don’t get me wrong, this book is confusing, hard to follow, and has 50 different things going on at one time — while you might be aware of 5. but at the same time it is exquisitely, thoughtfully, softly and pragmatically written in a way which is very rare, almost unique among spy novels. you will not find a James Bond among the cast of characters in a le Carre novel. instead, you will find an ordinary looking, more or less untalented, somewhat burnt out set of commonplace Londoners, who might have easily been plumbers or schoolteachers instead of spies. John never lets you forget for one moment that spying is a profession, like any other, and that it is NOT a profession to be desired. that when you are no longer of use all your years of service will count for nothing, that a single mistake can blot out in an instant a whole lifetime of circumspect contentiousness. that the Service will break every tie to every friend or family member you’ve ever had and drive you deep within yourself to an extent almost unimaginable to the average person. TTSS is an adventure, sure. but more accurately it is a series of reminiscences tied up in a single narrative, reminiscences that are often soft and slow, sweetly nostalgic, but also other times full of abrasive repressed bitterness to an unimaginable degree.

TTSS is almost a requiem for friendship, and possibly for love, when it is caught and destroyed between the crosshairs of two ironclad regimes leveling their weapons at one another. it is not a thriller. it is not even really a mystery in the traditional Holmesian sense. it is a long, hard, splintered, many faceted look at life, or rather what life becomes when it is repressed, beaten down, and reformed a thousand times through secrecy, through depersonalization, and through all the manifold pressures, both ideological and personal, that once made up the silent conflict called the Cold War.

I will almost certainly be reading this book again sooner or later. TTSS is one of those novels that almost demands a reread, and at any rate your utmost attention while you are reading it.