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more LeCarré reading
Jun. 3rd, 2010 08:53 pmI've been reading lots of John LeCarré recently; I've finished the Smiley books and am now cautiously branching out into the others.
The Honourable Schoolboy didn't do much for me, perhaps because I found the protagonist, Jerry Westerby, both tedious and unsympathetic, and Smiley and co. were barely in it (although it was interesting to see them in a near-antagonist role). Smiley's People wrapped up the Smiley-Karla relationship in a moving, if not always believable, way.
After finishing those, I went back to the early Smiley books, Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality. Call for the Dead amped up the general aura of m/m homoeroticism in Le Carré's work with ( major plot spoilers for both books and Tinker, Tailor under the cut )
Today at the library I picked up Our Game (1995), The Secret Pilgrim (1991), which I'm nervously looking forward to because it features Bill Haydon backstory, and Le Carré's only "mainstream" novel, The Naive and Sentimental Lover (1971). I've skimmed through some of the last, having heard about it, and it looks to be in the running for "most homoerotic novel ever written about two ostensibly straight character by a non-LGBT identified writer." Seriously, folks. It features two men who call each other "lover," say "I love you," sleep in the same bed, kiss, and yet never have sex because they are Not Queer. I will definitely be posting about this one once I've read it properly.
The Honourable Schoolboy didn't do much for me, perhaps because I found the protagonist, Jerry Westerby, both tedious and unsympathetic, and Smiley and co. were barely in it (although it was interesting to see them in a near-antagonist role). Smiley's People wrapped up the Smiley-Karla relationship in a moving, if not always believable, way.
After finishing those, I went back to the early Smiley books, Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality. Call for the Dead amped up the general aura of m/m homoeroticism in Le Carré's work with ( major plot spoilers for both books and Tinker, Tailor under the cut )
Today at the library I picked up Our Game (1995), The Secret Pilgrim (1991), which I'm nervously looking forward to because it features Bill Haydon backstory, and Le Carré's only "mainstream" novel, The Naive and Sentimental Lover (1971). I've skimmed through some of the last, having heard about it, and it looks to be in the running for "most homoerotic novel ever written about two ostensibly straight character by a non-LGBT identified writer." Seriously, folks. It features two men who call each other "lover," say "I love you," sleep in the same bed, kiss, and yet never have sex because they are Not Queer. I will definitely be posting about this one once I've read it properly.
