Ebook: John le Carré and the Cold War

This study examines John le Carré’s 1960s and 1970s Cold-War novels in their historical context, devoting a chapter each to: Call for the Dead (1961), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), The Looking Glass War (1965), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley’s People (1979). The book argues, contra the critical and popular consensus, that these novels give expression to a powerful British liberal, national and anti-Communist ideology.
Each novel is examined via three themes. First, the British state is scrutinized via le Carré’s representation of the intelligence services. Although le Carré’s novels are regarded as anti-establishment, in each book the British state is disavowed for its bureaucracy, but is ultimately defended from attack, secured and the status quo restored. An ongoing anxiety about the state’s use of violence is worked out through the character of Smiley.
Second, le Carré’s representation of the nation focuses on Britain’s citizenry, landscape and ‘way of life’ as what was being defended against Communism. These projections of the nation continually become embroiled in class concerns, largely affirming establishment domination of the nation, and denigrating the working class.
Third, this volume demonstrates that a trenchant anti-Communism in these novels disproves critical claims that le Carré proposes a moral equivalence between East and West. Le Carré presents Communism as an existential threat to British society, defined by brutal, murderous means rather than by ideological ends. In all of this, le Carré’s work both channels and helps create the Cold-War consensus, making these novels not oppositional, as previously regarded, but conduits of state, establishment and liberal thinking.
John le Carré and the Cold War explores the historical contexts and political implications of le Carré’s major Cold-War novels. The first in-depth study of le Carré this century, this book analyses his work in light of key topics in 20th-century history, including containment of Communism, decolonization, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, the Cambridge spy-ring, the Vietnam War, the 70s oil crisis and Thatcherism.
Examining The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), Smiley’s People (1979) and other novels, this book offers an illuminating picture of Cold-War Britain, while situating le Carré’s work alongside that of George Orwell, Graham Greene and Ian Fleming. Providing a valuable contribution to contemporary understandings of both British spy fiction and post-war fiction, Toby Manning challenges the critical consensus to reveal a considerably less radical writer than is conventionally presented.