PositiveThe Village VoiceSmiley is less a character in this book than a specter, a legend living in the shadows. For much of the story, it’s unclear if he is still alive at all. Instead, this is the story — told in the first person ('a truthful account, as best I am able to provide it') — of one of Smiley’s former disciples ... No wonder this book is being treated as a massive literary event over in England. It’s not just that Le Carré is a master who is still, astonishingly, at the peak of his powers at age 85. It’s that his half-century-old spy fiction is sounding more and more like a parable for the present ... When he finally does appear, Smiley is as inscrutable as ever ... You want to believe the act, just as you want to believe Peter is a guiltless Casanova.
