The Quest for Karla

by John le Carré

Book Overview

Three complete works by a popular author of spy and espionage novels include Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honourable Schoolboy, and Smiley's People. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394528484
• ISBN13: 9780394528489
• Release Date: August 1982
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 952 Pages
• Weight: 3.08 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Le Carre is simply the best !

When I make my fantasy list of the best books I've ever read, Le Carre's trilogy about George Smiley is near the top. The author is difficult reading. You have to pour over most paragraphs, so as not to miss each nouance. Smiley is the ultimate father figure in espionage literature. You are comfortable when he is there and figuring things out, but you marvel at the complexity and difficulty of what he has to do, and how he does it. I commend this to anyone who loves rich characterization, and wants a book he or she will come back to again and again.

Outstanding modern fiction

I was interested in the espionage story but what I found most compelling were the characters and how much i grew to care about them over time (especially Smiley). The conclusion, that if you choose the methods of your enemy you are no better than your enemy is quite true. I do not like much modern fiction but found these three novels completely compelling, and have read them twice.

The Russia House

`Spying is waiting'. So believable. Unlike the breakneck speed of events of popular espionage fiction, John Le Carre takes us into the REAL world of spying where you do your bit and wait for the reactions. Things don't happen at the speed at which we wish them to. His characters don't speak from high moral grounds, so typical to Tom Clancy's characters. Nor they are reluctant heroes of Robert Ludlum. They are real people, afraid, greedy, selfish, people who you can relate with, people who don't have the power to eliminate the evils of the world single-handedly. These are the people who know that the evils are here to stay, and in some sense they are also part of it. Elimination of evil will mean self-destruction. They just play the part in the manner they are told to and wait to get out of the evil-machine of espionage. `Spying IS waiting'****Precaution: Stay away from the movie if you haven't read the novel.

Three birds with one stone

A winning trifecta from the Spymaster. Revisit the good old days of the cold war and espionage through the eyes of everyman intelligence genius George Smiley in three of LeCarre's best. An excellent writer of prose, with an ear for understated English conversation, LeCarre is an underrated novelist, as plot, dialogue, and denoument are all strong. All three novels combined is a must read for spy readers, and a pleasing literary work for those who appreciate top notch writing skills.

LeCarre and Smiley: men who transcend the genre

Master sleuth George Smiley, now retired, has a problem. The whole of Britain's intelligence web, and possibly the future of Britain itself, lie uncovered and bleeding from wounds delivered by a British double agent. Smiley must come out of retirement and perform a miracle. The manner in which he attempts to do so, as related by John Le Carre, is no less than a miracle in itself. Le Carre's Smiley novels are masterworks of intricacy, double and triple dealing, subtle and surprising plot twists, and remarkable characterizations at every turn. Smiley and his associates, in London and Hong Kong and Vietman and a brown Italian hillside, are fully-developed characters, as real as their problems. Le Carre's novels are a wondrously complex combination of superior writing and lively plots, grand and memorable treats for the discerning reader. Le Carre has been compared to Dickens once too often; Great Expectations was never this exciting.