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Well, then just read the book by John le Carre and then compare it with the Wikipedia Article about John Philby. "The first novel opens with a 14 hour walk acr

Well, then just read the book by John le Carre and then compare it with the Wikipedia Article about John Philby. "The first novel opens with a 14 hour walk across Moscow to be sure that there is nobody on his tail. Just to have a short meeting with his source." But yes, that is realistic. What I said what is not quite realistic in the books, are the levels of schemes and their complexity in the books. In reality they are usually not that complex because reality is boring and humans act dumb too much, it is just not worth build up 5 layers of conspiracy, when one idiot messes up at the 2 layer (just read about Kim Philby). This is where Cornwell took artistic liberty to spice up things, which is allright and I enjoy the books, but my point is, there are not gods at work in the agencies.

wglb 4y ago
Perhaps you are referring to the Wikipedia article about Kim Philby? I wouldn't expect such an article to show the fabric and detail of the life of anyone, let alone a double agent. The two works are not comparable.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  "Perhaps you are referring to the Wikipedia article about Kim Philby?" Yes, that's why I wrote it like that. The book by Carre has explicitely Kim Philby as historic model. Yet in the books, the ploys are way more complex and the traitor is catched, because of advanced reasoning and schemes by Smiley, with Karla as the mastermind opponent. In reality, it was just dumb misstakes, after dumb misstakes. (and I also read the autobiography of Kim Philby btw.) And the details are not important, when the big facts are what they are. But you are free to keep your opinion of course.