After a routine security check by George Smiley, civil servant Samuel Fennan apparently kills himself. When Smiley finds Circus head Maston is trying to blame him for the man's death, he begins his own investigation, meeting with Fennan's widow to find out what could have led him to such desperation. But on the very day that Smiley is ordered off the enquiry he receives an urgent letter from the dead man. Do the East Germans - and their agents - know more about this man's death than the Circus previously imagined?
Le Carré's first book, Call for the Dead, introduced the tenacious and retiring George Smiley in a gripping tale of espionage and deceit.
Call for the Dead, John Le Carre
Before the death of author John Le Carre, I'd already promised myself a re-run through the George Smiley series, for two reasons. I'd listened to AGENT RUNNING IN THE FIELD last year and been absolutely taken with the style of narration from the author himself; then late one night we'd stumbled upon a stream of the 1965 movie of THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, having already been very pleased to find the same of Sir Alec Guinness in the TV series TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY. Distinctly remember Clive James being somewhat underwhelmed by the same - a quote from his original review “The first instalment fully lived up to the standard set by the original novel. Though not quite as incomprehensible, it was equally turgid.”
There's always been something slightly captivating, and worrying about the George Smiley series although it has dawned on me that you have to approach it with the same sardonic, dry tone that Le Carre used in his narration mentioned above; but most importantly, you have to remember that this is probably more akin to spycraft than all the bang bang shoot 'em up daring doing of the average spy thriller written. Long periods of introspection, interrupted by sporadic bits of quietly dangerous shadow boxing, and a lot of wondering what the hell is happening and why you just couldn't have gone out and got a real job thinking. Which is part of what makes, upon reflection, the Smiley series so darn clever. It can be drawn out and it can equally be tense and rapidfire, it's often times almost incomprehensible, and it's quietly, menacingly, dangerous. It's playing with minds and futures. It's destroying lives, not always cavalierly, sometimes so matter-of-factly that it's more frightening as a result.
The core of CALL FOR THE DEAD is exactly that, a routine security check, nothing out of the ordinary as far as George Smiley is concerned, leading to a seemingly blameless civil servant killing himself. It's the attempt on the part of one of Smiley's overlords to blame him for the death that triggers his investigation, his meeting with the widow of Samuel Fennan, onto the connection with East German intelligence.
This is Le Carre's first book, and it set the tone and style for everything that was to come, particularly the George Smiley series, tenacious, controlled central characters who quietly go about their dangerous, deadly work with commitment and conviction. Run it in your head in a low-key, sardonic manner and the stylings make sense, the plots are most definitely convoluted and frequently incomprehensible, but for this reader that really kind of works.
Call for the Dead, John Le Carre (review by Gordon Duncan)
Over the summer, along with reviewing new novels, I’m also planning to review some of my favourites starting with John Le Carre’s Call For The Dead. Although Le Carre is arguably the greatest spy novelist of all time his first two novels, Call For The Dead and A Murder Of Quality, fit more closely within the crime/mystery genre. It was only after the release of Le Carre’s third novel, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, that he became known as a writer of espionage novels.
Call For The Dead was released in the same year as Thunderball, the tenth James Bond, and it’s hard to imagine two more opposite characters than James Bond and George Smiley. One an all action figure, the other, in Le Carre’s unflattering opening description of George Smiley’s wedding, a bullfrog who had ‘waddled down the aisle in search of the kiss that would turn him into a Prince’. Despite this less than flattering introduction, George Smiley has not only endured, he’s become one of the greatest literary characters of all time.
After an introductory first chapter the story begins in earnest in chapter two with George Smiley being summoned to the Cambridge Circus at 2am to explain why Samuel Arthur Fennan, a career civil servant whom Smiley had interviewed a few days earlier, had committed suicide. Smiley has no explanation, other than the fact that Fennan’s suicide note doesn’t tally with his recollection of the meeting, and he is sent to Fennan’s home in Surrey to investigate. Smiley very quickly senses something is wrong and after being ordered to not investigate any further, he resigns and continues the investigation privately. Joining Smiley in his investigation are two familiar characters, Peter Guillam and Inspector Mendel, in whom he both trusts and you can see the beginnings of the loyalty he has towards both of them. I’m a huge fan of the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spytelevision series and one of the few criticisms I have of it is that the character of Mendel is condensed. In Call For The Deadyou learn more of his past and why he’s someone who Smiley would trust.
At 160 pages Call For The Dead is probably the shortest of all the John Le Carre novels, it is still however an interesting read for anyone who likes a mystery novel in which the brain is more important than brawn or someone who just wants to know where it all began for George Smiley and John Le Carre.