A Legacy of Spies

A Legacy of Spies revisits the events of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold from the perspective of Peter Guillam, who is called in from retirement when the Circus is sued by the son of Alec Leamas. Guillam revisits documents from the operation and tells the investigating lawyers (some of) his part of the story. The gloomy atmosphere of shabbiness, moral ambiguity, and futility that is present in le Carre novels is in full force here, except, strangely, when George Smiley finally enters the scene.

A Legacy Of Spies is ostensibly set in the present, but le Carré is necessarily vague about exactly when the events of the novel take place, otherwise Peter Guillam is preternaturally young, and George Smiley's continued lucid existence almost entirely improbable. The book closes with Guillam noting that the events described took place a long time ago.

I've mixed feelings about this book. There are numerous little inconsistencies that trip up the continuity between this and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Considering how much of the background to the earlier novel Legacy fills in, such anomalies are irritating. Legacy essentially cannot exist apart from its famed predecessor, and continuity errors aside there is no evidence of le Carré's powers declining in his old age, so I'm at a loss as to why he allowed them through. They were always going to be noticed by the target audience, i.e. fans of Spy.

But plot details have possibly taken a back seat to le Carré's major theme here as I see it: that spies are flawed human beings, and their very human emotions and selfish motives can fatally blind their judgement, leading to tragedy and lifelong repercussions for all involved.

A satisfying book? Somewhat. But in once more cracking open a window upon the Circus le Carré shattered the completeness and self-containedness of Spy, retrospectively creating loose ends and reawakening a dormant curiosity that by the end of Legacy was nowhere near satisfied.

Short thoughts. I like le Carré's artistry and Smiley and a couple of the other characters, even a few of the less likable ones. But there are some cartoon like characters outside of the main set, Control for instance.

This is a long later follow up to the Spy Who Came in From the Cold. I both remember while I like and do not always like le Carre. He can be tedious, which is part of both what I like and dislike about him. The plots are always complex, again I like and dislike that. I am often no excited about the book in the middle and frequently somewhat lost because we are intended to be lost in a number of these books.

But the ends tend to have really good pay offs. A four star here is really about the end more than the book as a whole.

My longer thoughts are on my blog at http://bookwi.se/legacy-of-spies/

If you enjoyed The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, and the other Smiley stories, this is a must read. I'd recommend re-reading The Spy Who Came in From the Cold first.