Creation Lake - Rachel Kushner

 

Underwhelming. Well-written, obviously, but underwhelming. 

This is a fairly customary Kushner plot - with one woman very much going her own way regardless of the reader's (and society's) expectations. I don't think I've ever had a problem with her main characters being, in one way or another, dislikeable. But in this case Sadie (let's call her that, even if we are reminded time and again that it's not her real name) is not just dislikeable, she's uninteresting. 

Her occasional bouts of self-criticism are too cynical to feel like anything more than just a literary trope, her personalities are so many and so different that it ultimately looks like she doesn't have one at all, and the ending (with her Catalan buen ritiro) is actually pathetically trite (much like her realization that those "stars" that move are actually satellites and the potential for intrusion by powerful entities virtually limitless). 

Silverview - John le Carrè

 

Only picked up this book because of the dearth of remotely readable titles in the Southwark e-library, but I really didn't feel the need for a half-finished le Carrè novel that had been left behind until after his death. 

I do understand that le Carrè had four children and they might have to find a way to live off their father's royalties, but I was assuming they would have enough of the money coming in from his 454078 bestsellers and respective movie rights. 

Besides questioning the decision to publish (and edit on behalf of a deceased author) this novel, I must admit that the book is actually OK, and I do enjoy the late le Carrè's faith in the - often excessively idealistic - younger generations. Yet, I felt that Agent Running in the Field or A Legacy of Spies would have been much more fitting final novels for one of Britain's greatest authors of the last century or so. 

A Legacy of Spies - John le Carré

 

And after complaining about Jonathan Coe, Ali Smith and Ian McEwan for their attempts to either bring their sagas full circle, or to write omni-comprehensive books to capture decades' worth of British history, here comes le Carré and swiftly succeeds where so many of my favourite contemporary British authors failed. 

Granted, it may be an easy exercise for a brilliant writer to play on his readers' nostalgia, to largely repeat plot devices that worked for literally dozens of his novels before, and to essentially spend half of his time making reference to his previous novels. 

Yet, this is a superb way to settle the unanswered questions from The Spy Who Came from the Cold and to add another further layer to George Smiley while painting him as considerably less unblemished than in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The Night Manager - John le Carré

Like with a little black dress, I guess you can never go wrong with a vintage le Carré. And to think of the snobbish look of our librarian when I donated my copy of The Russia House...

For me The Night Manager ranks a bit below Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy and Agent Running in the Field, but it remains a heck of a story. The troubled Pine is one of the most entertaining spies (well, is he a spy or a volunteer?!?) that I've ever come across, and seeing him struggle with his own conscience is absolutely gripping. 

Yet, it's Roper that steals the show. A villain who is always in plain sight and at the centre of the action, not a Palpatine-like figure in the hazy background, he undoubtedly elevates the novel. 

And one is left to marvel at how well some of  le Carré's books - including this - have aged. 

Agent Running in the Field - John le Carré

 

A book that I read in part in digital form, and in part as a hard copy at our local library while my younger daughter was busy reading (well, actually just leafing through, she's three!) dozens of Bluey, Spot and - much to my chagrin - Peppa Pig books. 

Le Carré is one of those authors who make me wonder whether one can be both a great writer and have near universal reach. Very few can, and I believe le Carré belongs in that list. 

Sure, the ending of the book feels rushed and underexplored, but we're talking about an author who, at the tender age of 88, was probably feeling the pressure of time more than others (and he might have a point, as he died soon after the publication of this book). 

Apparently Agent Running in the Field has been described by many as le Carré's Brexit novel, which is obviously reductive, but I did love his decision to air out his anger and frustration with that whole bonkers project: while the likes of Ali Smith and Ian McEwan are preaching to the choir when they criticize Brexit, I suspect le Carré's readership covers a much broader socio-political spectrum and so his move was a lot bolder and riskier (though again, at 88 he probably didn't have too much to lose). 

Berta Isla - Javier Marias

  

Javier Marías is one of those authors who can get away with pretty much anything and, despite what most critics seem to think, I found Berta Isla to be quite a self-induldgent project. 

Marías remains - regardless of him pump and ego - one of the best writers in the world (one doesn't just lose talent after all!), but I found this novel to be, well, uninteresting. I can do with unlikeable and/or unrelatable characters. I mean, after all some of my favourite books are full of unlikeable and unrelatable characters. 

Then again, had I not just finished John Banville's The Untouchable, I would have probably had a lot ore time for Berta Isla.

54 - Wu Ming

  

Dad doesn't read as much as mum, and as such doesn't recommend nearly as much. Of the two books I read on his advice, I found one borderline unreadable and the other an incredible work that gave me a little bit of faith in Italian literature. This is the latter of the two. 

Wu Ming is a writing collective that doesn't seek celebrity. It seeks good writing, and man do they achieve it with 54. 

I was skeptical of a story involving Cary Grant (I didn't have a great experience with Stan Laurel in Triste, Solitario y Final and I think that affected me), but his plot was beautifully woven into the other parallel stories. Plus, I got enough hidden references to feel smug. 

And the stories of former partisans, fighters and comrades trying to come to terms with the post-war Italy they had contributed to create were full of pathos and unusual insights. 

Easily one of the best books I've read in 2022, and one that lifted my mood this last Christmas break.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré

As a result of my attempts to limit the number of books that clutter our flat, a few months ago I donated a dozen novels to the LSE Library. One of the librarians congratulated herself on most of my books, except for Le Carré’s The Russia House. Granted, I didn’t love it, but I thought that was excessively snobbish (and that’s coming from me!) and prejudiced against a writer who only made the mistake of creating some of the greatest spy stories ever written and did so in a way that ensured popular acclaim.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldiery Spy was first suggested to me by my old boss (I really do miss her at times) and she was right – though I still need to see the movie that she recommended just as wholeheartedly.

George Smiley is absolutely awesome, and it is clearly not surprising that he is the protagonist of a whole series of novels and not just one. His problematic love life adds a layer to the novel. The plot, in its twistiness, is gripping yet complex. And the way in which the chapters cross space and time is done in a way that keeps the reader interested and, crucially, confused. Desperately trying to figure out who the mole is, the only thing I knew for sure is that it couldn’t be the “obvious” culprit. And “obviously” I was wrong…

The Innocent – Ian McEwan

And with this I have officially finished all the hard-copy McEwan books that I own (although I still want to read Black Dogs).

Much like in Sweet Tooth, McEwan develops both a love and a spy story in parallel, and I feel that he doesn’t do either excessively well. Somehow I had very little doubt as to where the love story was going to end (it is pretty much stated from the start that the relationship won’t last, and it’s also quite clear that Leonard doesn’t really understand Maria). As for the spy story, despite the cheesiness of the depiction of the British/American divide, its premises are actually really quite interesting (and Operation Gold something that even I had never heard of) – it’s just so hard to write a great spy story in a country that has produced Graham Greene and John Le Carré (and maybe I should also add to this list Alan Bennett, whose work on the Cambridge Spies was actually really quite interesting). 

Sweet Tooth – Ian McEwan

This is my sixth McEwan novel. Two I thought were magnificent (The Cement Garden and The Child in Time), one was great but had a misleading title (in Atonement Briony doesn’t atone!), and three (Saturday, Amsterdam, and now Sweet Tooth) were just very mediocre.

And why is Sweet Tooth mediocre? Because McEwan has too much sympathy for an awful character (Serena is very much like Briony in Atonement), because it takes for freaking ever to get to the actual core of the plot, because the actual lives of interesting Cambridge spies (just ask Alan Bennett) unlike Serena’s are actually, well, interesting, and most of all because – unsurprisingly – everyone is again so posh that it gets to be really rather unnerving.

Like Briony, Serena is completely self-centred, and even in this case McEwan seems to defend her (the comments the narrator makes about the University of Sussex – where McEwan himself studied – are absolutely awful and yet appear to be justified even when they are unjustifiable). And the plot twist at the very end is just not that ground-breaking or mind-blowing (plus, the letter that constitutes the final chapter is simply way too long). 

The Russia House – John le Carré

On my very first trip to Books for Free I faced a dilemma: with Group Portrait with Lady and What a Carve Up! already in my bag I had to pick my third (and last) free book for the day. On the one hand I had The Russia House, on the other Brighton Rock by Graham Greene. Much like Donovan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I chose poorly, picking up le Carré’s novel and leaving behind Greene’s (never to be seen again, at least not for free!).

The Russia House is actually ok, but that’s about it. I was expecting something as exciting as Gorky Park, but instead found a fairly slow book in which, ultimately, very little happens. It probably was thrilling back in the time of Glasnost and Perestroika, but for someone who has to teach about those times (and who has grown to take a number of the comments made by Goethe as rather obvious in the late stages of the Cold War) it just wasn’t that interesting.

The love-story behind the old washed-up anti-hero and the beautiful Russian is just a bit too cliché. And the most interesting character in the novel (Landau) just disappears after two chapters.

Also, can somebody explain to me how a spy (like the narrator) who has access to tapes but not to video recordings of the meetings described can know how the characters he is spying upon are sitting and how the light reflects in their eyes?!?