The Company; A Novel Of The Cia [Import] [Paperback]

Robert Littell (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Pan (2002)
• ISBN-10: 0330413058
• ISBN-13: 978-0330413053
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (133 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,749,943 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bestselling author Robert Littell has been ranked amongst John Le Carre and Graham Greene for his masterful spy fiction. A Newsweek journalist in a previous incarnation, Littell has been writing about the Soviet Union and Russians since his first novel, the espionage classic The Defection of A.J.Lewinter. Among his numerous critically acclaimed novels are The October Circle, Mother Russia, The Debriefing, The Sisters, The Revolutionist, The Once and Future Spy, An Agent in Place, The Visiting Professor, the New York Times bestselling The Company (adapted for a TNT mini-series), and Legends (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Best Thriller of 2005) and For the Future of Israel, a book of conversations with Shimon Peres. Littell is an American who makes his home in France.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

291 of 304 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Stern Warning about the Reviews for this Book, June 2, 2003

By 

islebyours (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Company: A Novel of the CIA (Paperback)

First let me say that this is an outstanding reading experience. It has raised the bar for espionage novels that I will be reading going forward. At approx 900 pages, it's an epic and demands the attention of the reader throughout. Get this book.

With that said, I was stunned to read other reviews for this book that ruin the reading experience. If it were possible to have someone's review removed...I would look to see how it was done. Harmless as it may seem, there are a few plot twists that come near the end and are profoundly important to the whole scope of the book. To be this careless, simply amazes me.

So please. Don't read the following reviews by other readers without some warning that you may be getting more information about the book than you really need or should want at this point.

Thank you,
islebyours

60 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important and entertaining reading., April 11, 2002

By 

Candace "thepageturner" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Company: A Novel of the CIA (Hardcover)

"The Company" is an big, engrossing novel that succeeds on several levels: First, it is as enjoyable as all get out. Second, it serves as a living history review of clandestine U.S. ventures going back to World War II. And third, no matter what political perspective you come from, you will come away a different take on the War on Terrorism.

Robert Littell takes several young men who joined the brand-new CIA after the war and follows their careers. All enter the spy game because their experiences with communism during the war have lead them to believe that it is a destructive element that must be halted. From the same war comes a young communist who as whole-heartedly believes that communism is the salvation of the world. They will fight on different battlegrounds throughout "The Company"--Berlin, Hungary, Cuba, Afghanistan--until communism collapses.

In many ways, "The Company" is a standard spy thriller, with ample supply of the requisite secrets, double-crossing, and triple agents. There's an unnecessary Alice in Wonderland theme throughout and some clunky writing. But what makes the book stand out is not just the skill Littell brings to the plot,
but the scope. This is a history of covert activities, and because we see so many major incursions represented, we can watch disturbing patterns develop. It seems that since WWII, the U.S. has entered a number of frays for all the right reasons and withdrawn before the matter could be resolved. "The Company" deals with the spies and civilians left dangling, and raises questions about earlier policies that may have left us vulnerable to terrorists.

This is a timely book that I hope will excite discussion and increase understanding. If readers don't agree with Littell's take on events, then I hope they'll do research on their own. "The Company" should encourage readers to take a look at the past, and is a whopping good read to boot.

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complete Historical Context, April 13, 2002

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Company: A Novel of the CIA (Hardcover)

Robert Littell has written some of the best books in this genre but for some reason he does not seem to have the audience of a LeCarre, a Ludlum, and others. If you enjoy any of the well known and widely read of this type you will certainly enjoy this man's work. "The Company", is a massive work of almost 900 pages, it still reads well and is in no way ponderous or excessive. As many books seem to continually shorten it is a pleasing exception that Mr. Littell took all the time and pages he needed to tell his story.

To any readers of Cold War novels all of the topics that are covered in this book will be familiar but not unwelcome. This book covers a very large portion of the CIA'S existence and presents familiar events as part of a continuum as opposed to focusing on a single event like The Bay Of Pigs, Kennedy, Suez, etc in isolation. There are very good books on all of these topics both documentary and in the form of novels. This work places them all in a larger continual historical context as well as a more realistic one. These historical events did not take place in solitary or in a vacuum, they were events that were planned and dealt with together with all of the other issues that were at hand for the agency at the time. They were also planned and executed by people who developed and created the atmosphere of the agency with their talents as well as their faults. By presenting the large picture as opposed to an isolated historical event, Mr. Littell gives readers the wide perspective that only an inclusive history can offer.

This is a novel and while not appropriate it is tempting to forget that what you are reading contains much truth albeit as presented in the form of literary fiction. Mr. Littell clearly has his favorites and those he thinks little of in terms of the players who conducted the operations at the agency. He gets close to the edge of editorial extreme with some of his depictions but I don't know that he really crossed any lines that readers will find difficult to accept.

If you have never read this man's work, this is not only a great place to begin, but also a grand tale told with the appropriate pace.