4 ms·

I can admit I have not read Le Carre. But I have seen some movies and series, and I find them strange. It is implied the stakes are very, very high, but never i

by mongol 4y ago

I can admit I have not read Le Carre. But I have seen some movies and series, and I find them strange. It is implied the stakes are very, very high, but never is explained what exactly is at stake. Very puzzling.

yodon 4y ago
>It is implied the stakes are very, very high, but never is explained what exactly is at stake. Very puzzling. Is it rude of me to ask if you were born after about 1972 (so less than about 17 at the time the wall came down and the Cold War ended)? Le Carre's books, even the newer ones, are deeply embedded in a grand battle to the death between superpowers. He didn't bother to explain that in his books because at the time he was writing them his readers (and most of his original film audiences) understood that context and took it for granted. By about the age of 17, most people in those days had a very clear understanding of the stakes involved in conflict or war between super powers, including for example the Cuban Missile crisis when everyone in the world understood that tens of millions of people could be killed in the next 12 hours or so (if you're not personally familiar with the era, the movie Thirteen Days starring Kevin Costner is a powerful and engaging view into what was perhaps the height of the Cold War experience).
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tptacek 4y ago
Part of the point of le Carré is that the stakes aren't clear, and whatever they are, they're often not worth the shoddy business the Circus constantly involves itself in. The Cold War is a looming cataclysm, of course, but these fucking spies are just running around immiserating people in the (probably ill-founded) hopes that they're making the world in any way better, when really all they're doing is picking which organized crime family gets to run the heroin business in Laos. The work Smiley does might be incredibly important, or it might not be. He himself grapples with that ambiguity (and with his oscillating affiliation with the Circus), which is part of what drives the narrative. So the answer to your question here is basically like asking "who's the murderer" in an Agatha Christie book.

by mongol 4y ago

yodon 4y ago

>It is implied the stakes are very, very high, but never is explained what exactly is at stake. Very puzzling. Is it rude of me to ask if you were born after about 1972 (so less than about 17 at the time the wall came down and the Cold War ended)? Le Carre's books, even the newer ones, are deeply embedded in a grand battle to the death between superpowers. He didn't bother to explain that in his books because at the time he was writing them his readers (and most of his original film audiences) understood that context and took it for granted. By about the age of 17, most people in those days had a very clear understanding of the stakes involved in conflict or war between super powers, including for example the Cuban Missile crisis when everyone in the world understood that tens of millions of people could be killed in the next 12 hours or so (if you're not personally familiar with the era, the movie Thirteen Days starring Kevin Costner is a powerful and engaging view into what was perhaps the height of the Cold War experience).

deleted 4y ago
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tptacek 4y ago

Part of the point of le Carré is that the stakes aren't clear, and whatever they are, they're often not worth the shoddy business the Circus constantly involves itself in. The Cold War is a looming cataclysm, of course, but these fucking spies are just running around immiserating people in the (probably ill-founded) hopes that they're making the world in any way better, when really all they're doing is picking which organized crime family gets to run the heroin business in Laos. The work Smiley does might be incredibly important, or it might not be. He himself grapples with that ambiguity (and with his oscillating affiliation with the Circus), which is part of what drives the narrative. So the answer to your question here is basically like asking "who's the murderer" in an Agatha Christie book.