Reading Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy During a Hot War

As I continue along my life path of being an aging dad I have picked up various aging dad habits. I give over too much effort to yard work and try to deliberately embarrass my children. Most of all, I have become addiction to spy novels and history, some of the daddest dad lit of all time.

This addiction has grown so powerful that I am re-reading spy novels I have already read. This is strange considering that I pretty much stopped re-reading books once I got to grad school and realized there were too many damn books out there that needed reading. Re-reading was a luxury I could no longer afford.

Yet here I am, having just completed a second read of John Le Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on my way to a re-read of the whole Karla Trilogy. (I also admit to viewing the film version at least a dozen times.) The current war has had me thinking about the legacy of the Cold War and diving back into it. This book in particular speaks to the current moment in unexpected ways.

One of my other obsessions is the 1970s, and TTSP came out in 1974, during the brutal mid-decade malaise. The "Circus" spies have gone from Bond allure to begging a cash-strapped government for funding. In the period of Detente the Cold War continues on a lower boil, but outside of the "secret world" few seem to care all that much. The UK is no longer a world power, its spies must wonder what the point is, anyway.

(BEWARE, SPOILERS BE HERE)

A lot goes on in the novel, but something I noticed this time is how the hunt for the mole in the Circus (as Le Carre called MI6) reinvigorated the aging and prematurely retired George Smiley. Just when he and the service he worked for seemed completely cooked, the mole was found and Karla and his Soviet agents put on the back foot. At the same time, when the mole is finally caught, George Smiley's victory is bittersweet. When he interviews the traitor Bill Haydon he finds himself agreeing with much of the substance of his critique of the West and particularly of the United States. However, Smiley notes that while he enjoys the "music" he cannot abide the "tone." Deep down, despite his reservations about America and the Cold War, Smiley knows the USSR represents something even worse. 

This got me thinking about the war in Ukraine. For the past few years the West has appeared to be as decadent and crumbling as Bill Haydon claimed. Brexit and the election of Trump were omens of a new age of decline, or at least that's what we fought. When faced with the Ukraine crisis, the West is suddenly showing cohesion and backbone again. Beneath the ratty, disorganized surface the West still persisted, it just needed a cause to rally behind. Despite this country's manifest failures and injustices, Vladimir Putin has come along to remind us all of how there are far worse things that can exist in this world. If anything I hope this moment provides some missing clarity in the public discourse. 

Like Smiley however, I hope in our fever to support Ukraine in the current war, we don't lose sight of our own manifest flaws. If not we will be back in crisis mode sooner or later.