Status
Available
Call number
Series
Genres
Publication
Blackstone Audio, Inc. (1993), Edition: Unabridged, Audio Cassette
Description
The Cold War is over and Ned has been demoted to the training academy. He asks his old mentor, George Smiley, to address his passing-out class. There are no laundered reminiscences; Smiley speaks the truth - perhaps the last the students will ever hear. As they listen, Ned recalls his own painful triumphs and inglorious failures, in a career that took him from the Western Isles of Scotland to Hamburg and from Israel to Cambodia. He asks himself: Did it do any good? What did it do to me? And what will happen to us now? In this final Smiley novel, the great spy gives his own humane and unexpected answers.
Media reviews
There is a valedictory tone in this book that is not wholly caused by Ned's approaching retirement. The cold war is over, the old enemies have been replaced by glasnost and perestroika, and for Mr. le Carré himself it must have been a bizarre experience to see the raw material of his art
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disintegrate over the last few years. But the spies, we can be sure, will never be made redundant. At the end of the novel, decent, honorable Ned encounters a particularly nasty specimen of the new antagonists -- an utterly cynical and amoral British millionaire entrepreneur and arms dealer, and a knight, to boot. He is a perfect embodiment of the so-called market forces dogma of the Thatcher years in its most brutish form. "Now we had defeated Communism, we were going to have to set about defeating capitalism," Ned reflects. One senses a new foe emerging, new battles for the Circus to fight. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member baswood
This was the next unread book on my shelves, published in 1991 and picked up in a charity shop somewhere in England. There are nine novels in the George Smiley series and this is the eighth and the first that I have read and so I have come rather late into the sequence. In fact Smiley is close to
The stories take us around the world: Berlin, Hamburg, London, Poland, Cambodia, Lebanon where the British secret service battles both foreign agents and American spymasters, sometimes winning sometimes losing. Although much of their work is routine they are never sure who they can trust and they run considerable risks much of the time. The novel does not only feature these stories, but sketches in a history of British intelligence in accordance with the world peopled by the spies of John Le Carré. It also allows Smiley to contemplate the part the intelligence service played in winning the cold war: wondering if they did win or if the other side just lost. The time span covers the cold war, leading up to and beyond the fall of the Berlin Wall and the revelations of the double agents working for Russia. Near the end of the book Smiley is getting to grips with his own motives for working in the intelligence services and passing on his words of wisdom to the students.
The world of the spies and their masters portrayed in this book is very British, one would not be surprised if those at the top of the hierarchy, had all gone to the same school. Their methods and gadgetry hardly advance over the time period, they continue to keep doing the same things with equipment that sounds just a bit dated. As in many occupations competition can be fierce, but this is laced with suspicions at all levels, where trust is at a premium. Le Carré dwells on this, creating a world that will be recognisable to many readers. He is good at creating dialogue and gives his characters enough time to think through their actions. I enjoyed immersing myself in John Le Carré's world and sometimes thats all you need; I have got more novels by Le Carré and I am looking forward to reading them. 4 stars.
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retirement and has headed out onto the lecture circuit, where he is giving a speech to young trainee spies. The secret Pilgrim is Ned also coming up to retirement who has been in the service as long as George Smiley, sometimes working for him and at other times their paths have crossed, but Ned has always seen Smiley as a mentor. Smiley's speech brings back memories for Ned who is sitting in with him, and it is these memories that are welded into the stories in this book. They cover much of Ned's career from his first assignment, where he made a bit of a fool of himself to assignments that were life threatening to him and to the spies (Joe's) that he controlled. There are thirteen chapters and each tells a story and/or takes the reader back to Smiley's lecture. The stories take us around the world: Berlin, Hamburg, London, Poland, Cambodia, Lebanon where the British secret service battles both foreign agents and American spymasters, sometimes winning sometimes losing. Although much of their work is routine they are never sure who they can trust and they run considerable risks much of the time. The novel does not only feature these stories, but sketches in a history of British intelligence in accordance with the world peopled by the spies of John Le Carré. It also allows Smiley to contemplate the part the intelligence service played in winning the cold war: wondering if they did win or if the other side just lost. The time span covers the cold war, leading up to and beyond the fall of the Berlin Wall and the revelations of the double agents working for Russia. Near the end of the book Smiley is getting to grips with his own motives for working in the intelligence services and passing on his words of wisdom to the students.
The world of the spies and their masters portrayed in this book is very British, one would not be surprised if those at the top of the hierarchy, had all gone to the same school. Their methods and gadgetry hardly advance over the time period, they continue to keep doing the same things with equipment that sounds just a bit dated. As in many occupations competition can be fierce, but this is laced with suspicions at all levels, where trust is at a premium. Le Carré dwells on this, creating a world that will be recognisable to many readers. He is good at creating dialogue and gives his characters enough time to think through their actions. I enjoyed immersing myself in John Le Carré's world and sometimes thats all you need; I have got more novels by Le Carré and I am looking forward to reading them. 4 stars.
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LibraryThing member MrsLee
I hadn't read LeCarre for fifteen years or more. He is an engaging writer and has a way of making you feel you're an old hand at the spy game instead of an innocent bystander. Now I know why I haven't read him in so long. A bit too much of the nasty for my taste. This book will not stay on my
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shelves at home. Show Less
LibraryThing member netedt
Excellent use of episodic technique provides a complete picture of Ned, the career spy. Le Carre is more concerned with the development of character than any suspense. Both Smiley and Ned are reflective in their retirement about the purpose of their profession. Is it worthwhile? Is it
This novel is a good basis for reflection on all spy fiction.
It is an excellent novel. On a par with most of Graham Greene.
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soul-destroying? Why is it so permanent in human society?This novel is a good basis for reflection on all spy fiction.
It is an excellent novel. On a par with most of Graham Greene.
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LibraryThing member Matke
Like all of the books in this series, this is an excellent study of the bleak and lonely life of a spy. Told within the framework of an after-dinner speech and Q. and A. session, this reads a bit more like discrete short stories rather than a full-on novel. Smiley is at his best explaining the ins
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and outs of espionage to a group of young, er, spy-students. One caveat is that the plot resolution of the 3-book Karla series by Le Carre is given away and repeatedly discussed, so don't read this as a first book from this author. Show Less
LibraryThing member thorold
Le Carré's always worth reading, of course, but this book feels a bit too much like one of those episodes they have in American TV series where a lot of clips from old shows are strung together over a flimsy excuse for a plotline.
We are presented with a series of unconnected incidents in the
We are presented with a series of unconnected incidents in the
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career of a spy called Ned, stretching over the last couple of decades of the Cold War and its aftermath. Le Carré used this sort of structure very successfully a few years earlier in A Perfect Spy: it's strange that he should have used it again in this potboiler. Presumably Le Carré was struggling to find a way to move forward after the end of the Cold War, as he has since done very capably. The stories here probably aren't really recycled, but there is a suspicion that these are fragments of unfinished novels from the scrap pile. Read individually, they are good stories, with old friends like George Smiley and Toby Esterhase popping up here and there, and plenty of classic Le Carré locations, but as an ensemble they don't seem to add up to much. Show Less
LibraryThing member John_Vaughan
If you have read and enjoyed any of the Karla trilogy or le Carré's The Russia House and wondered whatever became of Ned after the fiasco that book describes, or how George Smiley coped with another of his many enforced ’retirements’, then this is the next work for you to read.
Sometimes
The key theme of Smiley’s speech, and therefore the book itself, is that there will always be a need for spies and spying, although the targets of espionage may change, the career itself is secure. In a review for the New York Times (July 20th, 1991) the author William Boyd suggests a new target for the spies:” At the end of the novel, decent, honorable Ned encounters a particularly nasty specimen of the new antagonists -- an utterly cynical and amoral British millionaire entrepreneur and arms dealer … a perfect embodiment of the so-called market forces dogma … in its most brutish form. "Now we had defeated Communism, we were going to have to set about defeating capitalism," Ned reflects. One senses a new foe emerging, new battles for the Circus to fight.”
In fact le Carré’s future works, after he killed-off Smiley, did indeed tend towards business themes and developing characters based on the more brutal entrepreneurs. However, as we have seen, the new enemies targeted by the international spies are not those “brutal market force dogmas” – those have been elevated and exalted and if anything are now protected and served by the security services – but those indulged in older and far more historical wars. The spying career itself remains secure.
Sometimes
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reading as a bit of a “potboiler” or as another excellent review puts it “like fragments of left-over novels” this is a collection of only marginally connected pieces that do, however, eventually assemble a complete picture of Ned’s own development from rash and junior entrant to the pastured spy-master contemplating his own impending retirement at the end of his pilgrimage through the Service. There is, for the purists in le Carré’s readership, a “Guest Appearance” by our beloved George Smiley, literally as the invited guest-speaker at a Secret Service training school class graduation evening. John le Carré constructs a narrative of either Ned’s own memories that are summoned into his thoughts by the case-notes presented by Smiley to the awed students, or adds details and fills out those notes themselves, re-visiting key events in the author’s works – and perhaps the authors own experiences in the Service during the 1960’s.The key theme of Smiley’s speech, and therefore the book itself, is that there will always be a need for spies and spying, although the targets of espionage may change, the career itself is secure. In a review for the New York Times (July 20th, 1991) the author William Boyd suggests a new target for the spies:” At the end of the novel, decent, honorable Ned encounters a particularly nasty specimen of the new antagonists -- an utterly cynical and amoral British millionaire entrepreneur and arms dealer … a perfect embodiment of the so-called market forces dogma … in its most brutish form. "Now we had defeated Communism, we were going to have to set about defeating capitalism," Ned reflects. One senses a new foe emerging, new battles for the Circus to fight.”
In fact le Carré’s future works, after he killed-off Smiley, did indeed tend towards business themes and developing characters based on the more brutal entrepreneurs. However, as we have seen, the new enemies targeted by the international spies are not those “brutal market force dogmas” – those have been elevated and exalted and if anything are now protected and served by the security services – but those indulged in older and far more historical wars. The spying career itself remains secure.
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LibraryThing member Candacefb
If you are in the last half of your life, and you have started looking back. if time 'is like a mosaic' filled with the present and past occurrences, read this. You will like it and be glad you are not alone.
LibraryThing member brakketh
Solid le Carré spy thriller focused on reminiscing about interrogations.
LibraryThing member HenriMoreaux
The Secret Pilgrim is a novel told in the format of a collection of stories told by an ageing spy to students. I found the main character Ned a little hard to connect with and didn't really enjoy it that much.
LibraryThing member BooksForDinner
Well written and thoughtful a always. And, as always with Le Carre, enough moral ambiguity to go around for everyone! This I think can only very loosely called a novel really, it's more like a collection of short stories held together by the narrator as central character. Not to say they weren't
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fantastic short stories, all! Smiley too, but his character plays more of a functional role here. Interesting idea, and you get a nice feel of Ned, the main character through the stories. Show Less
LibraryThing member phillipfrey
Le Carre is truly the spymaster.
LibraryThing member Ma_Washigeri
Plus some more of a star. There are quite a lot of characters in the book but they are all well drawn individuals so no trouble keeping track. And most of them are pretty interesting and pretty nice - which makes for some tension as John le Carre is not known for his happy-ever-after endings. I
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thought it was well written and enjoyed the intelligent exploration of such current issues as migration, refugees and security services. Show Less
LibraryThing member TheDivineOomba
This is a book of short stories, wrapped up in graduation ceremony for new recruits to the Circus. George Smiley has retired, and his old friend, Ned, has asked him to speak at the event. Of course, George has stories. As George tells his stories, Ned reminisces about old times - from his is very
The stories are well written, some sad, some funny. Each of them gives a view into how the (Fictional) British Spy system works, from determining a terrorist from the man assigned to clandestinely pay for the items that a very important wife steals, to a young recruit on his first mission - he is so nervous, he jeopardizes the whole mission.
Highly recommended.
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early days, to the end, when he runs the training program.The stories are well written, some sad, some funny. Each of them gives a view into how the (Fictional) British Spy system works, from determining a terrorist from the man assigned to clandestinely pay for the items that a very important wife steals, to a young recruit on his first mission - he is so nervous, he jeopardizes the whole mission.
Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member Paul_S
Beautiful ending to a series of books about (some only tangentially) George Smiley - this is how to finish a story in style. Really fitting that even here Smiley is not the centre of the story.
LibraryThing member thisisstephenbetts
A very welcome, nostalgic return for Smiley. But this time he is reminiscing for the students of the service. This is essentially a framing device for a bunch of short stories. As such, it is probably one for those already into le Carré, not one to create converts. That said, there are some
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beautiful passages here — it kinda feels like pieces that he couldn't work into the novels (there is one which feels like it emerged from the writing of The Honourable Schoolboy for example). Written in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet regime there is a lot which still feels very highly relevant —toward the end of the book Smiley reflects on the negative effect that untrammeled capitalism has on democracy, which feels incredibly relevant at the moment. Recommended, but don't start here. Show Less
Language
Original publication date
1990
Physical description
9.59 inches
ISBN
0786103256 / 9780786103256