“At that moment, Karl seemed to hear some sound, sense danger; he glanced over his shoulder, began to pedal furiously, bending low over the handlebars. There was still the lonely sentry on the bridge, he had turned and was watching Karl. Then, totally unexpected, the searchlights went on, white and brilliant, catching Karl and holding him in their beam like a rabbit in the headlights of a car. “ - from The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carré.

I love books. For books contain potential - potential to learn, to gain perspective, to encourage creativity and to escape. I tend to gravitate toward non-fiction books due to my thurst for knowledge, but find that reading fiction keeps me more balanced in my routine - I spend less time in front of screens. I also find I am more critical of cinema, especially for studios that produce live action versions of animated classics or prequal-this and prequal-that (hell, lets just create a prequal for each character!). Lacks originally, lacks effort, in a word…lazy. It would appear at these studios that the marketing department is dictating to the writers (or conspiracy theory version - AI is writing their scripts for them). I digress.

My routine of reading trends toward the mornings and then may continue throughout the day in chunks of time, but only if I get to reading in the morning. So, I end up getting more reading done during breaks such as over the holidays when I have a chunk of downtime. For instance, I am skimming through Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss today. A takeway is that Tim knows a lot more people than I do (and does a much better job of keeping those connections warm), I think I counted 15 names in the book that I recognized. That number would have been 16, but apparently Tim Urban is not the country musician I thought he was, that’s Keith Urban. So it is just 15 people. I picked up this book because I had picked up Tim’s other book, Tools for Titans a few years ago and found it filled with interesting nuggets of perspective, advice and hacks.

I first heard of Tim in a Fast Company article, and I immediately made two connections. First, I believe Tim and I are the same age meaning we likely share the same pop culture references (for whatever that is worth). Second, he is the opposite of me, extroverted, high energy, go, go, go all the time (at least he appears to be). People with these personalities fascinate me, but that was not always the case. I spent several months rooming with a friend while going through instructor pilot upgrade. He was an extrovert, high energy person who wanted to get out and explore on the weekends instead of sit around the apartment. I realized that, although I need my space from these personality types, I should work to incorporate them into my life to maximize the potential of exposing myself to things that put me out of my introverted comfort zone - extroverts introduce high entropy into my life. So, Tim’s books get space on my bookshelf.

But, Tim’s books are not the reason I decided to write. That author would be John Le Carré. Le Carré is a man who came on the scene in the early 1960’s as an author with the pedigree of an intelligence officer in the British Secret Service during the height of the James Bond craze. Dr. No with Sean Connery had just came out and if you wanted to be like JFK, you bought some Ray Bans and headed to the beach (or yacht club) to lounge reading Ian Fleming.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The first Le Carré book I read was Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, drawn to it in part by the quirky title and in part by a trailer I saw some time ago of the movie version (which I have yet to watch). I was immediately hooked by Le Carré’s writing style and key character, George Smiley. The short, podgy man wearing ill-fitted expensive clothes was the opposite of James Bond in appearance, but his better at analytical brilliance. After reading Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy I was caught as to the absurdity that Iam Fleming is the more well known author. Of course, I am also more likely to pick up a novel by Alistair MacLean over Clive Cussler.* Cussler’s books feel more formalistic, catering to a more modern generation of action readers than MacLean.

Perhaps it is Le Carré’s prose, wordy monologues, drawn out scenes that lack the action packed speed that audiences require. A Le Carré novel compared to an Ian Fleming novel is similar as comparing the movie Gosford Park is to Die Hard. From that perspective, it makes sense that Ian Fleming and James Bond have the place that they do in pop culture. A John Le Carré novel may just be too subdued and intellectual for movie audiences demanding more explosions and stunts.

“When Smiley had left the Islay for Grosvenor Square that morning, the streets had been bathed in harsh sunshine and the sky was blue. Now as he drove the hired Rover past the unlovable facades of the Edgware Road, the wind had dropped, the sky was black with waiting rain…” - from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carré.

Le Carré is the type of author that you read while sitting in a wingback chair, sipping on your favorite scotch. The type of person who channels Victorian values, appreciates the newsprint on their fingertips after a careful review of the Opinion Page of the Wall Street Journal. Not the person who absorbs information in bursts of 280 characters while slamming their second Monster of the day, all before noon. I would put Le Carré in the same category as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, (whether the story of choice is Sherlock Holmes or Brigadier Gerard) authors best appreciated when one has the luxury of ignoring the clock and a desire to get lost in a book during the morning rain. A reader with a penchant for British writing at its most subtle, and at its most cerebral.

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold Richard Burton and Michael Hordern in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, released in 1965.

“The clatter as it barges into the crescent, the metric tick-tick as the bass notes die. The cut off: where has it stopped, which house…the slam of the door the explosive anti-climax: if you can hear it, it’s not for you. But Smiley heard it, and it was for him.” - from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carré.

Le Carré’s characters tend to ramble and draw out scenes, but that is part of the appeal of a Le Carré novel over another. The scene where George Smiley is interrogating Gerstmann draws out the whole concept of “Would you like a cigarette?” to several pages of prose (Le Carré, 2021, 269-272). The reader finds themself standing in the room over Smiley’s shoulder, holding one’s breath not from the swirling puff of smoke floating out of the freshly lit cigarette but from the anticipation of the next words to be spoken. The scene leaves one to wonder who is interrogating who. It is all very cerebral, requiring the reader to pay attention.

John Le Carré, was (he died in 2020) and is one of the best, especially if you have a wingback chair.

Interestingly enough, Richard Burton, who starred in the film adaption of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, also starred with Clint Eastwood in an Alistair MacLean novel turned theatrical release called Where Eagles Dare. Which, happens to have a very Le Carré-esque “who’s the real spy?” scene that gets me every time I watch it. Great movie.

__________

Ferriss, Tim. 2017. Tribe of Mentors. New York: Houghton Mufflin Harcourt.

Ferriss, Tim. 2017. Tools for Titans. New York: Houghton Mufflin Harcourt.

Le Carré, John. 2021. Call for the Dead. New York: Penguin Books.

Le Carré, John. 2021. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. New York: Penguin Books.

Le Carré, John. 1974. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. New York: Penguin Books.

Ritt, Martin, dir. 1965. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (United Kingdom: Paramount Pictures, 1965), Theatric Release.

__________

© 2025 Jeremy Reynolds, all rights reserved.

Back to Blog Index