19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Infighting and tragedy in a Cold War espionage setting., July 22, 2003
I read "Looking Glass War" several years ago and was jolted at how realistic the people and the departments seemed. The tragedy of the story stayed with me for a long time.
Human ambition, the senselessness of bureaucracy and the infighting among goverment departments --- these are some aspects explored here in a 'spy-story' setting. The interactions seemed very real; the bizarreness of the events very much like real life.
Of course this is more of a serious novel than a thriller, as expected of John le Carre. The mood is gray and cluody, and the ending is distressing. The story follows a young employee of an almost-defunct intelligence department. He flies to Scandinavia and finds the local police more savvy than himself. The characters deceive others and themselves in daily-life ways. They prepare to send a poorly-trained man of forty into East Germany as a spy. At the final betrayal, our protagonist cries in anger and shame.
Those reading this book for getting kicks out of following the heroic adventures of a glamorous spy, sent to do the right thing by the right side, will be disappointed. There's no clear distinction between good and bad sides. The enemy people (east germans) are all too human. As in life, much is ambivalent.
This is not an action-packed thriller to make a feel-good hollywood movie from. Rather, it's an excellent addition to human literature, a testament to the tragedies of individuals caught between government institutions of the twentieth century.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Depressing, but on the mark, July 4, 1999
By A Customer
This book deals with conflicts without and within: how does British intelligence deal with the communist threat, and how do the different departments in the British government vie for supremecy. I thought it a good study on how oftentimes the outside threat is forgotten. In this book, governments are ruthless, and men are driven by ambition and then are shocked by where that ambition leads them. Characters are very human, each working for different reasons, and in the end very believable. Le Carre is the best at examining the psychology of control and lying: what are the consequences of a life of deceit? No, it is not an action thiller. Don't read it if that is what you are looking for. But if you want a realistic portrayal of what goes on behind the government scenes in the spy game, this is definitely for you.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Early LeCarre, May 26, 2007
"The Looking Glass War," published in 1965, was British spymaster John LeCarre's fourth published novel, coming right after "A Call for the Dead," "A Murder of Quality," and, the big one, "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold." It's thus an early work of the many-times published, now famous Le Carre, but it gives us many themes his work will revisit.
To begin with, it's set, operationally, in the author's German-speaking comfort zone, east of the Berlin wall. It may make the earliest mention of "Belgravia Cockney," an upper-class drawl, favored by the intelligence community, that resembles the lower class's speech; it will reappear in almost every book. It opens with a riveting set piece, and closes with another; the creation of these set pieces is certainly one of Le Carre's great abilities. It shows us some of the author's great spycraft knowledge; his care at weaving complex plots, though this early work's is much thinner than his later ones; his powerful descriptive writing, and ability to envision many interesting characters and give them enjoyable dialogue. It will introduce and reintroduce some of LeCarre's best known characters: George Smiley, Peter Guillam, his lieutenant; even Alec Leamas, who was "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold--" we're told he's dead.
Its plot is set in what will become familiar Le Carre territory. A small British Intelligence agency, whose brief is strictly military matters, suddenly has reason to believe the Russians are placing missiles in East Germany: remember the Cuba missile crisis?
This small agency has been years fighting, and losing, a turf war for power with LeCarre's vaunted circus, the intelligence agency supreme. LeClerq, head of the smaller agency, is no match for the wily Control, nor for his lieutenant Smiley, already introduced in "Call for the Dead," and "Spy Who Came In From The Cold," and destined, as all LeCarre fans know, for an illustrious career.
LeClerc's people have inadequate spycraft, as all frequent LeCarre readers will recognize; they are dependent upon World War II technology. Other men will suffer and die for this agency head's anxiety to aggrandize his agency in its political war with its sister agency. Control and Smiley won't have to do much, either; just withhold a few new toys. So its vintage LeCarre territory: the men in the field are more victimized by fighting Whitehall mandarins than by the enemy. LeClerq will first send in Taylor, a man who's been in overt services all his life and not prepared for the covert side. He'll then suddenly reactivate and send in the unfortunate Polish refugee Fred Leiser, who worked for the agency during World War II: Leiser is much too old for the mission, and woefully underprepared and under-equipped.
About that title: "looking glass" is English-speak for the American mirror. Remember that immortal Marx Brothers' scene: Groucho and Harpo before the mirror-- or is it plain clear glass?
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