Summing the Parts of The Smiley Series
Dec. 19th, 2018 03:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
are_youreadyIs the whole greater?
Each individual book of the Smiley Series barring, perhaps, the latter two books of the Karla Trilogy, can be read happily on its own. There are no carryover plot threads, and the relationships and characters are re-established in each one. What I would like to ask is: is it even reasonable to try and view these books as a whole?
In A Legacy of Spies, le Carre essentially bulldozes the canon of both The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Now, that's the definition of forgivable: Legacy was written four decades after the fact, and is essentially a cash grab to feed his grandchildren.
But let's look at the Smiley series proper. I'm defining that to contain all the books that get sold with "a George Smiley novel" on the cover, i.e., the ones that involve Smiley himself. The extended Smiley universe (things like Steed Asprey's one sentence cameo in A Small Town in Germany or a bit character from Absolute Friends named Laura popping up in Legacy) is out the window. I don't want to be here all day. But let's look at the Smiley series, which officially contains nine books: Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Looking Glass War, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People, The Secret Pilgrim, and A Legacy of Spies.
The first problem we run into is one of timelines. Between LGW and TTSS, all the characters lose about a decade off their age, and some lose more in relative terms: Peter Guillam, George's equal in age and status in CFTD, is a protege fifteen years his junior in TTSS. That's already a glaring change, and introduces the question of whether the series should be read together at all.
Ignoring Guillam, and fudging the minor details, it is just possible to come up with a timeline in which CFTD and TTSS happen in the same universe. But is that desirable?
The more important aspect is whether the characters should be read as contiguous. There are the obvious differences, such as Peter Guillam's near complete personality overhaul from the more-establishment-minded-than-George-but-still-perfectly-competent spy we see in CFTD/Spy Who to the ditzy buffoon in the Karla trilogy, and there are the thematic similarities which feel like they should come into play narratively and don't, such as the fact that George's memories of Dieter Frey don't seem to color his thoughts about Karla, even though it seems rather like they ought to. But what I would like to focus on is the question of subtle character amnesia that could be put down to narrator unreliability, and whether it makes sense to take the Doylist route (this was changed between books) or the Watsonian route (George's perceptions are way out of whack).
Let's talk about Control.
In TTSS, Control is a tragic figure. A sadistic shithead, sure, but also one who deserves George's loyalty and respect. His slow death, viewed through George's eyes, is one of the saddest aspects of the story, and the whole book is all nostalgia for a good old days signified by his absolute rulership of the Circus.
This actually goes even further in THSB, where George has a short, apologia-ridden flashback about Control. Le Carre attempts to humanize the character by giving him a second, secret wife, who he really loved, and he would play golf with, even though back at the Circus he "poured scorn on golf, and on love" and on all the other little niceties of life. Implying, essentially, that the cold, vicious, Control we see playing ringmaster of the Circus is not the man's whole being.
But let's take a step back, just for a moment, to Spy Who and LGW.
Spy Who is Control's first appearance. In it, he tricks, manipulates, and sends to their deaths innocents, good men, and even his own agents, behaving all the while like some kind of cartoon sociopath. The plot of Spy Who isn't constructed to make good logical sense, it's constructed for maximum drama, and as a result of that, Control looks like far more of a monster than he needs to be, to the point where it's strange that things work out well for him, he's so overly monstrous. Why not just let Leamas in on a little bit more?
LGW is even worse; Control intentionally causes the deaths of two British agents and risks war over a two decade old, dead-to-everyone-but-him office rivalry. His actions in Spy Who are nasty but at least they're pragmatic, and he's a spy, a little monstrosity is part of the job, and it's hard to say what's overkill. But in LGW, he acts monstrously for a completely petty goal.
Additionally, in Spy Who, Control says that George is horrified and disgusted with what he's doing. Now, that's only Control's word, it's not worth much, and the only place we get confirmation on this from George is in Legacy, which is so incompatible it really shouldn't be counted as canon. But in LGW, George is definitely horrified and disgusted by Control's behavior, we see it from his point of view. Yet in TTSS he is Control's only friend, Control is his treasured mentor who he is devoted to. Should we read these two iterations of Control as different characters, or George as an unreliable narrator? If he's unreliable, why is he unreliable?
These are the kinds of questions that come up when one tries to integrate the whole Smiley series. I usually answer them on a case by case basis, rather than all one way or another. But you can see why grand unifying theories about the Smileyverse from the perspective of content rather than theme could easily be treacherous.
I wrote this because I am procrastinating a paper tbh.
Each individual book of the Smiley Series barring, perhaps, the latter two books of the Karla Trilogy, can be read happily on its own. There are no carryover plot threads, and the relationships and characters are re-established in each one. What I would like to ask is: is it even reasonable to try and view these books as a whole?
In A Legacy of Spies, le Carre essentially bulldozes the canon of both The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Now, that's the definition of forgivable: Legacy was written four decades after the fact, and is essentially a cash grab to feed his grandchildren.
But let's look at the Smiley series proper. I'm defining that to contain all the books that get sold with "a George Smiley novel" on the cover, i.e., the ones that involve Smiley himself. The extended Smiley universe (things like Steed Asprey's one sentence cameo in A Small Town in Germany or a bit character from Absolute Friends named Laura popping up in Legacy) is out the window. I don't want to be here all day. But let's look at the Smiley series, which officially contains nine books: Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Looking Glass War, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People, The Secret Pilgrim, and A Legacy of Spies.
The first problem we run into is one of timelines. Between LGW and TTSS, all the characters lose about a decade off their age, and some lose more in relative terms: Peter Guillam, George's equal in age and status in CFTD, is a protege fifteen years his junior in TTSS. That's already a glaring change, and introduces the question of whether the series should be read together at all.
Ignoring Guillam, and fudging the minor details, it is just possible to come up with a timeline in which CFTD and TTSS happen in the same universe. But is that desirable?
The more important aspect is whether the characters should be read as contiguous. There are the obvious differences, such as Peter Guillam's near complete personality overhaul from the more-establishment-minded-than-George-but-still-perfectly-competent spy we see in CFTD/Spy Who to the ditzy buffoon in the Karla trilogy, and there are the thematic similarities which feel like they should come into play narratively and don't, such as the fact that George's memories of Dieter Frey don't seem to color his thoughts about Karla, even though it seems rather like they ought to. But what I would like to focus on is the question of subtle character amnesia that could be put down to narrator unreliability, and whether it makes sense to take the Doylist route (this was changed between books) or the Watsonian route (George's perceptions are way out of whack).
Let's talk about Control.
In TTSS, Control is a tragic figure. A sadistic shithead, sure, but also one who deserves George's loyalty and respect. His slow death, viewed through George's eyes, is one of the saddest aspects of the story, and the whole book is all nostalgia for a good old days signified by his absolute rulership of the Circus.
This actually goes even further in THSB, where George has a short, apologia-ridden flashback about Control. Le Carre attempts to humanize the character by giving him a second, secret wife, who he really loved, and he would play golf with, even though back at the Circus he "poured scorn on golf, and on love" and on all the other little niceties of life. Implying, essentially, that the cold, vicious, Control we see playing ringmaster of the Circus is not the man's whole being.
But let's take a step back, just for a moment, to Spy Who and LGW.
Spy Who is Control's first appearance. In it, he tricks, manipulates, and sends to their deaths innocents, good men, and even his own agents, behaving all the while like some kind of cartoon sociopath. The plot of Spy Who isn't constructed to make good logical sense, it's constructed for maximum drama, and as a result of that, Control looks like far more of a monster than he needs to be, to the point where it's strange that things work out well for him, he's so overly monstrous. Why not just let Leamas in on a little bit more?
LGW is even worse; Control intentionally causes the deaths of two British agents and risks war over a two decade old, dead-to-everyone-but-him office rivalry. His actions in Spy Who are nasty but at least they're pragmatic, and he's a spy, a little monstrosity is part of the job, and it's hard to say what's overkill. But in LGW, he acts monstrously for a completely petty goal.
Additionally, in Spy Who, Control says that George is horrified and disgusted with what he's doing. Now, that's only Control's word, it's not worth much, and the only place we get confirmation on this from George is in Legacy, which is so incompatible it really shouldn't be counted as canon. But in LGW, George is definitely horrified and disgusted by Control's behavior, we see it from his point of view. Yet in TTSS he is Control's only friend, Control is his treasured mentor who he is devoted to. Should we read these two iterations of Control as different characters, or George as an unreliable narrator? If he's unreliable, why is he unreliable?
These are the kinds of questions that come up when one tries to integrate the whole Smiley series. I usually answer them on a case by case basis, rather than all one way or another. But you can see why grand unifying theories about the Smileyverse from the perspective of content rather than theme could easily be treacherous.
I wrote this because I am procrastinating a paper tbh.
no subject
on 2018-12-19 11:35 am (UTC)Seriously though, this was a satisfying read.
no subject
on 2018-12-19 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2018-12-25 10:19 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2018-12-19 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2018-12-19 04:18 pm (UTC)