucrats of St James and Langley with the colourful characters on the field (well, incidentally also clash between St, James and Langley). The book is a longwinded and lyrical interrogation about loyalty. To whom must we be loyal? our country? our familiy? our childhood? ourselves? and by the way, who are we?

I enjoyed this book very much. It is considered to be the most autobiographical of Le Carré's novels and it really delivers on the psychology of the spy.The differences between it and the television mini-series based on it are interesting. The plot elements are ordered much differently. I think the order adopted for the TV series makes a better "thriller" of the story. The novel is superior as a study of character and it gives more detail about background and supporting characters. There is much more nuance in the novel than in the TV series. It is quite a compelling read once you get into it.

This was a very hard slog as it just goes on for ever – well, about half this too-long book – about the narrator's impossibly gregarious, domineering, show-off, callous, flighty, basically uncaring father, a con-artist and swindler as shallow as they get. There is an espionage tale in the latter half, about a smart traitor and the incredibly incompetent British and US secret services who fail to ever catch up with him, fairly interesting but not excessively so. Not a good espionage novel and not a good novel period because of its lack of credibility and scope. It is really a sort of autobiographical novel but certainly not a great one because of all its unceasing bombast.

typical Le-Carre a great book