redfiona99 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redfiona99) wrote2011-08-14 05:45 pm
redfiona99) wrote2011-08-14 05:45 pm
The View From The Front Lines
Only not, because, as I said, my bit of Brum was fine. I went into town yesterday, because I needed some new shoes for a conference (I ended up getting these http://tinyurl.com/3vwl8ex) and a couple of shirts for the same thing. In case other women are looking to dress smartly in the UK, advanced warning, there are no decent shirts to be had in the high street stores. I know by not wanting to wear see-through material I am impinging on the designers imaginations, but you know, work related conference.
Most vexing.
Birmingham city centre wasn't much different, the only shop that had any damage that I could see was the H & M near the Golden Bull. There was more of a police and security presence than usual, and people were maybe a bit quieter than usual but that was about it.
Book Meme Day 9 - Book You Never Expected To Love
I am going to be telling this all the wrong way round, but, hey it's my meme answer and I can do what I want to.
Every other John le Carre book I have tried to read I have bounced straight off. And I mean every other, I've tried about 4 others, not counting the one I'm not going to read because the pharmaceutical industry is not actually evil.
And yet, I love and adore 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'. I think partly it's the cynical attitude, because no one really believes in any of the causes they're fighting for, it's become a matter of habit. There's a grubby realness about it.
Jim Prideaux.
I read the book by accident, 'Sight and Sound' magazine had a review of the TV series, and it sounded like the kind of thing I'd like. I had no chance of getting hold of the tv show but lucky, the school library had a copy (it also had a copy of Stark. I miss my old school library.).
So I'm reading it, and I get caught up in the mystery and all that, but mostly I find myself falling for Jim Prideaux. Well, not falling for him, not in that way, but suddenly I had someone I could aim to be, not in a career sense but in a more roadmap of life sense. I must have been 14-ish when I read it the first time, but I knew that I didn't want the husband and 2.4 children thing, but it was more than that, it was that I didn't feel a need for it either. And at the time, when your friends start pairing off and everyone starts being all hearts in their eyes, you do feel a bit left out. Then suddenly there's this character who is like you (and, unlike Spock, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Who [why yes, there's a reason I get a bit ticked off when they suddenly go all romantic and squishy in the remakes] is in the real world), more than that, he's like you and people think he's wonderful, and he's one of the few out and out heroic characters in the damn book.
Also, you know, he's the unstoppable stoic who is going to get the job done, which, you may have noticed, is one of those character archetypes I ping for.
About half of it is flashbacks, to stuff that some of the characters already know happened. And mostly, even in the non-flashback parts, it's people talking. But it works because Smiley has to do that because he's been locked out and his anger at having to do this helps drive the plot forward.
I tend to call it a non-action thriller, because that's what it is. With the exception of Tarr's flashback to Irina and Prideaux's flashback to his adventures in Czechoslovakia, there's no action. It's people talking, going over the same ground again, and again, and yet the tension ratchets up until you're nearly as tense as Gillam when the final reveal comes.
The other interesting thing is that the reveal works. Quite often the reveal of the double agent doesn't work because it's too shocking, it doesn't fit with what you know about the character (I'm looking at you, NCIS) or with what the character is capable of, in terms of access. But yes, it has to be Haydon. And the other characters already know it, it's the great unspoken thing, well mostly unspoken, Smiley thinks something about it in the end, that it could only have been Haydon and they all must have known it and were just choosing to ignore it because they liked Bill. It's brilliantly foreshadowed without it ever being too obvious.
It's a great novel for elision, because there's four things we will never know that drive the plot forward:
1 - What put Control on to it, because he had to have known for sure Merlin was crooked to start the whole damn search in the first place. Did he really just have a gut instinct that the whole thing was too good to be true? Once that's in place, his logic is sound, it really could only be one of the five because it has to be someone senior enough to know what the Circus wants and what the Americans want so that they can sell it to them too, and to set up the London end. Subverting someone like Gillam, even though he's head of one set of operations, it'd cause trouble but not like this.
And of course, once you start thinking like that it becomes three rather quickly, because Toby doesn't have the charm to pull it off, and Bland doesn't have the gumption.
I think that's why Control got stuck, because he so wanted it to be Alleline, that he couldn't see any further than that.
2 - When exactly, and how exactly, did Karla recruit Haydon?
Haydon refuses to say in the two interviews he does have with Smiley, and Smiley doesn't get the chance to ask again. The reasons he gives are pointedly more that he doesn't like the Americans rather than he's pro-Russia.
Karla visits the UK in the mid-thirties, and Karla recruited Gerald directly (we think). So how, and therefore how much of Bill Haydon's wild and general right wing Anglo-philia is real. Is it like Thatch is described as doing, was there gentle nudging until Haydon's views were like that, or did Haydon just hide everything under everything, as per usual?
3 - What exactly would Prideaux have said had he found Smiley in? What exactly did he say to Haydon?
Prideaux had been sworn to secrecy, and it's not the sort of thing where a hypothetical would do. Even going 'help, I'm worried Control has gone off his rocker' would have blown the gaff.
4 - What happens when Prideaux kills Haydon?
In many ways, it's one of the best things about the book. It's another thing that's never confirmed but everyone knows. We have Smiley convinced that someone is following him, Gillam thinking he maybe saw a shadow, and it taking him some time (a couple of months) to realise that the shadow looked like Prideaux. Then Haydon is found dead, neck broken in the same way that we've seen Prideaux use before. And Haydon's been drinking vodka.
I think Prideaux's loyalty is the thing that both Control and Haydon have used and under-estimated, because it's utter, and it only extends to two things, his country and his friends.
Control uses it because Prideaux is the only person who he could send (in terms of seniority and speaking of the language) and also he's the rare person who would tell the truth if it had been Haydon's name that Stevcek had told him.
That's one of the things that worries me about the film version because I have a terrible feeling they'll make his revenge personal, where in the book it's 1) unexplained and 2) from the description of other people's reactions, you get the distinct feeling it was probably more because Haydon betrayed both the country and the Czech networks (which he'd recruited, and had served in the war with at least one of them).
And I do mean everything, from Circus's aims (make sure the Americans remember we exist), to Circus's policies (which extends to both Sam winding up the janitors and the janitors's revenge) to the fact that everyone constantly complains about the standard of the rooms, of the safe houses, and it's so much like real life that in, for instance, the scene in the service reading room, le Carre doesn't have to write in that the carpet is cheap and threadbare because we know, because the janitors have complained about the squeaky lifts 10 chapters previously.
And the people are gloriously bitchy too, in the very realistic way, where even people you like, you occasionally pick out of the flaws of.
It adds to the air of realism, and it's a very realistic book.
It's everyone, not just the spies, because you have the characters at the school, including Roach, who is probably one of the master-strokes of the whole thing. I think by opening with him, the book didn't make me bounce off like le Carre's other stuff has done, and he's so very possible.
It's as got great re-readability which given it's a thriller says something about how well it's written. Knowing whodunit doesn't damage the book, in fact, it gives several of the scenes a whole different spin.
Day 1 - The best book you read last year
Day 2 - A book that you've read more than 3 times
Day 3 - Favourite series of books
Day 4 - Favourite book in your favourite series
Day 5 - A book that makes you happy
Day 6 - A book that makes you sad
Day 7 - Most under-rated book
Day 8 - Most over-rated book
Day 10 - Favorite classic book
Day 11 - A book you hated
Day 12 - A book you used to love but don't anymore
Day 13 - Your favorite writer
Day 14 - Favorite book of your favorite writer
Day 15 - Favorite male character
Day 16 - Favorite female character
Day 17 - Favorite quote from your favorite book
Day 18 - A book that disappointed you
Day 19 - Favorite book turned into a movie
Day 20 - Favorite romance book
Day 21 - Favorite book from your childhood
Day 22 - Favorite book you own
Day 23 - A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven't
Day 24 - A book that you wish more people would've read
Day 25 - A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 - A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 - The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 - Favorite title
Day 29 - A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 - Your favorite book of all time
Most vexing.
Birmingham city centre wasn't much different, the only shop that had any damage that I could see was the H & M near the Golden Bull. There was more of a police and security presence than usual, and people were maybe a bit quieter than usual but that was about it.
Book Meme Day 9 - Book You Never Expected To Love
I am going to be telling this all the wrong way round, but, hey it's my meme answer and I can do what I want to.
Every other John le Carre book I have tried to read I have bounced straight off. And I mean every other, I've tried about 4 others, not counting the one I'm not going to read because the pharmaceutical industry is not actually evil.
And yet, I love and adore 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'. I think partly it's the cynical attitude, because no one really believes in any of the causes they're fighting for, it's become a matter of habit. There's a grubby realness about it.
Jim Prideaux.
I read the book by accident, 'Sight and Sound' magazine had a review of the TV series, and it sounded like the kind of thing I'd like. I had no chance of getting hold of the tv show but lucky, the school library had a copy (it also had a copy of Stark. I miss my old school library.).
So I'm reading it, and I get caught up in the mystery and all that, but mostly I find myself falling for Jim Prideaux. Well, not falling for him, not in that way, but suddenly I had someone I could aim to be, not in a career sense but in a more roadmap of life sense. I must have been 14-ish when I read it the first time, but I knew that I didn't want the husband and 2.4 children thing, but it was more than that, it was that I didn't feel a need for it either. And at the time, when your friends start pairing off and everyone starts being all hearts in their eyes, you do feel a bit left out. Then suddenly there's this character who is like you (and, unlike Spock, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Who [why yes, there's a reason I get a bit ticked off when they suddenly go all romantic and squishy in the remakes] is in the real world), more than that, he's like you and people think he's wonderful, and he's one of the few out and out heroic characters in the damn book.
Also, you know, he's the unstoppable stoic who is going to get the job done, which, you may have noticed, is one of those character archetypes I ping for.
About half of it is flashbacks, to stuff that some of the characters already know happened. And mostly, even in the non-flashback parts, it's people talking. But it works because Smiley has to do that because he's been locked out and his anger at having to do this helps drive the plot forward.
I tend to call it a non-action thriller, because that's what it is. With the exception of Tarr's flashback to Irina and Prideaux's flashback to his adventures in Czechoslovakia, there's no action. It's people talking, going over the same ground again, and again, and yet the tension ratchets up until you're nearly as tense as Gillam when the final reveal comes.
The other interesting thing is that the reveal works. Quite often the reveal of the double agent doesn't work because it's too shocking, it doesn't fit with what you know about the character (I'm looking at you, NCIS) or with what the character is capable of, in terms of access. But yes, it has to be Haydon. And the other characters already know it, it's the great unspoken thing, well mostly unspoken, Smiley thinks something about it in the end, that it could only have been Haydon and they all must have known it and were just choosing to ignore it because they liked Bill. It's brilliantly foreshadowed without it ever being too obvious.
It's a great novel for elision, because there's four things we will never know that drive the plot forward:
1 - What put Control on to it, because he had to have known for sure Merlin was crooked to start the whole damn search in the first place. Did he really just have a gut instinct that the whole thing was too good to be true? Once that's in place, his logic is sound, it really could only be one of the five because it has to be someone senior enough to know what the Circus wants and what the Americans want so that they can sell it to them too, and to set up the London end. Subverting someone like Gillam, even though he's head of one set of operations, it'd cause trouble but not like this.
And of course, once you start thinking like that it becomes three rather quickly, because Toby doesn't have the charm to pull it off, and Bland doesn't have the gumption.
I think that's why Control got stuck, because he so wanted it to be Alleline, that he couldn't see any further than that.
2 - When exactly, and how exactly, did Karla recruit Haydon?
Haydon refuses to say in the two interviews he does have with Smiley, and Smiley doesn't get the chance to ask again. The reasons he gives are pointedly more that he doesn't like the Americans rather than he's pro-Russia.
Karla visits the UK in the mid-thirties, and Karla recruited Gerald directly (we think). So how, and therefore how much of Bill Haydon's wild and general right wing Anglo-philia is real. Is it like Thatch is described as doing, was there gentle nudging until Haydon's views were like that, or did Haydon just hide everything under everything, as per usual?
3 - What exactly would Prideaux have said had he found Smiley in? What exactly did he say to Haydon?
Prideaux had been sworn to secrecy, and it's not the sort of thing where a hypothetical would do. Even going 'help, I'm worried Control has gone off his rocker' would have blown the gaff.
4 - What happens when Prideaux kills Haydon?
In many ways, it's one of the best things about the book. It's another thing that's never confirmed but everyone knows. We have Smiley convinced that someone is following him, Gillam thinking he maybe saw a shadow, and it taking him some time (a couple of months) to realise that the shadow looked like Prideaux. Then Haydon is found dead, neck broken in the same way that we've seen Prideaux use before. And Haydon's been drinking vodka.
I think Prideaux's loyalty is the thing that both Control and Haydon have used and under-estimated, because it's utter, and it only extends to two things, his country and his friends.
Control uses it because Prideaux is the only person who he could send (in terms of seniority and speaking of the language) and also he's the rare person who would tell the truth if it had been Haydon's name that Stevcek had told him.
That's one of the things that worries me about the film version because I have a terrible feeling they'll make his revenge personal, where in the book it's 1) unexplained and 2) from the description of other people's reactions, you get the distinct feeling it was probably more because Haydon betrayed both the country and the Czech networks (which he'd recruited, and had served in the war with at least one of them).
And I do mean everything, from Circus's aims (make sure the Americans remember we exist), to Circus's policies (which extends to both Sam winding up the janitors and the janitors's revenge) to the fact that everyone constantly complains about the standard of the rooms, of the safe houses, and it's so much like real life that in, for instance, the scene in the service reading room, le Carre doesn't have to write in that the carpet is cheap and threadbare because we know, because the janitors have complained about the squeaky lifts 10 chapters previously.
And the people are gloriously bitchy too, in the very realistic way, where even people you like, you occasionally pick out of the flaws of.
It adds to the air of realism, and it's a very realistic book.
It's everyone, not just the spies, because you have the characters at the school, including Roach, who is probably one of the master-strokes of the whole thing. I think by opening with him, the book didn't make me bounce off like le Carre's other stuff has done, and he's so very possible.
It's as got great re-readability which given it's a thriller says something about how well it's written. Knowing whodunit doesn't damage the book, in fact, it gives several of the scenes a whole different spin.
Day 1 - The best book you read last year
Day 2 - A book that you've read more than 3 times
Day 3 - Favourite series of books
Day 4 - Favourite book in your favourite series
Day 5 - A book that makes you happy
Day 6 - A book that makes you sad
Day 7 - Most under-rated book
Day 8 - Most over-rated book
Day 10 - Favorite classic book
Day 11 - A book you hated
Day 12 - A book you used to love but don't anymore
Day 13 - Your favorite writer
Day 14 - Favorite book of your favorite writer
Day 15 - Favorite male character
Day 16 - Favorite female character
Day 17 - Favorite quote from your favorite book
Day 18 - A book that disappointed you
Day 19 - Favorite book turned into a movie
Day 20 - Favorite romance book
Day 21 - Favorite book from your childhood
Day 22 - Favorite book you own
Day 23 - A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven't
Day 24 - A book that you wish more people would've read
Day 25 - A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 - A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 - The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 - Favorite title
Day 29 - A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 - Your favorite book of all time