Rating: 
Summary: Smiley's pen is mightier than his sword
Review:
Tinker Tailor, the first installment of Le carre's Smiley-versus-the-world trilogy, is a unique, complex and intelligent novel about a suspected mole in the British intelligence (supposedly it is the MI6, but really the MI6 is just counter-intelligence. But never mind.)
Whoever dared to question Le Carre's ability at writing a fascinating a thrilling plot will be pleasantly surprised by a plot which is complicated and brilliant, to the point that you might want to start taking notes at some point to keep track of the staggering mass of characters and sub-stories.
The narrative is built as layers upon layers of stories that unfold, and Le Carre cleverly weaves past, present and first body to propel the story told by various characters being interrogated with both thrill and compassion. The balance between characters and story development that often goes slightly too heavy to the former, is here right on the money.
Le Carre's style and control of the language are superb. He has a rare ability to characterize the acting figures solely through dialogue. He treats the reader as intelligent, lets him thinks for himself regarding insights- he doesn't feed you with a spoon like many other authors. He portrays the character well enough however, that finally their motives become clear through it. Or so you would think...
In fact, the only bad thing I can say about his writing is that after reading everything else I try to read suddenly seems like a ridiculous teen comic book.
Rating: 
Summary: Gripping Espionage Thriller - 1st In Smiley /Karla Trilogy
Review: "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" has been called the best espionage novel ever written. John Le Carre's cynical and spellbinding spy thrillers are so unique because they are based on a wide knowledge of international espionage. Le Carre, (pen name for David John Moore Cornwell), acquired this knowledge firsthand during his years as an operations agent for the British M15. Kim Philby, the infamous mole, actually gave Le Carre's name to the Soviets long before he defected. The author's professional experience and his tremendous talent as a master storyteller and superb writer make this book one of the best novels I have read in the genre."Tinker, Tailor..." is the first in what has come to be called LeCarré's "Karla (or Smiley) Trilogy", in which English spy George Smiley is pitted against the Soviet spymaster Karla. Written during the Cold War, it is a portrait of that time, with its paranoid and morally ambiguous view of global politics. A botched espionage operation in Czechoslovakia causes "Control," (Head of British Intelligence), and his associates to be discredited. "Control," already ill and aging quickly, dies soon after this debacle. George Smiley, his able lieutenant, is retired in disgrace. The two are succeeded by four "young turks," all highly ambitious men from Intelligence who had been trained by "Control" and Smiley. Months later, a maverick Far Eastern agent turns up in London with a story suggesting there is a mole (a deeply concealed double agent) in the Circus (Intelligence HQ). Smiley is called out of retirement to investigate the possibility that a Soviet mole has penetrated the very top levels of the British Secret Service. The "Tinker, Tailor..." nursery rhyme of the title refers to the codewords for the four prime suspects - the four men now running the Service. Smiley's job is to find the double agent. However the entire Intelligence network is so suspect that he must operate entirely without its resources, for fear of alerting the mole. Therefore he must operate undercover from his own people. This novel has more in common with the guessing-game puzzle of a great whodunit than with the typical action-packed spy thriller. Smiley gradually pieces together the story by analyzing files, interrogating witnesses and scouring his own memory and those of other retired Intelligence personnel, until he finally unmasks the traitor at the heart of the Circus. This is not a simple, easy to read book. There is personal and public betrayal along with the treason of an unknown colleague. Smiley's beautiful, upperclass wife has been unfaithful with at least one of his associates, adding stress to his urgent, high-pressured assignment. Although Le Carre's novels are well-written and convincing, they can be very complicated - and this book is an example of one of his more complex endeavors. The storyline is not linear, and contains many subplots. Much is left for the reader to puzzle out, at least until the end. Just like the spies, themselves, the reader only observes the outward actions of the characters, and must piece together the facts without the assistance of an omniscient narrator. Some may find that it is difficult to get started with this novel, and once started, even harder to see where one is going. The effort to stay with Le Carre is well worth it though. A big part of the fun is working out the puzzle along with George Smiley. An FYI: The other two books in the series are "The Honourable Schoolboy," and "Smiley's People." ENJOY!!
JANA
Rating:
Summary: Awe-inspiring novel; one of my all-time favorites
Review: John Le Carre is a master of the spy thriller. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was the first Le Carre book I ever read. I was absolutely riveted by the knowledgable descriptions of tradecraft, and thoroughly enjoyed the Englishness of it all. The author keeps you guessing as to the identity of the mole to the end. When the discovery is made, I was simply awe-struck by the beauty of this work of fiction. The ending of this book is a prime example of what a spy novel (or any whodonit) should be. Mr. Le Carre's books are sometimes difficult to get into initially, but the work is well worth it. I have read every Le Carre book since my experience with T,T,S,S, and while I have thoroughly enjoyed his recent efforts, this book remains my favorite. Mr. Le Carre was truly at the top of his form in the cold war spy novel, and the Smiley books in particular. I heartily recommend this book to all fans of the genre, and to anyone who appreciates a great novel. I just wish I could read it for the first time again.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the best book about the decline of England
Review: After spending a completely arid season in Texas, culminating in Lubbock, of all places, I fled in 1979 back to England to find most of the country shut down by strikes, and the all too rare piece of BBC dramatic brilliance, Tinker Taylor.. on the box. Inspired by the television I at once read the book, whose spirit of defeat, betrayal and melancholia so closely matched my own. This is a tragedy of manners, about a genteel British caste who have become demode, and outgunned by the Americans they look down on. This is an England of Oxford and Cambridge and public schools, where the villain betrays his lover to the communists and George Smiley has to uncover the truth and the betrayals of his private life as well as his public career. It is an out and out gem. All else by the author have been potboilers. Even here, some of his characters are a little hard to take. The intrigue, though, is brilliant, yet whether it has its origins in the authors experiences with the British Security Services or as a teacher in the cliquish atmosphere of Eton is hard to assess. The most amusing thing about the whole TV series was the number of hacks who claimed they could not folow the plot. In Britain, we used to have intellectuals, but now we just have the worse press in the world, Tony Blair, and Princess somebody or other. To get a true taste of this gloom, read Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, but then leave LeCarre alone. And England, too, if you have any sense.
Rating:
Summary: 100 stars
Review: Ain't nothing finer than JLeCarre's George Smiley. And for me Sir Alex Guiness is Smiley. I get a real rush just thinking about George Smiley.
Required reading!
Rating:
Summary: what more could you want?
Review: Complex plot, vivid characters....who will soon forget shifty Toby, gallant Peter, or the suave Bill Haydon? Accompany George Smiley as he unravels, step by step, an exceedingly well-tied knot in the fabric of an uminaginable treachery.
Rating:
Summary: Le Carre's best, and out of print?
Review: Hard to believe that that this minor masterpiece has gone out of print. LeCarre's output has unquestionably been erratic in quality. He is often too relentlessly downbeat and his moral ambiguity over communism is open to the severest criticism. But there's no questioning the masterfulness of this particular novel (based in part on the Philby case) which I think will win LeCarre an enduring place in the history of 20th century English literature.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent low-key spy novel - quite different from James Bon
Review: Here's one attempt at a book review of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which I consider is a classic in its own way. The arrival of a schoolmaster at a remote English boarding school is the unlikely beginning of a master spy-story. If the reader has perused the dust jacket, he is left wondering where the connection is. A bit boring in the beginning, the start of the novel is far from spectacular. Characters unfold almost as an aside. Connections are not evident. When the hero of the novel, George Smiley makes his entrance it is almost as an afterthought. Far unlike Ian Flemming with his techno-laden James Bond licensed to kill, Le Carre's George Smiley is a prosaic, pedantic, lugubrious, painstaking, ordinary mortal with an orderly mind. He is a hero like no other. Not for him the flashy glamour of the spy world popularized by Alistair McLean, Ian Flemming, and others of their ilk. Smiley's heroism lies in this mediocre methodic brilliance. And in his prodigious memory. Cast away from the "circus", he is called in from retirement to trap a mole high up in the secret service. His fall from grace is more a reflection of the times than his inherent worth. As the bureaucratic battles yield new order in the ranks of service, Smiley, of the old order, is viewed with suspicion and forced into retirement. But much as the irrepressible James Bond could not be done away by his numerous enemies, Smiley's brilliance cannot be dispensed with by the Service. At a time when no one in the service can be trusted, when it is painfully obvious that one amongst the trusted four is a mole, Smiley is called in for his analysis. Nowhere is it stated that Smiley is brilliant. Nor does he appear to have any special skills. It is almost as an apology that he is called in to clean up the mess in the circus. He is given no special powers to search and detain. His character is an epitome of the British understatement. Yet, as the story unfolds, it is evident that Smiley is far from ordinary. Even more extraordinary than his subtly demonstrated analytical skills, is his reluctant human skills. He reaches out into his past. He cajoles his colleagues to share information. Without overt official sanction, his interrogative style is almost an apology. This queries are excruciatingly painstaking and pedantic. His tone is lugubrious and half-sleepy. His attention to detail is phenomenal. His inferences from interrogation is unexplained. The character of Smiley is an exquisite painting. Smiley appears to be more of an academic than a spy - more at home in the musty libraries than trysting with elite's from the Whitehall. His demeanor suggests a frumpy civil-servant rather than a spy-master. He can be readily pictured as a short, cherubic, owlish, diffident man with a marked disdain for the finer things in life. As he shuffles along the morose London streets, there is nothing to distinguish him from the multitude of middle-aged men beaten by Life. His elegant and beautiful wife, disenchanted by his prosaic existence, and has abandoned him. His chief occupation is in forgetting the time he spent in the Service. Not quite bitter about his ouster, he appears a bit confused. In this, the very ordinariness of the one-time head of the Secret Service is his greatest asset. Le Carre, in his own way, is probably one of the greatest of story-tellers of our time. He binds his readers in a loose sort of spell. Quite unlike the modern authors who seek to rush their stories along at a great speed, seeking to upstage their own previous chapter with something more breathtaking in the next, Le Carre lets the plot of his novels mature by itself. He lets the reader dwell on the plot. He lets them think and ponder over it. He does not insult the readers intelligence by presuming to give too many details. Some of it, he seems to say, they have to work out themselves. There are no fast-paced change in directions yanking the readers from excitement to excitement. The continuity of the story is seamless. Rather like Alfred Hitchcock, he sometimes seeks to bring the reader to the brink of understanding and leaves him empty-handed. A suspense built in this slow, measured and deliberate manner leaves the reader a bit unfulfilled on one hand, but gives some chaff for thoughtful replay of the plot on the other. And yet, Le Carre is rich in his portrayals. The details he seeks to give are more to build up clarity than to confuse. Where the details of Tom Clancy's novels drag his readers through a myriad of technical issues obscuring the plot, most of which are ultimately useless, Le Carre's details are like eye-glasses that bring the novel's environment into sharper focus. Towards the end when Smiley catches up to the mole, we are left wondering how he did it. Trying to make the connections between various incidents and leaps of logic in inferences, we are left with a feeling of trying to catch wisps of smoke. There is presence without substance. It is always so in the shadowy settings of the "circus". Shadowy as it, we merely brush against the even more shadowy figure of "Karla" Smiley's arch-enemy at the Moscow Center - against whom he pits his wits time and again in this and other Le Carre novels. Karla's presence is more felt than seen, less realized than experienced. Some books are evidently put together hastily. Some are well written. Some are poorly written and asks the plot to make up for the writing talent. A few books are not just well written but well crafted. Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy is one such. In the manner of a well-rendered painting, where subtle attention to details lend elegance without attracting attention to itself, so does Le Carre's attention to exquisite details portray a complete picture in the readers mind. The characters are three dimensional, and one can feel them. Like any good book with plethora of details, this novel transports the reader to the physical presence of the plot. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - the title adapted from a nursery rhyme - is a serious read. It is not an easy read, not a fun read, but a read for the discriminating mind seeking serious fiction. The cold war is now past. But the shadowy workings of the tradecraft is still current. This novel captures it in all its realism without sensationalism. It is a simple novel with a complex plot.
Rating:
Summary: Best ever
Review: I had to read this book for a class I took called Espionage Folklore. Plus I had to do a 25 minute oral presentation on the moral and ethical implications of it on the actual spy world. You would think after this I would never want to see this book again. But, all I wanted to do was read this book again to see what I missed or overlooked. Great book.
Rating:
Summary: The best espionage novel I have ever read
Review: I have read most of John Le Carre's novels, and while I am not an admirer of all of them, TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY stands out as the best espionage novel that I have ever read. It is almost among the most literary spy novels, surpassing even those of Eric Ambler from an earlier generation. George Smiley is the perfect counterpoint to James Bond, one of the most compelling characters in contemporary fiction. I did not care for the novel that follows this one in the Smiley trilogy--THE HONORABLE SCHOOLBOY--but the final novel, SMILEY'S PEOPLE, is a worthy successor to this one. Skip the middle book: read the first and the last.
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