Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsSmiley's Swan Song
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 1, 2011
`Smiley's People' is, of course, one of the best spy novels ever written, and a must read for lovers of the genre. That said, it's the weakest of the Karla Trilogy. While certainly less confusing, confounding, and imposing than `The Hounrable Schoolboy', it's also less engaging. It certainly feels less brilliant than `Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy', a novel, I would argue, that is the best spy novel ever written. This was a book that was written when the character George Smiley was already a literary star; it is not a book, however, that made him a literary star, and the result is a story that artificially parades out a litany of Smiley's `people' like the contrived movie star guest appearances on a bad sitcom. Worse, the story, while still composed of that le Carre brand of believability, is by and far the flattest of the three novels. If you've read the first two, then this is a definite buy, but it's not a stand alone novel, and is definitely not the best place to buy in to the Smiley novels. Yes, the prose is still le Carre strong, but his remaining attributes (the subtlety, the moral nuance, the Dickens-esque characters and Dickens-esque gray) feel a bit phoned-in, a bit forced, a bit of an accidental caricature of itself. In all, a little too self-serving.
That said, the Karla trilogy is to spy novels what the Earth is to the planets, and I'm not sure how much higher praise can come. John le Carre successfully defined himself against the ostentation of Ian Fleming during the prime of the latter's career, but amazingly, he is still defined against the plethora of outright horrid novels breeding like weeds in the genre (Have you read a Vince Flynn? He makes Tom Clancy look like Flaubert). For those few who enjoy the Smiley novels and other well-written genre novels, I can't recommend enough 'The Untouchable' (brilliant), le Carre's own 'The Perfect Spy', and maybe try Cooper's "The Spy". And for those who are curious about "Smiley's People", you'd best start with `The Spy Who Came in from the Cold', or `Tinker...'. `Smiley's People', I'm afraid, is an encore for the fans, a sermon to the converted. But to the unconverted I say, the le Carre cult is a great place to be.
