Holiday Reading
Smiley returns
Gentle reader,
I will return in a few days for the final installment of my favorite music of the year. I initially projected that I would complete it this week, but Christmas happened. Meanwhile, I thought I would let you know what I’m reading during the holiday break, a time when I try to read at least one book that has nothing to do with my work.
Somehow, I missed all of the press for this novel when it was published a year ago, which is kind of perfect, because now I can just buy the paperback instead of the hardcover. I have been reading John le Carré’s novels for my entire adult life, and, like most people, my favorites are his masterpieces involving his character George Smiley, especially The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and Smiley’s People. And so I was a little skeptical about the prospect of the late author’s son, Nick Harkaway, taking up the Smiley baton. I’ve read only one of Harkaway’s earlier novels, and I liked it fine, but it was quite different from his father’s writing. But I heard him interviewed last week on Fresh Air, and I was intrigued.
I’m one chapter in, and I can say only “so far, so good.” I’ll let you know what I think after I finish it.
Meanwhile, enjoy the holidays, and, as always, thanks for reading, from my fancy internet typewriter to yours.
John
I have read all the Smiley books except The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, as it is never available in the library, but I agree about Tinker, Tailor and Smiley's People - I also enjoyed the first Smiley book - and John le Carre's first novel - Call for the Dead. I dislike series without a definite end (I know le Carre didn't really write a Smiley series other than the Karla trilogy). The death of a character's author seems like a good place to close that character's chapter. I've avoided Jill Patton Walsh's continuation of D. L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane characters, knowing from 'The Mind of the Maker' that Sayers bristled at interference from others regarding the development of her characters. It does seem a bit exploitive to take an author's created character and impose different stories than the author's on them.
I remember it as a good read. As cheery as a bloody Richard Burton hangover.