A Small Town in Germany

Rating:
Summary: great for a first taste of LeCarrè
Review: A delicately woven plot of political power, personal power, and national pride make a thick blanket behind which the powers of the nation-state operate.

The British embassy in Bonn is depicted as a reflection of the Empire. Each character displayed, pinned to a board as one might an insect collection: to be completely examined and scrutinized for flaws, defects, and identifying characteristics. Perhaps most appealing is not being innundated with detail at the beginning. We find the strings along with Alan Turner, secrutiy expert, wondering where they will lead us. A missing man, Leo Harting, Harting Leo, a German war refugee who returned to his Fatherland, is also a mystery man: spy, patriot, or simply a nobody? Nobody seems to know the same version of the man.

A skillful display of the politics and social up-heaval in early 60s Germany as a mighty nation struggled to determine its own future once again. Le Carrè's experience working in the very same Embassy in the early 60s no doubt provides the truly realistic vision he paints so skillfully with words. The entire profession of diplomacy is not painted in a particularly flattering light - the supremecy of the nebulous national goals reigns over the reality of the individual's life.

As a first taste of his writing, I am eagerly looking forward to more.

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps Le carre's best...
Review: A fascinating plot, with characteristically rich character development. Even the minor players are drawn carefully, in, well, loving detail (the British ambassador's wife with the lovely arms (a la T.S. Eliot), the diplomat-asthete with the harpsichord he never quite gets around to playing, the Dutch diplomat who cruelly points out the historical inaccuracies in a guest's dinner polemic, etc. The end has a rather grand twist that causes the whole thing to linger in the mind for weeks after, like the "Spy Who Came in from the Cold". One of my favorite 20th century novels period.

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps Le carre's best...
Review: A fascinating plot, with characteristically rich character development. Even the minor players are drawn carefully, in, well, loving detail (the British ambassador's wife with the lovely arms (a la T.S. Eliot), the diplomat-asthete with the harpsichord he never quite gets around to playing, the Dutch diplomat who cruelly points out the historical inaccuracies in a guest's dinner polemic, etc. The end has a rather grand twist that causes the whole thing to linger in the mind for weeks after, like the "Spy Who Came in from the Cold". One of my favorite 20th century novels period.

Rating:
Summary: A tale from the Cold War
Review: I first picked up A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY in the late 60s, but, finding it too slow, couldn't finish. My appreciation of John le Carre having increased over the years, I recently gave it another go.

The book is set in the then West German capital of Bonn during the heyday of the Cold War. The British Embassy is beset with a number of mysterious disappearances: a document trolley, a tea machine, an electric fan, and some cups from the Caf. Oh, and a twenty-plus year employee named Otto Harting and a Top Secret "Green File". Meanwhile, on the other side of the embassy fence, a West German industrialist, Karfeld, is inflaming the populace with nationalist speeches, advocating stronger ties with Moscow, and undermining Bundesrepublik support for Britain's entry into the Common Market.

Has Harting bolted to Moscow? The Foreign Office in London dispatches its troubleshooter, Alan Turner, to Bonn to ferret out some answers.

Like le Carre's other books, A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY is short on action and long on character and plot development. For these very reasons, my appreciation of his later books, especially TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY and SMILEY'S PEOPLE, both featuring the author's most famous hero, George Smiley, lead me to think that my literary tastes have matured over the years, at least when it comes to trashy novels. If the reader of this book squints, he may perhaps see in Turner's dogged pursuit of the puzzle pieces a forerunner of the Smiley character, though the latter is infinitely more subtle and imperturbable. And Turner is not above slapping a lady in his quest for the Truth. Such conduct would be anathema to George, always the gentleman.

That Turner never endears himself to the reader is perhaps the novel's greatest shortcoming. More than that, however, is the fact that the plot is dated. Germany is now re-united, and the capital moved back to Berlin. Bonn is once more a relative backwater. Powerful Germans with an unsavory Nazi past are practically extinct. Moscow is no longer homebase to the pesky KGB and center of the Evil Empire. But the Brits, God love 'em, having told the rest of Europe to take their euros and stuff it, are still stolidly aloof in their island fortress (despite the Chunnel).

A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY, a must read for all le Carre fans, isn't one of his best efforts when compared to later works. But, I did finish it the second time around!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, tight vintage Le Carre, especially for non-fans!
Review: No Smiley, no Karla, Moscow Centre is only an unconfirmed shadow over the horizon as Le Carre takes his scalpel to a British mission under siege in Bonn somewhere in the undated late 50s/early 60s. The most visible threat is a rabble-rosuing demagogue who is stirring up German passions with talk of a Germany that is being trod all over by its conquerors (a tactic used in fact very successfully by an up-and-coming politician after the First War - I think his outfit was called the National Socialist Party!)

Among the usual undercurrents and tensions of the British mission - basically a for-export version of Whitehall, with all its petty intrigues and shallow secrets - there is mounting tension over an upcoming rally, the unexplained murder of the librarian of a British library that is actually a German library and the solicitiousness of a police chief whose concern rings as true as a shark's regard for a school of minnows. Against this backdrop they struggle to deal with, and keep quiet, the disappearance of a low-level staffer and some oh-so-critical files. London's man Turner starts cutting to the heart of the matter and finds that he needs no enemies outside the mission - the ones inside would do him nicely!

Sprebly plotted and with a *genuine* twist at the end, this is one of Le Carre's absolute best - it's Le Carre for those (like the present writer) who were intimidated by The Little Drummer Girl in infancy and never dared again!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Novel
Review: This might be Le Carre's most ambitious and best written book. It contains a host of well drawn characters and the clever plotting typical of all Le Carre's best work. As with his other good books, Le Carre uses the spy novel format to investigate matters well beyond the usual formulas of thrillers. This book is set in Bonn, in the late 50s or early 60s. Almost all the action takes place within the British embassy. The latter is depicted as a microcosm of British society, with its class, ethnic, and religous divisions, its repressions and emphasis on maintaining British prestige. This book is an allegory and devastating critique of British national policy in that period. Le Carre shows the insularity of British society, its inability to deal with reduction to a second-rate military and economic power, and its preference for preferring shabby deals maintaining British prestige to concrete achievements.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Novel
Review: This might be Le Carre's most ambitious and best written book. It contains a host of well drawn characters and the clever plotting typical of all Le Carre's best work. As with his other good books, Le Carre uses the spy novel format to investigate matters well beyond the usual formulas of thrillers. This book is set in Bonn, in the late 50s or early 60s. Almost all the action takes place within the British embassy. The latter is depicted as a microcosm of British society, with its class, ethnic, and religous divisions, its repressions and emphasis on maintaining British prestige. This book is an allegory and devastating critique of British national policy in that period. Le Carre shows the insularity of British society, its inability to deal with reduction to a second-rate military and economic power, and its preference for preferring shabby deals maintaining British prestige to concrete achievements.