The Novel That Came in for the Win

There are a number of reasons, I think, that John Le Carre’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold made it on to this list. 

First, the book marked a shift in the spy novel genre.  By the time Le Carre began writing his bestseller, Ian Flemming had already published seven James Bond novels.  The spy as international man of mystery was already a glamorous public figure.  Alec Leamas, the protagonist in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, is no James Bond.  He’s aging, he’s angry, he’s rough around the edges, and he never once draws a gun or uses a gadget.  There are no casinos, no femme fatales, and no mysterious villains with odd behaviors and plans to destroy the free world.  Everything about the novel makes spy work look like a dirty and unpleasant job.  When the book was published, it made huge waves and was hailed as a genuine look at the spy game in an increasingly tense cold war.  In spite of Le Carre’s protestations, reviewers treated the book as though it revealed dark secrets against the wishes of the intelligence community because the book got at some ugly truths.  The novel provided a much need counterpoint in the genre and set a new standard for spy stories.

Second, the book is short and sharp.  My edition is 225 pages long, and I read it in about three days, which is very quick for my slow-reading self.  But even in its brevity, the novel manages to make the reader not feel short-changed on anything.  The characters are quickly drawn, but they are full characters with the complete feeling of depth and a life that goes beyond the pages on which they are printed.  The relationships and exchanges echo in the deep well of a suggested past.  It may be only the illusion of depth, but as a reader, I never felt cheated.  In this same vein, the story moved quickly without leaving out needed details or leaving questions unanswered. While the prose didn’t send me running to Facebook to update quote after quote, it was sharp and controlled, admirably well written without ever seeming “beautiful” or pretentious.  Any more florid of a style would have been out of place with the moral landscape of the world Le Carre created.  And like the characters and the prose, the plot was deceptively simple too.  There were no twists and turns leading to an explosive climax, no red herrings leading Leamas down fruitless paths, no minor characters with their own agendas that interfere with Leamas’s objectives.  And once again Le Carre turns this simplicity into a strength, propelling his plot with a singular focus that is absorbing and compelling.  The one twist it gives is a whammy and more than enough to reward the reader.  At every turn Le Carre make simplicity a power.

Third, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a morally ambiguous mess, as one can only imagine intelligence, counter-intelligence, and matters of national security necessarily are.  Again and again we are told that the only thing that matters in the intelligence game is results.  The ends always justify the means.  If bodies of the innocent stack up on the roadside in order to protect the “greater good,” then so be it.  This all comes beautifully to a head in the penultimate chapter when Liz and Leamas argue over the roles they have played in this spy game.  Liz clings to her understanding of right and wrong as Leamas angrily attempts to explain the murkiness of it all.  He simultaneously rejects and embraces what he is saying, and we as readers are stuck in the middle with Leamas.  It is an ugly position to be put in, but one that we always knew was there.  The complications of the intelligence world are made plain and made to be felt, which is really all that any reader could ask for.  And this simple presentation of a complex situation is precisely why reviewers in 1962 felt that they were being given an inside look into something they were never supposed to see.   Even Le Carre’s portrayal of Liz and the British Communist Party is surprisingly gentle in the heart of the cold war.  The novel does not in any way endorse communism, but it has an understanding of the everyday people who embrace its on-the-face message of peace and equality.  And the criticisms it lays against the Party at the highest levels are equally laid against the leaders of the British intelligence community, as both powers are presented as ruthless and without a moral compass.  That too, I think, contributed to the book’s reception as an expose of ugly truths.

My only disappointment in the novel was the strain of sexism that ran through it.  Leamas shock at and distaste for any woman in a position of power (I’m thinking of Miss Crail and the presiding judge at the tribunal) are not subtle.  The female warden who is in charge of Liz is an unthinking and unquestioning buffoon of sorts.  And Liz herself is a rather sorry figure, even as she is the moral center of the novel.  At 23, she is alone and unloved, naively embracing the communist’s “historical inevitability.”  The only man for her is a 50-year-old gruff partner who offers her nothing emotionally, but to whom she devotes herself whole-heartedly.  She is, as Leamas says, “a frustrated little girl,” and that’s about all the respect she gets from anyone.

But for the short shrift given to Liz, this is a fantastic novel.