The Secret Pilgrim

by John le Carré and John LeCarre

Book Overview

The Cold War is over. The rules of the spying game have changed. But to train new spies for this uncertain future, one must first show them the past. Enter the man called Ned, the loyal and shrewd... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394588428
• ISBN13: 9780394588421
• Release Date: December 1990
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 335 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Smiley in Small Doses!

I was given this book as a birthday present, otherwise I probably never would have read it, since I am not a fan of spy fiction (other than the kind that appears in the factual espionage genre). I am very glad, however, that I did read it. "The Secret Pilgrim" represents the best of both worlds, since it is actually a dozen short stories tied together within the framework of a novel. The latter depicts George Smiley, the Old Cold Warrior, acting as guest lecturer to a group of young "Circus" recruits, who are learning their tradecraft from one of his old pupils, Ned (who is himself about to retire). Each of Smiley's topics during the lecture and the conversation afterwards triggers Ned's memories and, therefore, his reminiscences about old cases. The short stories serve as an excellent introduction to the author's earlier works, since Ned, in his adventures, has dealt with the likes of Bill Haydon, Toby Esterhaze, and Percy Alleline, as well as George Smiley--all of whom make cameo appearances. The tales are entertaining, witty, and wholly absorbing, as one gradually learns that the narrator is the pilgrim of the title on a quest to discover why he ever entered the secret world in the first place. Once he had imagined himself as a dragon slayer, who would leave the world in a "safer place." Now, however, that rampant Communism has been replaced by rampant Capitalism, the narrator wonders whether the right people have won, noting that "the evil was not in the system, but in the man" (334-35). "The Secret Pilgrim" is set in a very different world from the original Smiley books. George Smiley is now presiding over the "Fishing Rights Committee," a joint effort between the intelligence services of London and Moscow. How Kim Philby would have approved!.

Love and Betrayal

In my teaching past, I came to love some of the great writers -- Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Faulkner. I can now add John Le Carre to that list. Over the years, I have kept coming back to him, especially the cold war epics involving George Smiley. These books have come to be known as the "Karla" novels, named after Smiley's Soviet nemesis and master-mind of betrayal. Having passed, however, through a "spiritual search" and having been subsequently dulled and fatigued by the numbing routines of work, I have, nevertheless, in order to occupy my mind with something other than the details of the job, returned to the soul searching of this novelist, who now appeals to me even more than when I was young and obsessed with meaningful pilgrimages. And now here is The Secret Pilgrim. As the title suggests, its theme is the hidden journeys that cannot be explained by a routine narrative but must be felt, or more accurately, lived. Written in 1990, after the collapse of the Soviet empire, The Secret Pilgrim spans the thirty years of cold war spy life from the point of view of a single agent recollecting his own observation of the moral ambiguities and soul-destroying ambitions that have become the hallmark of Le Carre's writings. In the background, George Smiley, the main character in his previous cold war novels, represents a man who survived the wasteland of underground service to his country (England) by accepting his inner ruin as a natural byproduct of spying. He became a model of how deception can be accepted as the essence of spy life by hiding the betrayals that have scarred him behind a wisdom and competency that allowed him to survive the cultural insanities of his time. Although Le Carre has many times shown his characters trying to redeem themselves through love, one small chapter in The Secret Spy shows how far one must go in order to address a truly broken soul. It shows us a love so absolute that it alone can imply the kind of destruction that lies behind our deepest defenses. Those who have read Le Carre over the years have understood his spy stories as a metaphor for the human condition -- each of us in search of a truth that always destroys what it is we are looking for. Chapter Nine.

The Right People Lost The Cold War, The Wrong People Won It

Ned, the narrator, is nearing retirement from the British Intelligence, or "The Circus" as it is known. The book opens on the occasion of the traditional informal dinner that celebrates the end of the training of a new class of spies-to-be who will be among the first to operate in the post Cold War environment. Ned, who has been in charge of their training, has invited his already retired mentor, George Smiley, to speak at the get-together. To Ned's surprise, Smiley has accepted.All this is in the way of setting the scene for the series of reminiscences that make up the meat of THE SECRET PILGRIM. Smiley, who has attained the status of a legend in the service, keeps the students entranced for hours and his comments trigger a life time of memories in Ned, who has been one of the Circus' key players in a forty year career that covered most of the Cold War years.One of Ned's earliest experiences, in the final phase of his training, was when an older hand kept him from making a career ending faux pas. He misread a situation and believed that a member of a visiting Royal's retinue was an intended assassin. Ned, who was anxious to show off his new found skills was about to jump the "assassin" but was prevented from doing so by the more experienced agent. This was a learning experience that he never forgot.As the evening progresses we share more of Ned's memories with him. One is when a murder is made to look like a suicide, and false evidence is left that was meant to discredit Ned.At another time, almost every group of spies that he is "running" are betrayed, and a number of innocent people are thought to be the betrayers. The source of the betrayals remains a mystery until one of the top men in the Circus is found to be the traitor.We go through many other life threatening, and occasionally humorous, escapades with him. As is frequently the case in Le Carre's novels, the deskbound, high level, decision makers run the gamut, from the rare competent and dedicated individuals, to the more common politically motivated self enhancers who build their own careers with no thought to the jeopardy in which they are putting their field agents.The evening ends, and we accompany Ned as he passes the final days before his retirement.With three days left to go, he is given one last assignment. He is charged with convincing a rather unpleasant multi-millionaire to stop providing armaments to various participants in conflicts throughout the world. These armaments are sold through an interlocking chain of corporations which he totally controls. Because of the international complexities of these corporate structures, the armament sales are technically legal. Unhappily for Ned his efforts are rebuffed. It is at this point that he remembers Smiley's old aphorism about the right people losing the Cold War but the wrong people winning it.If you've never read Le Carre, this book should whet your appetite to go back in ti

Customary Excellence

Mr John LeCarré, with Len Deighton, is tops at writing about espionage and he deserves mention in the history of English literature of this century. I have all his books in my personal library. They all denote an insider's knowledge of the espionage world, the right dose of skepticism about human nature, tongue-in-cheek, sense of the plot, mastery of the language, eclecticism. The only flaw may be found in a pervasive melancholy and pessimism: there is never sun in these books, only a uniform and pervasive grayness - but I guess the world he describes is of that colour. However, he is one of the most entertaining writers I ever found and I always look for new production of his whenever I enter a bookstore.