The Russia House (Penguin Modern Classics) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

This, though, is disappointing. It is le Carre's first post glasnost fiction, and in feeling for new subject matter his novels have seemed a little weaker, until finding new form with his most recent novel, Single and Single.

The novel focuses on Barley Blair, a drunken book publisher from a small publishing house in London. Having applied for a place in the secret service some years before, Blair becomes a reluctant spy as a book with observations on Soviet military capability is handed over for Blair at an audio book convention. The novel is narrated by a wily lawyer advising the British secret service.

There are some weak points in the novel. For this reader le Carre has never convinced when drawing female characters (even the estimable Lady Ann Smiley remains a cipher from le Carre's first novel to Smiley's People). Nor is le Carre convincing when writing about love, and here one of the pivotal characters is Katya, a Muscovite with children. She is better drawn than many of le Carre's female characters (perhaps the first person male narrative strangely helps in this regard), but she remains something of a blank canvas. Her relationship with Blair is never convincing, and sadly this taints the inevitability of the final chapters.

There are the usual le Carre virtues. He has a mastery of novel openings (Witness the first chapters of Tinker Tailor and Single and Single for example) and this is no exception. In attendance at an audio book fair in MOscow a Polish emigre is approached and handed the crucial papers for Blair. How this is done, and how he deals with it, are handled wonderfully. Each detail making the situation credible. Le Carre's own style is again wonderful. His prose has a fluidity that is very readable.

Le Carre also has astute observations on the relationship between the superpowers at the time of Gorbachev's restructuring, and - from the backdrop of the Smiley novels - the relationship between the United States and United Kingdom secret services.

It is ironic that in a novel billed as a love story the most convincing relationships are those between institutions.

If you enjoy the novel try to get hold off the BBC audio dramatisation starring Tom Baker as Barley Blair. The other le Carre novels mentioned in this review are more rewarding than the Russia House, but it is still an enjoyable, albeit disappointing, read.

Barley Blair, the failing boozehound scion of a collapsing British publishing house with a love for everything Russian, happens by drunken though eloquent happenstance to inspire a famous Soviet scientist into attempting to sneak his manuscript detailing the real sorry state of Russian ICBM capabilities into the hands of the West in order to foster a recognition of the folly of the arms race and to end what he calls "the great lie". The scientist attempts to contact Blair, but through a series of mishaps rivaling the deeds of the keystone cops winds up landing the manuscript in the hands of the British Secret Service. So they soon want Barley to intercede with the Russian contact point to find out who the author of the manuscript is and thus determine its authenticity. So Barley pursues the beautiful but conflicted contact, an idealistic angel of mercy who soon sparks Barley's love interest and paternal concern. The game is afoot.

With his usual style, suspenseful prose, and intellectual gamesmanship, LeCarre stirs the reader's interest and dismay as we see the deadly games set into motion with deadly earnest by the Brits, the Americans, and the Russians, none of whom give a rattler's damn about Barley, the contact, or the scientist. This is a stunning, suspenseful, and somewhat rueful tale of what unfolds when we discover that there is a real possibility that the so-called Soviet ICBM threat is a sham, that the missiles cannot escape their silos, that their ability to achieve trajectory or destroy targets with any accuracy is vastly over-rated. And as one can expect from the shadowy and complex geopolitical world of espionage and power that LeCarre writes so brilliantly and unforgettably about, there are no simple answers or easy foregone conclusions. This is a wonderful read and a marvelous book, and has the ring of more real-life veracity and worldly wisdom than one can easily find on the non-fiction side of the bookstore aisle. Enjoy!

Barley is not a hero, not even a patriot. He is a careless publisher, a jazz player and a chess fan. He is not a spy. He is pushed into the espionage game because of his drunken exchange of thoughts with a Russian scientist, another of Le Carre's memorable characters. Barley has reluctantly agreed to play the part of a courier and agent-runner by British spymasters and on his arrival in Moscow, he falls in love with a girl, who very much like Barley himself, is pushed into the spy game.

Barley soon reaches a point where he has to decide whom to betray. The girl he loves or his country. To me, that is the climax of the novel, the classical dilemma.

And dilemma it is. Here is Barley Blair, the main character, forming one part of the triangle, who is not a spy, doesn't even want to be one. The second part of triangle is Goethe, the Russian scientist, who wants to tell something to the world but not through the spies. And the third part is Katya, loved by both Goethe and Barley, who doesn't even know what is she doing and where does she fit in the whole scheme of things. And in the background are the spymasters of UK and USA who think they have all the strings in their hands but have totally ignored the fact that human nature is an essential part of all the espionage equations.

You've got to read the novel to know the whole thing. And if you are into serious fiction, you must read "The Russia House".