The Russia House

Rating:
Summary: Not Le Carre's best.
Review: At his best John le Carre transcends the genre. His Quest for Karla trilogy (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, and Smiley's People) and A Perfect Spy are marvellous novels, with deftly drawn complex characters, and a fine sense of the reasons for betrayal.

This, though, is disappointing. It is le Carre's first post glasnost fiction, and in feeling for new subject matter his novels have seemed a little weaker, until finding new form with his most recent novel, Single and Single.

The novel focuses on Barley Blair, a drunken book publisher from a small publishing house in London. Having applied for a place in the secret service some years before, Blair becomes a reluctant spy as a book with observations on Soviet military capability is handed over for Blair at an audio book convention. The novel is narrated by a wily lawyer advising the British secret service.

There are some weak points in the novel. For this reader le Carre has never convinced when drawing female characters (even the estimable Lady Ann Smiley remains a cipher from le Carre's first novel to Smiley's People). Nor is le Carre convincing when writing about love, and here one of the pivotal characters is Katya, a Muscovite with children. She is better drawn than many of le Carre's female characters (perhaps the first person male narrative strangely helps in this regard), but she remains something of a blank canvas. Her relationship with Blair is never convincing, and sadly this taints the inevitability of the final chapters.

There are the usual le Carre virtues. He has a mastery of novel openings (Witness the first chapters of Tinker Tailor and Single and Single for example) and this is no exception. In attendance at an audio book fair in MOscow a Polish emigre is approached and handed the crucial papers for Blair. How this is done, and how he deals with it, are handled wonderfully. Each detail making the situation credible. Le Carre's own style is again wonderful. His prose has a fluidity that is very readable.

Le Carre also has astute observations on the relationship between the superpowers at the time of Gorbachev's restructuring, and - from the backdrop of the Smiley novels - the relationship between the United States and United Kingdom secret services.

It is ironic that in a novel billed as a love story the most convincing relationships are those between institutions.

If you enjoy the novel try to get hold off the BBC audio dramatisation starring Tom Baker as Barley Blair. The other le Carre novels mentioned in this review are more rewarding than the Russia House, but it is still an enjoyable, albeit disappointing, read.

Rating:
Summary: Humanistic thought-provoking tale of the unlikely spy
Review: Firstly, one does not pick up a John Le Carre book to be dazzled with the flash-bang imagery of modern spy thrillers. John Le Carre writes 'spy literature', a look at the inner workings and emotions felt by his well fleshed-out characters in the espionage trade. Like meeting a life-long friend for the first time, you come to know his characters, and if patient enough, actually care about them. His prose often borders on poetry.

I offer this warning of style for the sake of saving time for those looking for a quick pulse-quickening read. On to my opinion of "The Russia House". Barley Blair, the inner hypocrite comes clean. The book is an in depth tale of how a lackluster publisher with a penchant for self-destruction and jazz finds himself deeply embroiled in the hopeful defection of a Russian scientist, Goethe. Blair bumps into Goethe at a chance gathering during the hopeful glimmer of glasnost. Goethe overhears Blair's recited philosophical rhetoric for a hopeful future between the West and Communist Russia. The conspiracy begins.

Le Carre steers us through how a communique meant for Blair is intercepted, where essentially we begin our journey. We are led through London, Moscow, an island off the coast of New England, and Leningrad in the attempt to confirm Blair in his new job of spy and get the elusive scientist to switch sides. However, Blair wasn't expecting to fall in love with Goethe's emmisary, and a whole new tasteful spin is added to the spy novel. Le Carre's characters here are equally intimate and distant, illuminating yet shrouded in secrecy...so very human. So, not to spoil the intricacies for the eager reader, I shall conclude explaining the plot here.

Through all of this, Le Carre gives us a glimpse of life for both the Westerners and Easterners in Communist Russia. The lingering shadows of Stalin and Breshnev are never dismissed lightly, but rather the hope that was glasnost shines on through the murky depths of intrigue.

Fans of the George Smiley books may find themselves disappointed with reading "The Russia House", but I think fans of Le Carre as the storyteller and writer will be very satisifed.

Rating:
Summary: Humanistic thought-provoking tale of the unlikely spy
Review: Firstly, one does not pick up a John Le Carre book to be dazzled with the flash-bang imagery of modern spy thrillers. John Le Carre writes 'spy literature', a look at the inner workings and emotions felt by his well fleshed-out characters in the espionage trade. Like meeting a life-long friend for the first time, you come to know his characters, and if patient enough, actually care about them. His prose often borders on poetry.

I offer this warning of style for the sake of saving time for those looking for a quick pulse-quickening read. On to my opinion of "The Russia House". Barley Blair, the inner hypocrite comes clean. The book is an in depth tale of how a lackluster publisher with a penchant for self-destruction and jazz finds himself deeply embroiled in the hopeful defection of a Russian scientist, Goethe. Blair bumps into Goethe at a chance gathering during the hopeful glimmer of glasnost. Goethe overhears Blair's recited philosophical rhetoric for a hopeful future between the West and Communist Russia. The conspiracy begins.

Le Carre steers us through how a communique meant for Blair is intercepted, where essentially we begin our journey. We are led through London, Moscow, an island off the coast of New England, and Leningrad in the attempt to confirm Blair in his new job of spy and get the elusive scientist to switch sides. However, Blair wasn't expecting to fall in love with Goethe's emmisary, and a whole new tasteful spin is added to the spy novel. Le Carre's characters here are equally intimate and distant, illuminating yet shrouded in secrecy...so very human. So, not to spoil the intricacies for the eager reader, I shall conclude explaining the plot here.

Through all of this, Le Carre gives us a glimpse of life for both the Westerners and Easterners in Communist Russia. The lingering shadows of Stalin and Breshnev are never dismissed lightly, but rather the hope that was glasnost shines on through the murky depths of intrigue.

Fans of the George Smiley books may find themselves disappointed with reading "The Russia House", but I think fans of Le Carre as the storyteller and writer will be very satisifed.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: I have an issue with this author so this review my not be representative of many. This is the first book of his that I read and I just did not get excited. I wanted to, I had heard great things about him. I felt that this is a rather uninspired book. I found the story line very familiar due to the fact that I think I have seen it in a number of other books. The cast of characters was not bad and for me is the only real high point of the book. I just wanted more of a story that was not so boring. The one positive was the correctness in the details of the tradecraft used.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Fantastic
Review: John Le Carre has the gift of storytelling. To me, he is the best espionage writer alive today. Most of the espionage writers put all the emphasis on the events whereas the main theme of Le Carre's books has always been characters. Le Carre does not write breakneck thrillers. He writes characters, lively and human. And that's why when you read a Le Carre book, a year down the road, you can't recall the story but you can easily recall the characters of the story. He is the creator of many memorable characters and Barley Blair is one of them.

Barley is not a hero, not even a patriot. He is a careless publisher, a jazz player and a chess fan. He is not a spy. He is pushed into the espionage game because of his drunken exchange of thoughts with a Russian scientist, another of Le Carre's memorable characters. Barley has reluctantly agreed to play the part of a courier and agent-runner by British spymasters and on his arrival in Moscow, he falls in love with a girl, who very much like Barley himself, is pushed into the spy game.

Barley soon reaches a point where he has to decide whom to betray. The girl he loves or his country. To me, that is the climax of the novel, the classical dilemma.

And dilemma it is. Here is Barley Blair, the main character, forming one part of the triangle, who is not a spy, doesn't even want to be one. The second part of triangle is Goethe, the Russian scientist, who wants to tell something to the world but not through the spies. And the third part is Katya, loved by both Goethe and Barley, who doesn't even know what is she doing and where does she fit in the whole scheme of things. And in the background are the spymasters of UK and USA who think they have all the strings in their hands but have totally ignored the fact that human nature is an essential part of all the espionage equations.

You've got to read the novel to know the whole thing. And if you are into serious fiction, you must read "The Russia House".

Rating:
Summary: A Le Carre classic - spy thriller and love triangle
Review: John le Carre writes spy stories which are ideal for a lazy summers day when you are outside with that long chilled drink.
Although having retired from the Foreign Service many years ago his research into the machinations of both British and the Russian intelligence have been remarked to be highly accurate.
This story of a reluctant spy in the middle of a love triangle is a marked departure of his Smiley novels.
The characters are well depicted and the storyline crisp. Although I had originally read this book a while ago, when I picked it up again I could not put it down till I had finished it.

Rating:
Summary: my favorite Le Carre book
Review: The Russia House is my favorite Le Carre, although I'm just getting started on his books. I enjoyed it immensely. The characters were extraordinarly well developed, even for Le Carre who is quite good at that. I enjoyed the plot, the dialouge, the characters. The idea of human love being greater than political reprecussions was a great one. Barley Blair is an imperfect publisher, a saxophonist and a drinker. He is likable and he is in love with Katya, a Russian woman. He meets her as he is drawn into Cold War espionage by chance- the world of the "grey men". I liked Ned, the human intelligence agent runner, who got along well with people but not as much with science and such. Walter, an almost girlish, strange and awkward spy was my favorite because of his fraility, his seeming too fragile for the world of espionage, and how he turned out to be right in his theories. The Russia House deals with the moral as well as the political, and deals with it very well.

Rating:
Summary: Bang for the Buck
Review: This may be Le Carre's best book - and the film is definitely the best work adapted from Le Carre. The setting - the final years of the Soviet Union - is wonderfully decayed (shades of Third Man). Our hero, a saxophone-playing pseudo-leftie book trader, is a remarkably strong character (compared with him, the rest of Le Carre's leads are plodding self-doubters and handwringers). Our heroine is equally resolute. Some sharp observations on the Anglo-American relationship are also made. My favorite line from the book comes when it's decided to ask questions of the Soviet scientist. Questions, Le Carre reminds us, tell a lot more than answers.

Rating:
Summary: bad book
Review: WORST BOOK EVER....no joke. I have never written a review but feel it is my duty to do so to warn u of this terrible book.

Rating:
Summary: Mildly Interesting, But Ultimately Boring
Review: Yes character counts, and this book has plenty of that! The reader gets to know the characters intimately, feel every weakness, and see every flaw.

With the connection to the characters, come the events and circumstances that put them to the test, and supply the intrigue!

A good read for those who like characters fleshed out, and plots entwined with the not so perfect people involved!