User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
”I possess a rugged charm and the accessible personality of a man of the world. I am in appearance and manner a British archetype, capable of fluent and persuasive argument in the short term. I adapt to circumstance and have no insuperable moral scruples. I can be irascible and am not by any means immune to female charms. I am not naturally suited to deskwork or the sedentary life, which is the understatement of all time. I can be headstrong and do not respond naturally to discipline. This can be both a defect and a virtue.”After decades of assignments overseas, Nat is finally back in London. His long suffering wife, Prue, is happy to have him home. The problem is that, when an agent as long in the tooth as Nat is called home, it usually means it is time for the golden handshake and a boot out the door. An unexpected reprieve occurs, and he is asked to run a department. Politics is not really Nat’s thing, but he will take just about any position to stay in the service just a while longer. It puts off that rather daunting decision of deciding what to do with the rest of his life.
This story really comes down to one pivotal moment, which seems insignificant at the time. A young man marches into Nat’s club and demands a badminton match. Nat is club champion and has taken on his share of challengers over the years, but few have been this forceful in their demands. Before I hung up my basketball high tops, I was routinely playing against players two decades or more younger than me. I had to learn to conserve energy and play with more wile than power. Nat is exactly at that point in his badminton career as well. He has had a good run, but just like with his job, he is able to be a gamer for a bit longer using brains rather than brawn before he is forced to hang up the racket for good.
Ed is young, obsessed, and judgemental about nearly everything. He is a man trying to find his way through life, and right now naiveness is making him bluster and blunder, which frequently brings a knowing smile to Nat’s lips. They are an unlikely pairing to be friends, but then sometimes those prove to be the friendships that are the most resilient. Here is Ed’s sum up of the current state of things.
”It is my considered opinion that for Britain and Europe, and for liberal democracy across the entire world as a whole, Britain’s departure from the European Union in the time of Donald Trump, and Britain’s consequent unqualified dependence on the United States in an era when the US is heading straight down the road to institutional racism and neo-fascism, is an unmitigated clusterfuck bar none.” As Ed rails against the world, Nat, a career Nationalist, sits there sipping his beer with a knowing smile on his face. John Le Carre uses the Ed character to express his own frustration with the current state of affairs. Nat doesn’t necessarily disagree with Ed, but he, of course, would probably state things with fewer incendiary words. I think there are many people, good people, caught on the wrong side of things right now, who disagree with the direction of their country, but are quietly going about their business hoping the winds will shift in time.
Ed is a man who wants to do more than just complain. He wants to do something to enact change. There is a boy scout aspect to him that reminds me of Pyle from
The Quiet American, a book which has been on my mind lately. A timely book to reread, I think, in the face of our current political chaos. Nat soon finds himself jammed up because of his association with Ed. Is this kerfuffle a mountain or a molehill? Poor Prue, is this yet another thing she will have to deal with? In a time of over reactions, can Nat keep a steady hand on things?
When Nat is asked about Ed, he says something that really resonates with me because it reminds me of the 2016 election.
”It merely crossed my mind that the puritanical side of him might think the West needs punishing. That’s all.” This is often the case for justification that many traitors make regarding their decision to betray their country. By being a traitor, they are actually the ultimate patriot. There were many liberal voters who felt that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party needed to be punished for not being progress enough to embrace Bernie Sanders. These dissatisfied people either refused to vote, voted for a third party candidate, or even grabbed the third rail and voted for Trump. They felt the people of America deserved to have Trump.
They were wrong. No matter what our sins. We did not deserve this.
John Le Carre has never been shy about expressing his own political views in his novels. What is even more impressive to me is that he is 88 years old and still manages to produce a new book nearly every year. He still writes each novel long hand on yellow notebooks, so all of you writers out there who insist you need the newest, fanciest software to write a book might be putting too many bells and whistles in the way of having a thought and writing it down. Le Carre, despite his left leaning politics, manages to retain readers from both sides of the political spectrum. I know several people who are very proud of the fact that they ONLY read nonfiction who, like a character from a Le Carre novel, read his books surreptitiously.
If you have never read a Le Carre novel, this wouldn’t be a bad one to start with. It makes for a good gateway drug into his more convoluted, brilliant novels that may require a slide rule, a diagram, and some clever pondering to keep up with. No worries. Even if you do become lost occasionally in some of his novels, Le Carre will appear out of the fog, wearing a trenchcoat and a knowing smile, and will lead you back to a lighted street to find your way back home.
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Rating: really liked it
John le Carre is one of those authors that I have been reading for years, and spy novels he offers stay with me for many years. I have not read all of his books but those which I have I can still remember rather well.
'Agent Running in the Field' is very much in le Carre's writing style and storytelling. The nuances and niceties cannot be presented better if you are looking for a novel telling you about the art (?) of spying and at the same time you are interested in human nature. The fragility and ruthlessness intermingle and keeping your head cool and senses alert is the essence ...
Spy novels is not my favourite genre, however, I never refuse a JlC novel since I know I will read a book about human nature and reactions rather.
I was lucky to have listened to this novel read by the Author, and he does it masterfully.
Rating: really liked it
The Camel’s-Back Syndrome Democracy is inherently amoral; certainly more so than dictatorships which tend to have rigid codes of behaviour and predictable (if often unpleasant) relationships. Nothing about a democratic society is stable or reliable. That’s it’s hidden cost, which from time to time unhides itself in phenomena like Trump and Brexit. The Catholic Church recognised this explicitly in a string of 19th century encyclicals that have never been taken off the books.
Agent Running in the Field is a sort of summary of why the Church takes such a dim view of democracy.
First, in a democratic society it is presumed that everyone has his or her own interests which one has the right, no the duty, to pursue. Of course this includes members of government and civil servants, even though no one likes to speak of this. The consequence is corruption as an ideal. If you’re not in it for gain, you’re really not a player.
Second, the inherent re-valuation of values that goes on constantly within a democracy implies an absence of ethical foundations. A society that believes it is charge of its own morals can end up with some very strange behaviour and even stranger leadership. And without some form of externally confirmed criteria, there is nothing to constrain the idiocy of the worst among us.
Finally, democratic societies cannot learn - largely because no one can agree by what standard to judge that to be learned. Every person has his own interpretation. So technological knowledge can be accumulated; but moral knowledge cannot in a democracy. History has no real meaning to those who believe they can reinvent themselves to suit the demands of the day. The present is always exceptional; tradition is always archaic. Continuity is demonstrated only on the discontinuous action and counter-action of alternating governments and fluctuating electoral demands. Consequently democracies don’t adapt, they merely find new ways to repeat the same mistakes.
Le Carré as usual tells a good story - all the pieces neatly laid out and wrapped up nicely in the end. Well nearly so. It’s clear in this one that he’s having some reservations about which gangland boss, Putin or Trump, is more representative of democratic government. I think he might be leaning toward the view of the Catholic Church when one of his characters points out the problem of the
“camel’s-back syndrome, when the things you’re not allowed to talk about suddenly outweigh the things that you are, and you go down temporarily under the strain?” ‘Temporarily’ may be an optimistic assessment. The Holy Roman Empire, perhaps, wasn’t so bad.
Postscript 17December19: I just ran across this in my notes from Richard Hofstader’s 1963
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life , which more concisely captures my intention in the above comments (See https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
“One reason why the political intelligence of our time is so incredulous and uncomprehending in the presence of the right-wing mind is that it does not reckon fully with the essentially theological concern that underlies right-wing views of the world. Characteristically, the political intelligence, if it is to operate at all as a kind of civic force rather than as a mere set of maneuvers to advance this or that special interest, must have its own way of handling the facts of life and of forming strategies. It accepts conflict as a central and enduring reality and understands human society as a form of equipoise based upon the continuing process of compromise. It shuns ultimate showdowns and looks upon the ideal of total partisan victory as unattainable, as merely another variety of threat to the kind of balance with which it is familiar. It is sensitive to nuances and sees things in degrees. It is essentially relativist and skeptical, but at the same time circumspect and humane.
The fundamentalist mind will have nothing to do with all this; it is essentially Manichean; it looks upon the world as an arena for conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, and accordingly it scorns compromises (who would compromise with Satan?) and can tolerate no ambiguities. It cannot find serious importance in what it believes to be trifling degrees of difference: liberals support measures that are for all practical purposes socialistic, and socialism is nothing more than a variant of Communism which, as everyone knows, is atheism.”
Rating: really liked it
"Nothing endures that is not fought for."- John le Carré , Agent Running in the Field
OK Boomer.First, amazement. I can't believe JlC is still writing great fiction at 88. There are several writers who I feel the weight of time heavy on (John le Carré, John McPhee, and Robert Caro). They all happen to be some of my favorite writers ever, so anytime one of them writes something new it is like oxygen on my reading fire.
This novel feels a bit like the 3rd* major interation of le Carré. His first novels were Cold War espionage (Smiley novels, etc), his second were post-Cold War, late stage Capitalism. This book, published when he was 88, is a hard screed against the Nationalisms of Russian, Britain, and especially Trump's America. He is angry and he writes beautiful angry prose.
Here are some of my favorite lines about Brexit and Trump:
"Do you or do you not regard Trump, which I do, as a threat and incitement to the entire civilized world, plus he is presiding over the systematic no-holds-barred Nazificaiton of the United States?""He's Putin's shithouse cleaner. He does everything for little Vladi that little Vladi can't do for himself; pisses on European unity, pisses on human rights, pisses on Nato. Assures us that Crimea and Ukraine belong to the Holy Russian Empire, the Middle East belongs to the Jew and the Saudis, and to hell with the world Order.""Brexit is self-immolation. The British public is being marched over a cliff by a bunch of rich elitist carpetbaggers posing as men of the people."The ending is a bit too clean and a bit too hopeful? I dunno. I still have to untangle it a bit. Not top-shelf le Carré, but good and solid spy fiction from the MASTER of spy fiction.
* Fourth if you count his brief flirtation with crime fiction.
Rating: really liked it
I hate the stars. Always ignore them and read the review instead. This is vintage LeCarre, so for his longtime fans and readers (count me among them), it's a good read. But one of the things LeCarre always does is what I call taking no prisoners in his books. What I mean by this is that he has a tendency to throw an enormous cast of characters at you with the expectation that you will remember them. Your choice is either to keep a list or continue to flip back to recall who each person is. Or you can always finish the book and then re-read it at once, which I have been known to do. But the style is, as always, wonderful. He has lost none of his power despite now being in his late 80s. And, as my UK editor once said about him, "He'll never stop writing as long as he's angry." And boy is he angry at the current state of US/UK/European relations. And US/UK leaders. He's not afraid to say it, either.
Rating: really liked it
Awful. Boring. Senseless. 0 of 10 stars
Rating: really liked it
At the age of eighty-eight, there is no doubt that the John Le Carre that I revere is fully present. The narrative voice employed in this novel is fantastic, as we follow a middle-aged spy who has come in from abroad and is stationed in a dead-end job in London (think a more serious version of Mick Herron's Slough House). And interesting questions are raised about what loyalty to country means in the age of Brexit and Trump. But Le Carre does not hit a home run with every book; the story told here just isn't up to his best, and the very sudden ending leaves too much open for my taste.
If you're a Le Carre fan you should definitely read this - there's still lots to like. But if you haven't read much of his work, there are far better places to start.
Rating: really liked it
Maestro of written word... Ingredients of this spy novel are all current goings on... It's hard to be objective for someone who has been his Serbian editor for years... Pure spy novel pleasure mixed with lingustic pleasure...
Rating: really liked it
3.5 ☆ rounded up Sometimes in life you get caught for sins you haven’t committed.
After spending more than half his life abroad in service of his Queen, Nat returns home to the UK. At age 47, Nat is nearing his expiration date as an agent runner for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, aka the Office.
I adapt to circumstances and have no insuperable moral scruples. I can be irascible and am not by any means immune to female charms.
I can be headstrong and do not respond naturally to discipline. ...in need, I can be relied upon to exhibit the required callousness...
The Office contains a deep bureaucracy in which the Peter Principle periodically appears. The duplicitous Dom has recently become a division head and requests Nat, who is fluent in Russian, to head the Haven, a substation for has-been and low-ranking Russian spies.
Devoted in his spare time to his athletics club, Nat is a sporty type who is also the club's reigning champion of badminton.
For unbelievers, badminton is a namby-pamby version of squash for overweight men afraid of heart attacks. For true believers there is no other sport. ... To fellow athletes, we're a bit weird, a bit friendless.
His reputation has attracted the competitive attention of Ed, another badminton enthusiast -
this six-foot something, gawky, bespectacled young man with a sense of solitude about him and an embarrassed half-smile.
I was in the presence of something rare in the life I had led so far, and particularly in such a young man: namely true conviction, driven not by motives of gain or envy or revenge or self-aggrandizement, but the real thing take it or leave it.
Here are a professional spy who plays in the morally ambiguous areas and a really opinionated, idealistic young man meeting during a time of great political upheaval. What could possibly happen? The UK is preparing for Brexit. President Trump is visiting the UK. And Russia is perceived as a threat.
"And ever since we kicked out [Russia's] legal spies in bulk" - meaning spies with diplomatic cover, so my sort - "they've been flooding our shores with illegals," she goes on indignantly, "who I think you'll agree are the most troublesome of the species and the most difficult to smell out."
I've seen film adaptations of le Carre's works, but this was my first experience with his novels. In this case, I listened to an audiobook performed by le Carre himself, which was highly entertaining. I could only hope to be as mentally acute as him at age 88. The wit, spiky humor, and psychological insights retained my attention during what was a slow and methodical establishment of the setting. It wasn't until the 55 percent mark, that I began to get an idea of the plot's direction. Prior to that I had been toying with the thoughts that Ed was a Christopher Wylie researcher a la Cambridge Analytica. Or that
Ed with his very firm opinions of western politics was actually trying to recruit and turn
Nat. "If a traitor doesn’t surprise the shit out of us, he’s no bloody good at his job."
Read
Agent Running in the Field if you want to discover whether my random musings were on point. Because once I passed the 60 percent mark, I disregarded a healthy bedtime to find out how this plotline would conclude. Was I satisfied? Not entirely, hence the 3.5 ☆ rating (view spoiler)
[for I kept checking the amount of remaining pages, because I was in disbelief. I disagreed with le Carre's choice of ending. It was too abrupt, too idealistic, and beggared belief. There are things called "consequences." (hide spoiler)]. But I'm rounding up my rating because the audiobook frequently made me laugh and all of le Carre's double meanings kept me on my toes. It was mostly a great ride and I will look into his earlier novels.
Rating: really liked it
I finished this book last night and went to bed thinking about it and woke up thinking about it and it's been a while since a book made me think this long or this hard. It reminds me of Robert Heinlein's novella "If This Goes On." Heinlein's novella is more of a prequel to Margaret Atwood's
The Handmaid's Tale but Le Carre's novel is the same kind of "if this goes on this is what happens next."
Le Carre is looking at Trump and Brexit through the eyes of spies and if this goes on what happens next. What happens next is a cabal of spies, US and UK, get together to work on a secret agreement to form a union of two countries against the rest of the world, destroying the European Union and the Pax Americana while they're at it, la la. It doesn't sound that out there, and it sure doesn't read that way, either. The spy's eye view is coldly informative, to say the least, as here when Le Carre's hero, Nat, remembers
The date, never to be forgotten by either of us, is 16 July. We have played our usual strenuous match. I have lost again, but never mind, get used to it. Casually, towels round our necks, we head for our Stammitsch anticipating the usual sporadic Monday-evening clatter of voices and glasses in a largely empty room. Instead we are met by an unnatural, fidgety silence. At the bar, a half-dozen of our Chinese members are staring at a television screen that is routinely given over to sport of any kind from anywhere. But this evening we are not for once watching American football or Icelandic ice hockey but Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
The two leaders are in Helsinki giving a joint press conference. they are standing shoulder to shoulder before the flags of both their nations. Trump, speaking as if to order, is disowning the findings of his own intelligence services, which have come up with the inconvenient truth that Russia interfered in the 2016 American presidential election. Putin smiles his proud jailer's smile...A commentator reminds, us, lest we have forgotten, that only yesterday Trump declared Europe to be his enemy and for good measure trashed NATO.Ouch. Previously one of Nat's old informants tells him
You know what Trump is?...He's Putin's shithouse cleaner. He does everything for little Vladi that little Vladi can't do for himself: pisses on European unity, pisses on human rights, pisses on NATO. Assures us that Crimea and Ukraine belong to the Holy Russian Empire, the Middle East belongs to the Jews and the Saudis, and to hell with the world order. And you Brits, what do you do? You suck his dick and invite him to tea with your Queen. You take our black money and wash it for us. You welcome us if we're big enough crooks. You sell us half London. You wring your hands when we poison our traitors and you say please, please, dear Russian friends, trade with us. Is this what I risked my life for? I don't believe so. I believe you Brits sold me a cartload of hypocritical horseshit. So don't tell me you've come here to remind me of my liberal conscience and my Christian values and my love of your great big British Empire. That would be an error..."A big one. When a Sister Service paper pusher and a true believer in the EU discovers the conspiracy and is busted trying to give it to the Germans, Ned's boss says
Point about Trump is, he's a gang boss, born and bred. Brought up to screw civil society all ways up, not be part of it...And poor little Vladi Putin never had any democratic potty training at all...Born a spy, still a spy, with Stalin's paranoia to boot. Wakes up every morning amazed the West hasn't blown him out of the water with a pre-emptive strike.But Ned's Service is still prepared to deal if they can only retain the shreds of power left to them, which is predicated on the gang boss.
A thoroughly uncomfortable and illuminating look in the mirror if you're American. Recommended.
Rating: really liked it
After a slightly slow start, this turns around at about the 50% mark and suddenly becomes utterly gripping - in a I-can't-sleep-till-I've-finished-this kind of way. And when I say 'slow' about the start, I mean slow in a good way, not dull and crawling.
We're no longer in Smiley's world and while some of the old skool types are still around, The Office (no longer The Circus) is far more inclusive (to some extent): we have female Florence, our narrator has a Guardian-reading lawyer/activist wife, and one of the central characters has a conscience around which the whole plot revolves.
This is certainly simpler than the earlier books and nothing like as convoluted as, say, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold or Smiley's People, or even The Constant Gardener. Billed as le Carré's 'angry at Brexit' book, it pulls together a plot involving Brexit, Trump and Putin that won't surprise anyone who followed the ongoing Russian interference in the 2016 US election story - although le Carré does pull off a rather marvellous sleight of hand towards the end.
With a fairy-tale/wish-fulfillment ending that won't satisfy everyone, I wouldn't describe this as vintage le Carré. There's a *massive* coincidence that pulls the plot together and the characterisation of Florence, so important to the story, isn't especially credible: (view spoiler)
[is Florence really the 'love at first sight' type? (hide spoiler)]. Nevertheless, this is always readable, intelligent about contemporary politics, and has a more compassionate ending than some of the bleaker books. I enjoyed it hugely.
Rating: really liked it
Much has been made about this novel--set in 2018--being John le Carré's Brexit and Trump novel, and the fury with which it was written. And, while that is true to a certain extent, and even plays a crucial role in the plot, it isn't a scathing polemic on the matter. What I believe will happen is left-leaning reviewers will praise it, and right-leaning reviewers will condemn it, solely on political grounds. What you won't be hearing in all the hubbub, though, is a lot of praise for its literary merit.
For the initiated, this is
le Carré lite. Loyal readers noticed a change in style--and not just subject matter--after the Cold War ended. They also noticed a change in 2000 to a more political and social mantra. With his previous novel,
A Legacy of Spies, there was another simplification of his narrative style. I originally thought it was because, it being a sequel to
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold--which itself had a simple narrative style owing to le Carré's early days--he didn't want to bowl over readers who may not have kept up with his writing in the interim. (In addition, I also think he's trying to increase the exposure and "filmability" of the novel now that his sons are in the movie-making business and have sole rights to his catalog.) So I'd say this is the new le Carré for modern audiences. The man who had previously elevated the spy novel to Literature status and made it about the journey has now resorted to plot twists.
The narrative moves fast, if not the plot--not that his plots ever did. There is little time for exposition or building much in the way of credibility. Everything has to be taken at face value because it has been written down and is staring the reader in the face, so therefore we have no choice but to accept it. It is neither a slow nor a long read, so it won't consume much time or effort either way.
The title, and both the US and UK covers, seems misleading as well. There is no running in the novel. I believe someone mentions jogging, and they do play badminton, but nothing that breaks a sweat off of the badminton court. That leads me to believe the title has another meaning. It could be a punctuation issue, instead being
Agent-Running, in the Field, but it isn't really a novel of espionage tradecraft. Rather, I believe it refers to the directionless, zig-zagging of someone crashing haphazardly through an unfamiliar space. In that regard, the title is very post-modern, because that also seems to be how le Carré wrote the novel.
Who should read it? People who like straight-forward page-turners with ups and downs and twists. Who should not read it? Anyone who admires and respects what he published between 1974 and 1989.
Rating: really liked it
Agent Running in the Field is the latest book from one of my favorite British authors, John le Carre. It was as sharp as all of his previous espionage novels, and one just needs to hang on for a lot of thrilling twists and turns, but I promise that it will make sense as we see all of these disparate threads come together in such a satisfying ending. You must just trust that John le Carre is a master storyteller and he will bring us all along in a most dramatic way. It is a very contemporary plot in that the struggles over Brexit and the presidency of Donald Trump with all of the ramifications of his leadership are forefront, as well as the growing power of Putin. John le Carre at age eighty-eight years old is still sounding the alarm at the fragile place that the world finds itself. Perhaps we should pay attention.
"The natural-born agent-runner is his own man. He may take his orders from London, but in the field he is the master of his fate and the fate of his agents. And when his active years are done, there aren't going to be many berths waiting for a journeyman spy in his late forties who detests deskwork and has the curriculum vitae of a middle-aged ranking diplomat who never made the grade."
Rating: really liked it
One of the worst JlC books I've read. More of a rant against Trump and Brexit, not that I'm for either of them, but I didn't pick up this book to be treated of a further dose of Twitter.
The tradecraft is too shallow and the end too open ended to be of any satisfaction.
Rating: really liked it
I tend to rate books by my favourite authors a bit more harshly than usual, so a le Carré 3* is probably worth a 4* by another author. As with the rest of his oeuvres, I devoured this quickly and relished that JlC brand of intrigue bubbling under the surface. That said, I felt that this book ultimately fell short in a number of aspects.
There were moments of greatness: enjoyable tradecraft, simmerings of wider conspiracies and twisty-turny character motivations that kept you guessing. But I don't think the book built on its foundations. Some of the side-strands weren't developed (what was the point of Dom Trench?), the obvious explanation for a character's motivation was usually, disappointingly correct, and the main storyline just didn't seem to be of much consequence in the grand scheme of things. It certainly paled in comparison to the double-doubles and innermost traitors of Cold War le Carré. And then there's the ending: I had to read it twice to be sure that's all there was to it. It seems like the author hit a deadline and wrapped it up with a couple of paragraphs of 'happily-ever-after'.
As a reflection on our times, this was occasionally interesting (what does Britain's new place in the world mean for its oldest espionage alliances?) but usually descended into the obvious (Trump bad, Brexit bad, Europe good etc.).
Overall, no one can make a conference room tete-a-tete as entertaining as le Carré, and all of his usual gifts of cerebral spy writing are present here. But this book feels like a missed opportunity; somewhat rushed and not fully developed. Le Carré fans will still enjoy it, though, and he's still a national treasure.
