A Perfect Spy: A Novel

This is a complex book. And an extremely slow one. It works because the way it languidly develops many uncommon themes:

- The protagonist is a person without any ideologies or loyalties. This is what makes him a perfect spy, as he is someone without any ambitions for the self as well. He leads a remarkable life of random twists and turns - that are a product of circumstances and never of any design - spanning all five Cold War decades and in a handful of era-defining geographies.
- At the core of this seemingly aimless life are the actions of a conman Father. The father-son relationship is exceedingly complex, portrayed through sporadic interactions. The author rarely feels the need to describe the emotions, and yet from respect to tutelage, from worship to revulsion, from the pervasive sadness to utter indifference, all extreme feelings are laid bare for the readers to feel without much direct reference.
- Le Carre goes a mile further in bringing forth the inanity of the cold war era spycraft. Most spies spent almost all their lives investigating counterparts at the enemy institutions, and at the allies', and of their own.
- Through its descriptions, the book details how the pre-tech (yet, post-war) world really processed information. For example, it might be difficult to fathom for the readers of the 21st century how little countries knew about their rivals' geographies, key personnel's background, power structure, military hardware and other hard facts, let alone military/political tactics and plans.

The book is not at all easy to read. It continuously shifts the viewpoints and moves too rapidly back and forth. Interactions are highly nuanced, laced with the British tradecraft jargon. Yet, those who stay with the book are rewarded with a unique story, that is rightly seen by some as one of the all-time greats.

John Le Carre is a talented novelist by any standard. In addition to having a remarkably firm and innovatively useful hold on the English language, he's the sort of author whose best work benefits enormously from his thorough knowledge of the world we inhabit. I can't imagine writing a book as long and richly informative as A Perfect Spy without having at one's disposal a comprehensive understanding of things incidental, commonplace, esoteric, simple, and complex concerning a broad range of both taken-for-granted and exotically obscure topics. In my view, it makes sense to evaluate a writer's work partly in terms of the detailed and familiar way that he or she renders the sharing of morning coffee across an unremarkable, formica-topped kitchen table, or how a homeowner trims roses, cuts the grass, and wipes the sweat from a sun-soaked brow. It's this attention to innocuous settings, events, activities, and images that gives a novel a solid sense of reality, something that Le Carre provides masterfully.

Beyond that, given the thematic nature of A Perfect Spy and his other novels, Le Carre is obliged to convince the reader that he knows the world of espionage, counter-espionage, and the connections of these hazardous and adventuresome undertakings to domestic and international politics, cross-border commerce, the ranking systems of the variety of nations involved, in short, to the world at large. Again, Le Carre writes as one who understands the character and consequences of geo-political intrigue, the emotions behind local elections whose outcomes really count for very little, the subtle and not-so-subtle non-meritocratic factors that go into enabling one to make a career out of mock-patriotism, duplicity, under-handedness, ambition, and, oddly enough, concern for the welfare of others. Countless other factors could be introduced depending on time, place, and social conditions, but the almost maddening complexity of the brutal but finely nuanced world that occasions A Perfect Spy is made strikingly clear in Le Carre's skillful account.

Nothing, it seems, is simple or even what it seems to be, nor is anyone readily identifiable. If there's one crude exception to this it's Rick, the father of the novel's protagonist, Magnus Pym. Rick is obvious and easy to read only because he's an inveterate conman who will ham-handedly use and abuse anyone, his son included. Some might construe Rick to be a charming rogue, especially given his life-long success with an almost endless sequence of women, many of whom he dupes or simply steals from, but Rick is a guy with no redeeming qualities and an unerring eye for ways in which he can use others, whatever the consequences for his victims. As such, he provides a useful contrast for those, including Mangus Pym himself, who are often troubled by ambivalence, people whose motives are often ambiguous even when they're trying to do the right thing. A Perfect Spy is inhabited by those who survive and may even prosper by means of disguise, deception, artful dodging, and leading double lives. In contrast to Rick, however, their motives are rarely reducible to simple self-aggrandizement and monetary gain, and they may be thoroughly laudatory.

Well into the novel, Mangus Pym's closest friend and unlikely associate, a Czechoslovakian intellectual named Axel, describes Mangus as the perfect spy: one possessed of a surfeit of loyalty and affection but with nothing to attach it to, still looking for a worthy cause or objective. I'm not sure that this characterization fits Mangus nearly as well as Axel thinks. Angus is too uncertain and too easily led. Maybe Axel is unwittingly describing himself, or perhaps he is thinking of the long-standing and mutually beneficial relationship that ties him and Mangus together, both personally and professionally. In full force, the relationship is, indeed, an unexpected and profitable one, and it's originality is a tribute to Le Carre's authorial skill.

A Perfect Spy requires endurance on the part of the reader. It's not only unusually long, probably too long, but it's also quite complex. The temporally non-linear way in which Le Carre presents his story requires close attention to avoid getting lost in its back-and-forth flow. The author's cast of recurring characters, while not gratuitously over-done, may prompt the reader to page back and again cover some familiar territory to make sure we know how a character fits. None of this, however, seems so troublesome as to make the book not worth the effort of reading it from start to finish, but this is a judgment call made by each reader.

The end of A Perfect Spy took me by surprise. I suppose it's fitting, but Mangus' motives, once again, seem uncertain. An official of his stature has the connections and other resources that cushion the hard knocks of bad luck well enough so that they are not unbearably painful. Maybe Axel was right after all: Mangus Pym has the makings of a perfect spy, but he became hopelessly frustrated in his search for the perfect object to which his special nature could be applied.

One is left wondering just what is going on right now in the noxiously stressful world of geo-political espionage. It all seems so pointless, never really settling anything, but who can doubt that it continues. For me, Le Carre's thorough development of this insight makes A Perfect Spy worth the time and effort it requires.

By the way, for some reason, probably fatigue and mild intoxication, the first version of this review somehow substituted the name Angus for Magnus. Thanks to a readers' query I was able to correct this embarrassing errorn

"A Perfect Spy," is one of the more thoughtful works of British author John LeCarre, whose masterworks include The Spy Who came in from the cold,Smiley's People, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It has been made into a BBCTV television series of the same name (John Le Carre's A Perfect Spy), starring Peter Egan. Le Carre, one of the greatest of the spymasters, had first hand experience of spying: he was, of course, an actual British spy, for five years, under his birth name, David Cornwell. According to internet biographers, the author was, in fact, embedded in Soviet territory when he was blown by Kim Philby, most famous post-war British secret service traitor. Philby's treachery might well have doomed LeCarre.

When LeCarre published "A Perfect Spy" in 1986, much-honored American novelist Philip Roth declared it "the best English novel since the war." It is LeCarre's most personal, autobiographical novel, detailing, as it does, how a con man father much like LeCarre's own, (Richard Thomas Archibald Cornwell), creates a perfect spy and counterspy in his son. Interestingly enough, the book also mentions Philby, and his partners in traitor-hood, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, by name. The story is well backgrounded, and engrossing: it opens with one of the author's writing trademarks, a good set piece; gives us generous helpings of another of the writer's trademarks, the midnight meetings of the spy managers, the "Whitehall Mandarins;" it has a resonant, complex plot, and his usual good dialogue/descriptive writing.

Magnus Pym is here the perfect spy, double-dealing with zest. We are apparently supposed to think he's like this because his father Rik was an outside-the-law confidence trickster who enjoyed his work, and maybe that is enough to explain the son's behavior, who knows. Certainly most readers will not find either main character particularly likable; whereas Rik and his troops seem at least always to be having a good time. Magnus is portrayed as being a nasty little boy from the beginning. Interestingly enough, we must assume this material is intensely personal to its author. He's described his own father as a conman, and both author and his character Magnus have studied and worked in the German-speaking world. In fact, he's repeated these elements in several books, as he's repeated the seaside hideout, even the nickname "Tiger," here, used by father to son; in "Single and Single," the conman father is called "Tiger" himself.

But I didn't find the novel interesting as a whole. It's more than 500 pages long, and, from the beginning, the story runs along two tracks: one, the childhood-youth of Magnus Pym, that made him what he was, and two, the defensive activities of the secret service once he's blown. Not until page 300, much longer than many non-devoted readers will persist, does it get to the interesting section, his actual life as a spy/counterspy. Recommended only to devoted fans of the author.

There are novels which can only be described by a single word: epic. John le Carre's A Perfect Spy, published originally in 1986, is one of those novels to be certain. It is a tale that stretches right across half the twentieth century in the form of the life of Magnus Pym, the perfect spy of the novel's title. The novel is also, in fine le Carre tradition, a fine cross between the spy thriller and a human drama and is all the better for it.

The story revolves around the life and times of British intelligence officer Magnus Pym from his childhood to then present day of the mid-late 1980's. As the novel reveals piece by piece Magnus's lie has been nothing but one large training ground for a future spy starting with his childhood under his conman father Ricky to years in Switzerland as a side effect of one of his father's scams that leads to him meeting his two mentors in the world of Cold War espionage right through to the then present dy. The picture that emerges is of a man forced to spend his entire life lying and betraying sometimes out of circumstance and other times just to survive with the consequence of him becoming "a perfect spy". Magnus is also a man who is ultimately always on the run from everyone including himself. All of this means that Pym is also quite possibly the best in the long tradition of le Carre's strong main characters.

A Perfect Spy also features some of le Carre's best supporting characters as well perhaps the best of which is Magnus' father Ricky who is based (by the author's own admission) on his own father. Ricky Pym is the man most responsible for his son's transformation into "a perfect spy" as a man who drifts in and out of his son's life with one con after another. Ricky is a man capable of great charisma and of being sentimental with those around him but never capable of really giving himself to any one person including Magnus himself. Much of the novel is spent as Magnus remembers his life with his father so that the theme of a son trying to figure out his relationship with his father and how it as affected his other relationships is as much a part of the novel as the spy thriller aspects are.

There are many other fine supporting characters as well of course. There is Axel and Jack Brotherhood as the two men who become mentors to a young Magnus is the game of Cold War espionage and who, as a result of their actions and attitudes, make fine literary contrasts to one another. There is Magnus's wife Mary who finds herself caught up in the world of her husband's creation and who, in the end, is trying to find her husband both physically and emotionally. There are Ricky Pym's partners in crime such as Syd Lemons who also drift in and out of Magnus's life as well or the group of CIA men who try to convince the British that Pym is not all that he seems. Each of these characters (and many others as well of course) makes for fine portraits of those who in some size, shape or form fit into the jigsaw puzzle that is the life of Magnus Pym.

For a jigsaw puzzle is exactly what Magnus Pym's life, and by consequence the novel itself, is. In chapters that virtually alternate across the 590 pages the novel switches between the present where Brotherhood and Mary search for Pym plus try to cope with what he has done and the past as Pym in letters to his son Tom (and in an oddly detached third person perspective as well) recounts his childhood and rise in British intelligence. The result is a blend of spy thriller (as the hunt for Pym intensifies along with proof of his double life) and the memoirs of a Pym who seems to fast be approaching the end of his road. In other words the present chapters are used to set up the puzzle of events that Pym is about to recount from his past. The sections where Pym recounts his past come across as much stream of consciousness as Pym seems to float from one aspect of his life to another in a not always chronological or even logical for that matter and (and least in the earliest parts chronologically) come from the author's own life as well. The result is a jigsaw puzzle that, with its lengthy chapters and at times stream of consciousness narrative, that requires the reader to pay quite a bit of attention and spend quite a bit of time on it as well (that is coming from someone who is generally a fast reader and just spent three plus months reading this). The result though is a rewarding work to read even if it is not for all tastes.

While the narrative style and page count might be off putting to some out there for others A Perfect Spy is a fine read and perhaps le Carre's best novel. From perhaps the strongest of le Carre's main characters in Magnus Pym to his fine cast of supporting characters (especially Ricky Pym) the novel is full of real flesh and blood human characters. It is also a fascinating trip down the history of the Cold War yet it is more then just that. It is also a trip down the jigsaw puzzle of what le Carre himself has called "the secret path": the path of the spy, the man who must lie and betray to survive. As much a human drama as a spy thriller A Perfect Spy isn't to be missed.

Can really great writing and delivering an amazing lived-in sensibility to a fictional construct still produce a disappointing novel? Yes, and "A Perfect Spy" shows how.

Magnus Pym is a spy on the run as this 1986 novel begins. He has taken with him some sensitive documents and presumed intelligence on a network of British intelligence operatives behind the Iron Curtain. As he sits down at a writing desk to explain to his son (and to us, reading over his shoulder) what he has done, we discover a man haunted not as much by the confusing ambiguities of the Cold War but by the memory of his con-artist father, who scarred all he met with a chameleon-like quality of assimilation which was passed on to the son.

John le Carré called this a personal work that delved into his own upbringing. Reading it, you see the transition of le Carré from intelligent purveyor of spy fiction to something less settled, more enigmatic. Also, less satisfying. As other reviewers point out, the plot is rather thin. The narrative quickly becomes contrasting sections of a guy sitting at a desk writing and people sitting in rooms talking about him. The only action is in flashback, told in a ruminative, downbeat way as if it has already been told too many times.

As a character study, it also falls short. The bond between father and son is pushed at every turn, yet the connection between the elder's cons and the younger's betrayals seems forced. In essence, Magnus is seen as a man in search of a father figure who finds them on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain. He has his father's gift for role-playing, but unlike his carefree Dad he winds up consumed by those who wind up victims of his betrayal.

"He's a shell," one of his lovers tells Magnus's British controller. "All you have to do is find the hermit crab that climbed into him."

This would be more interesting if it fueled something other than a lot of depressing what-it-all-means navel-gazing from Magnus and le Carré alike. We get pretty quickly Magnus is damaged goods; le Carré doesn't do much with the idea beyond repeating it in different ways.

But boy can le Carré write! I guess when you are writing about next-to-nothing, it makes for a better showcase of one's lapidary brilliance. There are fine one-liners, like "Memory is a great temptress" and "When two people have decided to go to bed with each other, what passes between them before the event is a matter of form rather than of content."

There are also many descriptive passages I call "Watney's-Red-Barrel rants" in honor of Eric Idle's old Monty Python sketch, of seemingly meaningless travelogue detail piled onto detail in demonstration of the author's perceptive powers, like "the first-class buffet was full of gentlemen in black suits with napkins round their necks, but the third class was shadowed and beery, with a whiff of Balkan lawlessness and drunks who sang out of tune." Yes, it's more than a trifle reductive, but it draws you into unusual settings and makes le Carré so fun to read.

In those ways "The Perfect Spy" makes for a pretty good read at times. It's just so frustrating, with its blind alleys and long disquisitions. If you are like me and enjoy le Carré, you will find something worthwhile here. But if you have never read him before, I fear after this you may never read him again.

Book is well written and overall a good read, but I have some issues with it. As others have said, the story is very non-linear, jumping not only in time but in viewpoint and tense (first person to third person), sometimes suddenly such that it takes a few foggy sentences to discover it. Once I figured this out and was alert to it, the read became tolerable, even interesting. But I had to go to return to earlier passages several times just to stay on top of the story and, for me, that reduces the enjoyment. Another major issue I have with the book is its length (almost 700 pages). This would not be so bad but a ton of characters and details are thrown in that upon finishing I discovered were not necessary. The explanation is, as le Carre explains in the preface and in post-publishing interviews, that the story about Magnus Pym (the main character) and his father Rick Pym is autobiographical, and writing it was cathartic for le Carre. Perhaps readers should send him a bill. I would prefer to be spared of that and read a tight story. I estimate that 250 pages could be excise. Freed of this excess, I imagine, the book would be highly entertaining, easier to follow, and faster paced.

The book definitely has its high points, chiefly, for me, is the character study of how an individual became trapped into becoming not just a spy but a double agent by his upbringing. He eventually realized he could not escape it and could only break the chain and save his son from the same fate. With the warning given above, I therefore recommend the book

The audio tapes of The Perfect Spy,a BBC production,is a rich sound tapestry of the formation of Magnus Pym(James Fox) as a `perfect spy'.He is the product of his father,Ricky Pym,a charismatic conman and the upper middle class milieau of private school and Oxbridge.His father's death announced almost at the start of the narrative creates a black hole,giving Pym the freedom to exorcise demons,write his own account,hole himself up in a mystery address in Devon with his favourite landlady.To do this he escapes after his father's funeral from all the networks of family, wife(Mary),friends and Secret Service(the Firm).He wants to pass onto his son Tom, Jack Brotherhood,the spymaster who hired him,and posterity, his own confessed account of how Rick led him step by step into being the `perfect spy',a double life of deception, broken promises,and betrayal.Rick had periods in prison or running for Parliament, conning people or begging Magnus later for money.I had not read the novel so this gave me a sense of it.

Magnus describes the past ,history,rise and fall,his affairs and marriages.His early meeting with his spy friend Axel in Switzerland,early on betraying him into being deported but later connecting with him when Magnus becomes a spy. Magnus's writings, about the past, are interspersed with actions in the present involving Tom, Jack, Magnus's wife, Mary, and others animated by Magnus's disappearance.The women,wives,mothers,girlfriends seem casualties of this way of life and Le Carre seems content to subordinate them within the system of surveillance,as the male figures and the father-figures of Rick and replacement-figures like the Firm take central stage.Pym wants to"tell it straight...word for word,the truth".Le Carre wants to reveal the formation of the `perfect spy novelist',imbued as this account is with his autobiography,his father,the processes of spying that led to writing novels.Rick has stolen Magnus's childhood,so he remains self-absorbed and childish until the end,a copy of his father,hollow with no more loyalty to the personal as the public.A full variety of characterisation is captured with special mention going to James Fox as Magnus,James Grout as Jack Brotherhood,Brenda Bruce as Miss Dubber, and Jack Klaff as Axel.The sound effects were very good.Best to listen to in one sitting(4hrs.)

I do not understand the negative reviews of this novel, or the comments made by some reviewers on how long it took them to get through this book. I could not put this work down once I started it and it is by no means slow going or heavy weather to read. It is classic John LeCarre. Any fan of LeCarre's work will enjoy this book, which is not only a classic LeCarre espionage story but also a detailed character study of the spy at the center of this tale. It is a masterpiece. LeCarre interweaves 2 related tales: the current fate of Pym, a British spy who, suspected of being a double agent, has gone missing, and his story from childhood that builds to the present time to coalesce at the end to a brilliant and tragic conclusion. For Pym, love equals betrayal. He has never experienced love that was not a form of betrayal and this explains his life choices, the betrayals he makes of those he loves, and provides a brilliant narrative and backdrop for the events that unfold in the novel. The writing is brilliant and the tale compelling. LeCarre is the best story teller of our time. This is reportedly LeCarre's most autobiographical work and having heard him tell some of his life story in interviews I hope he writes his memoirs.

A sophisticated, literary espionage thriller about a British spy wrestling with conflicting loyalties during the height of the Cold War. This was my first experience with le Carré's novels and although it started slower than I expected, the story accelerated in a masterful series of twists that revealed as much about human nature as clandestine operations. Le Carré has a compassionate but clear-eyed perspective on how we become who we are and what makes us tick.

Overlong and too unfocused. Parts are indeed superb, the quiet frenzy over the disappearance of Magnus Pym, the nuts and bolts of spying, meetings, the discussions of agents and sources are very true to life, and are written by someone who knows the matter. Once you get past the preposterous names, eg. Jack Brotherhood, Makepeace Watermaster, (You just know this poor soul was called Make Water in school) many of the characters appear real.

But.. We get far too much of Magnus Pym's daddy issues. Yes we know that he had a rotten childhood, and his father was a notorious swindler and confidence man. But we are hit over the head with those facts again and again, and by the end we are heartily sick of them.

John Le Carre can tell a story. He can tell a story very well. So why didn't he leave the 'artistic' literary effects aside and just blerrie well do it?

Magnus Pym could become a synonym for what a person becomes when controlled and manipulated from childhood and taught in a system of rigid structures, high expectations, and with a false sense of one's place in the world.
Le Carre is brilliant in setting a scene, and we very early on see Magnus Pym, senior officer at the British Embassy in Vienna, loving husband, good father, charming, witty, friendly - Perfect, on the run, from his job, friends, family all that is familiar. How can this be!. He was after all "a representative of something. His stride was agile, his body forward sloping in the best tradition of the Anglo-Saxon administrative class. In the same attitude ...Englishmen have hoisted flags over distant colonies, discovered the sources of great rivers, stood on the decks on sinking ships". The 'Perfect Englishman'.
He is also the 'Perfect Spy' and a perfect mystery to those who thought they knew him best. To understand Pym we have to revisit his childhood, growing up under the influence of a con artist, manipulative and domineering but nevertheless charming and 'oh so fun' father. His molding in the 'best' tradition of middle class English boarding school education and finally how he came to be under the control of his two 'masters'

"A Perfect Spy: A Novel" is almost a perfect novel. I will get to the "almost" later, but as for the "perfect," here are my reasons: While the novel's main character is a British spy, though a double-spy would be a more accurate description, and while on a certain level the novel unfolds like a spy novel of the first degree, this novel is much more than that. It is, indeed, an autobiographical novel of the first order. And I don't mean that just in the regular sense, where a writer writes--almost always--about what he knows and experienced, and then brings his imagination into it. What John le Carre had tried to do here, mostly successful, is to tell the true story of his extraordinary father, his peculiar, strange childhood and upbringing, and mash it up not only with his spy story, which rings true and very real to me, but tie it nicely also with a man who decides to leave everything behind and write his own life story. A novel within the novel, to an extent.
It all works out imaginatively, suspensefully, and at times hilariously. The "almost" I mentioned at the beginning comes from the sense that towards the end, not that unusual, even a master writer such as Mr. le Carre had problems finishing his book. More accurately, he tried too hard at the end to give us all the information and all the details of his hero's life; a story we already understood, and were eagerly reading to learn its conclusion. It was even a bit boring towards the end, and because of that, the impact of the surprising, yet perfectly acceptable ending, was lacking a bit the needed emotional impact. I guess no editor had dared tell that to such a famous, established author, whom nonetheless I admire greatly.

I listened to the audio of this book from audible.com.
After listening, I was surprised to see so many high marks for this book. If I had bought the text version of this book, I probably would not have made it half way through.
I give this book a low score because because it was not what I was looking for. I was looking for a good story, but there's not much of a plot. As previous reviewers have indicated, the focus of this book is the character development.
Indeed, the author does a great job of building his characters. The audio version is narrated by the author. His voice characterations are spectacular.
Had I been familiar with the author's writing style or knew what I was getting in to, I may have enjoyed it more. I guess I was looking for a good tale -- a bit of "narcotic" literature.
If you're looking for a good story, go elsewhere. If you are a fan of the author's work, you would probably enjoy his vocal characterizations.

The first and most important thing to remember about this book is that it is a semi-autobiography. The background, schooling and parents of the main character of this book are all Le Carré's own, with just the slightest veneer placed over them, and I do mean the slightest. Like Magnus Pym, the main character in this book, Le Carré, for example did have a father who was a crook; his father did fight a by-election in Norfolk under the Liberal colours and was, during it, exposed by an elderly Irishwoman; he did have to leave Eton when his father could no longer afford the fees.

And like Magnus Pym, Le Carré was recruited into MI6 and probably, like Pym, was recruited while studying in Bern, although unlike Pym he left after five years to write novels. However, for anyone who knows a little of Le Carré's life story, an added frisson is added by the questions that inevitably provokes - did Le Carré get up to anything naughty with Eastern Bloc intelligence services?

However, the spy stuff, as beautifully crafted as it always is, is only a backdrop for the real theme of the book - Le Carré's relationship with himself, his father and his country.

Yes, his country; this is as much an elegy for the English upper-middle class as anything else. A melancholy, fatalistic patriotism seeps through every page of the book, as Le Carré writes an elegy for his people - perhaps patriotism isn't quite the write word; he has no feeling for nor interest in the St. George's flag waving, football supporting masses. It's an elegy not for England, but for his England, of `sound' men in tweeds and pipes emerging from Southern country towns to rule colonies; of the respectable sadism of the public school; of the sense of duty of a military class that has all but disappeared. The theme of fallen empire runs through all Le Carré's works, but nowhere more strongly than through this one and does so with characteristic brilliance.

With regards to his father and himself, he says what he may not have been able to say for decades, even to himself, before, and his writing bursts forth in great, emotional, torrents. Some of it moving and powerful; some of it is unnecessary but quirkily interesting; and some of it, frankly, is twaddle that needed a good editor to batter into shape. But this was Le Carré's magnum opus, and bestselling authors are allowed a little latitude in their magna opera. That's a pity, because this could have been a great book; but at times it takes a chapter to say what a sentence should have; and at times it is so hopelessly self-indulgent that it sends one to sleep.

"A Perfect Spy: A Novel" is almost a perfect novel. I will get to the "almost" later, but as for the "perfect," here are my reasons: While the novel's main character is a British spy, though a double-spy would be a more accurate description, and while on a certain level the novel unfolds like a spy novel of the first degree, this novel is much more than that. It is, indeed, an autobiographical novel of the first order. And I don't mean that just in the regular sense, where a writer writes--almost always--about what he knows and experienced, and then brings his imagination into it. What John le Carre had tried to do here, mostly successful, is to tell the true story of his extraordinary father, his peculiar, strange childhood and upbringing, and mash it up not only with his spy story, which rings true and very real to me, but tie it nicely also with a man who decides to leave everything behind and write his own life story. A novel within the novel, to an extent.
It all works out imaginatively, suspensefully, and at times hilariously. The "almost" I mentioned at the beginning comes from the sense that towards the end, not that unusual, even a master writer such as Mr. le Carre had problems finishing his book. More accurately, he tried too hard at the end to give us all the information and all the details of his hero's life; a story we already understood, and were eagerly reading to learn its conclusion. It was even a bit boring towards the end, and because of that, the impact of the surprising, yet perfectly acceptable ending, was lacking a bit the needed emotional impact. I guess no editor had dared tell that to such a famous, established author, whom nonetheless I admire greatly.

I listened to the audio of this book from audible.com.
After listening, I was surprised to see so many high marks for this book. If I had bought the text version of this book, I probably would not have made it half way through.
I give this book a low score because because it was not what I was looking for. I was looking for a good story, but there's not much of a plot. As previous reviewers have indicated, the focus of this book is the character development.
Indeed, the author does a great job of building his characters. The audio version is narrated by the author. His voice characterations are spectacular.
Had I been familiar with the author's writing style or knew what I was getting in to, I may have enjoyed it more. I guess I was looking for a good tale -- a bit of "narcotic" literature.
If you're looking for a good story, go elsewhere. If you are a fan of the author's work, you would probably enjoy his vocal characterizations.

The first and most important thing to remember about this book is that it is a semi-autobiography. The background, schooling and parents of the main character of this book are all Le Carré's own, with just the slightest veneer placed over them, and I do mean the slightest. Like Magnus Pym, the main character in this book, Le Carré, for example did have a father who was a crook; his father did fight a by-election in Norfolk under the Liberal colours and was, during it, exposed by an elderly Irishwoman; he did have to leave Eton when his father could no longer afford the fees.

And like Magnus Pym, Le Carré was recruited into MI6 and probably, like Pym, was recruited while studying in Bern, although unlike Pym he left after five years to write novels. However, for anyone who knows a little of Le Carré's life story, an added frisson is added by the questions that inevitably provokes - did Le Carré get up to anything naughty with Eastern Bloc intelligence services?

However, the spy stuff, as beautifully crafted as it always is, is only a backdrop for the real theme of the book - Le Carré's relationship with himself, his father and his country.

Yes, his country; this is as much an elegy for the English upper-middle class as anything else. A melancholy, fatalistic patriotism seeps through every page of the book, as Le Carré writes an elegy for his people - perhaps patriotism isn't quite the write word; he has no feeling for nor interest in the St. George's flag waving, football supporting masses. It's an elegy not for England, but for his England, of `sound' men in tweeds and pipes emerging from Southern country towns to rule colonies; of the respectable sadism of the public school; of the sense of duty of a military class that has all but disappeared. The theme of fallen empire runs through all Le Carré's works, but nowhere more strongly than through this one and does so with characteristic brilliance.

With regards to his father and himself, he says what he may not have been able to say for decades, even to himself, before, and his writing bursts forth in great, emotional, torrents. Some of it moving and powerful; some of it is unnecessary but quirkily interesting; and some of it, frankly, is twaddle that needed a good editor to batter into shape. But this was Le Carré's magnum opus, and bestselling authors are allowed a little latitude in their magna opera. That's a pity, because this could have been a great book; but at times it takes a chapter to say what a sentence should have; and at times it is so hopelessly self-indulgent that it sends one to sleep.

This book is so much more than just another espionage thriller. It is really a character study of the central figure and a very satisfying psychological investigation into the anticedents of a spy's character. Magnus Pym was the perfect spy because of the way he was raised; specifically, the way he learned to perceive the world as he came to understand his father - a con man of great charm (based on Le Carre's own father) who always acted as though truth was whatever he wanted it to be at the moment. Maybe the title actually refers to the father and not to Pym. Perhaps?
Le Carre's use of language is always a pleasure, and here it is put to excellent use in recreating the world of Pym's past. The main plot of finding the missing Pym becomes less important than the subplots - often involving past events - and the overall structure of the novel is less driven by unknown outcomes than is a typical 'spy' story.
One is left with a great sense of sadness after finishing this book but no disappointment. Very original and very satisfying.

A Perfect Spy shocks, provokes, weaves a story of Magnus as he plots the ultimate betrayal. When I say the story is woven, I mean it. The structure is similar to The English Patient, where the story skips back an forth in time and amoung characters. I rate this book highly, much as I had done with other Le Carre books. A perfect Spy, however is not another Spy novel, indeed the suspence is not as central to the plot but the character development is truly epic. Magnus Pym becomes a close relation throughout the narrative, all the good, bad, ugly, and even sometimes boring. A Perfect Spy is a gripping portrait of a twisted life, and the injury of the life a spy.
A Perfect Spy is an unreal, yet believable journey in the life of a Spy. I highly recommend this book, if like me, you enjoy a non-linear story.

"Love is whatever you can still betray... Betrayal is a repititious trade." (from: A Perfect Spy)

Concentrating on his signature themes of loyalty and deceit, Le Carre gives us what is perhaps the definitive account of the psychology of betrayal.

Following the death of his father, the troubled and grieving spy Magnus Pym withdraws from the world and begins a series of autobiographical reflections while his wife and spymasters frantically try to find him. The 'public' action of this search, provides an effective foil for the intensely personal and sometimes dark nature of Pym's inner journey, and this also serves to amplify the moral theme of the book: that there is no clear line between good and bad, and that our best intentions are no guarantee of goodness.

Le Carre spent a long time honing his voice for this novel, and tellingly only wrote it following the death of his own father. His writing in the decade or so before this book was first published (in 1986) saw the perfection of Le Carre's trademark qualities of detail and subtlety that a cold war spy surely needed, and to be sure, the careful, spare prose of A Perfect Spy is redolent of this Machiavellian game. But in this book Le Carre goes much further than any plot line, and asks why we do what we do--he spies on souls.

In A Perfect Spy Le Carre reached the height of his powers. On top of his renowned ability to make highly technical plots gripping, Le Carre adds a new quality--the wistful--and it works as well as anything by Graham Greene--another gimlet-eyed writer who had connections with the spying trade. Le Carre packs more feeling into this work than in all his other novels put together and the effect is both disturbing and intensely moving. Pym is sententious and elegant in his reveries, and his Hamlet-like angst stays with us, provoking difficult questions, long after the book is closed.

A perfect Spy is not a happy tale. The description of the young Pym and his father playing football along a Dorset beach "from one end of the world to the other" is a rare moment of joy that is nevertheless heart-breakingly poignant--for we know that Pym's dissolute father will break his promises yet again. Love and betrayal are inseperable for some.

Several of Le Carre's previous novels (Small Town in Germany, The Spy who Came in from the Cold, and especially the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy trilogy) are examples of fine literature that happen to centre around the world of espionage, but since 1980 he has dropped some cheaper, shoot-em-up thrillers into the mix too, which although well crafted, rather let his literary reputation down. A Perfect Spy is a first class novel (one reviewer described it as one of the best British novels since the war) and in my opinion remains his finest by far.

Definitely agree with the below review and the character development angle. Usually a book like this would take me 3-4 days to finish, "A Perfect Spy" took me three months! Putting it down for weeks and then I would pick it up and get right back into where Magnus was - whether in his past in dealings with his Foreign Service controller Brotherhood; his Berne flatmate controller Axel; or even his distant father Rick. Pym was his own person probably never, he was manufactured by all the people around him. He was the perfect spy but did not know exactly where his loyalty lie, so he was loyal to everyone, whenever it suited them. It could only end in one way. Classic le Carre -- the king of writing around the bush. A study in English literature.

It's inevitable that an author will continue to write after he's written his masterpiece. It's what an author does. Nothing Le Carre has written to date comes close to this, his clear masterpiece.

Far more than a mere "spy novel", this is a work of serious literature that surely deserves to be taught in any class concerning itself with 20th century English Lit. This is a challenging read. It challenges the reader's own sense of self, sense of soul, sense of freindships, and loyalties.

How does one, indeed, remain true to one's self? What are the guiding precepts? Are they flag? Nation? Family? Are they fixed, permanent, immutable? The basic themes of humanity, what it is - means - to be human and possessed of moral dignity are the ideas that are often given a short, glib oe'r glancing in many lesser novels dubbed "serious literature". In this book you may as easily find yourself both troubled in heart as comforted in soul. It is unlikely that you be unchanged by this book.

Every great author has his masterpiece, the one book that far surpasses all others of his work. For John le Carre - this is his. Don't betray yourself by passing this up.

The following books: The Hunt for Red October, The Spy who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are masterpieces. They had so profound impact on me that I wrote a Cold War novel. But frankly speaking, John le Carre is the first source by which I came to read about espionage.
"Soldiers of Peace" by Vladimir Wilson. Please have a look at this book on the store. I am sure everybody will fall in love with my book. This is not economic but aesthetic in nature. Most importantly, you will know a lot of things from my book. But I welcome suggestions. please mail if you want to suggest me something.

Reading "A Perfect Spy," I was fascinated by the parallels between this novel and that of Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man." If you read these two novels back to back, I think you will see Ellison's unmistakable influence on Le Carre. The connections run the gamut from simple allusions (Le Carre reusing some of Ellison's characters' names in slightly different forms) to reworking of overarching themes (Le Carre treating the conflicted diplomatic relationship between East and West in much the same way that Ellison explores the tension between blacks and whites in America; Magnus Pym's shadowy participation in his own life mirroring that of the Invisible Man's, etc.) But don't take my word for it: Read both novels. Either one alone is worth the time. But the comparison is all the more fascinating.

For those who still wonder about Le Carré's past and secret life, "A Perfect Spy" unveils lots of small mysteries. But besides the fact this book tells us a lot about the author's childhood, it remains a fascinating trip in the depths of the diplomatic society, the beautiful people, misery in the darkest places of England and dozens of small unreachable worlds. Once again but better than ever Le Carré takes you to a mystery tour that change your looking at your own world. Pym becomes your closest friend, his wife the one you'd like to tell everything, the other caracters become your foes... This time you learn everything , bit by bit, but you still remain helpless, you can't do anything but keeping going deeper and deeper through the complexity of one's life and feelings. Turning the last page is like being knocked out, but guess what ? You want more of it ! Satisfaction guaranteed...

Over the course of his career, Carre created a cloak and dagger world and became trapped in it. Each new work increasingly turned inward as we examine angst and guilt and sometimes regrets for doing the things that had to be done. Pym is in a way the "perfect" (pardon the pun) Carre spy. The Cold War is over and he can now reflect on his utterly amoral actions, apparently coming to the conclusion that nothing matters, life is a cosmic joke and the normal emotional state is one of resignation. Poor Mary puts up with him (God knows why) and becomes the unidentified star of the book.
The writing and plot are meandering, lots of reminisces all done in a stream of consciousness mode. Just reading the story is tiriing. The novel epitomizes modern British literature with its countryside scenes, rural empty churches, cigarette-puffing disgruntled everymen and everywomen so devoid of any sign of enjoyment of life. It is not that depressing events and people cannot make for a good tale. But there needs to be something more than blind lemming-like marching to the foreseen conclusion accompanied by the sighs of bored spies.

This book is boring, annoying, clichéd, monotonous, long, complicated (even more than “The Honourable Schoolboy”), but incredible brilliant. It was quite an effort to read. You just need to go with the flow. I could not stop admiring JLC ingenuity to put this together. Every little word count. It is like a Picasso painting. The plot is scattered through the book and it is up to you to build the narrative. You need to pay attention to the details and the whole picture.

Besides that, no one writes about our dysfunctional world better than JLC. That's what makes me to constantly come back to him. Not only he has style, but he also has a lot to say.

This is a spy novel focused primarily on the development of characters--primarily two college-aged students who later become spies and the father of one. If you are expecting an engaging novel with lots of intrigue and interesting twists, this is not that kind of novel. There are less than a handful of books that I have started and not completed, yet by page 175, I was seriously considering abadoning it entirely as my interest had not been engaged. The author does a good job of character development, demonstrating some of the complexities in actions and feelings that those employed in the spy trade might encounter. The writing jumps regularly between different narrators, locations, and time periods with, as you might expect from spies, characters have multiple names. Thus, it can be challenging to follow the story. There also seems to be a lot of unnecessary descriptions. While clearly other reviewers liked this book, I read a lot and would say this was one of the least enjoyable books I've read in a while.

A veteran spy named Magnus Pym disappears. A lot of his former co-workers are pretty stressed about this, because they think it is pretty strong evidence that he has been a long time double agent.

The novel is mostly told in the form of memoirs, particularly from his father, among others.

He has to be tracked down to find out what has happened, and why.

There's little to be added to those readers' comments who have credited this Le Carre masterpiece with the five stars it deserves. Certainly one of the two best novels this charismatic, cerebral writer has ever created. It's also important to note that Philip Roth, following the book's publication in 1986, called it "the best English novel since the War."

Disappointing effort of master. Character narratives require close attention from reader to follow the obtuse tale. Arcane textbooks require less study. Reading this pseudo history is more of a chore than a pleasure. Continunity of story line so convoluted a dedicated reader must prepare a written outline to even attempt to follow the premise. Le Carre should know readers of the genre do not wish to engage in hard labor, we just want a good read. This was the least engaging LeCarre this reader has experienced.

! now why why the American Revolution occured and James Bond was invented. If you need a good nite's rest read this! Definitely skip the video though. I though the English spoke English? My lord what stuffy people...they make thr WASP Bramhmins of Boston look like hippies.

This novel does not hold a candle to George Smiley , his Tinkers, Schoolboys and People. I highly doubt this is autobiographical...at leat I hope not.

Skip the film and read the book onl if your Ambien prescription ran out.

Since so many (how many are the author's shills?) love this book, it must be a matter of patience. For those of you who treasure each written word and languish over each sentence, this may be a book you will enjoy. For many of us, reading The Perfect Spy is like watching paint dry.
I nearly gave up reading it, but reasoned that such a highly acclaimed author and book would make it all up for me in the ending. Not to.

Speaking as someone who enjoys classic literature written in styles that force you to think, I hate to admit that LeCarre's "A Perfect Spy" is far more work to read than it is worth.

A good part of the reason is more than just LeCarre's use (or abuse) of "linguistic artistry," which often comes across as an over-indulgent exercise in making things metaphorically obscure. More to the point is the fact that in "A Perfect Spy," LeCarre has made several critical mistakes that can easily kill a reader's interest.

For one, the beginning portions of the book read as something of a "Table of Contents," where glimpses of events are subtly telegraphed ahead of their recounting. This recounting is then accomplished through a haphazard, non-chronological use of flashbacks that are sometimes communicated in a straightforward narrative, and at other times through the gimmick of the main character's - Magnus Pym's - writing of a book or letters. It is extremely confusing at times to tell which, with LeCarre's willy-nilly use of first and third person, and addresses to "Tom" (Pym's son) and "Jack" (one of Pym's mentors) arbitrarily tossed in here and there. Anyway, it soon becomes obvious that the reader will then have to wade through the various topics in that "Table of Contents" until the book comes to its inevitable, very predictable conclusion.

Another aspect that makes this book tedious is that LeCarre once again has created a world of characters who have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, unless you consider the sexual appetites of alley cats redeeming: "He slapped her once, then he slapped her again and on a clear day he would have taken her straight to bed." I kid you not, that is not from a cheesey Mickey Spillane novel, that is straight out of this book. At any rate, the reader is then required to examine the lives of all these charming characters, past and present, knowing full well that critical moments in their lives, which have been alluded to earlier, have yet to be gone over in excruciating detail. Normally, a good amount of descriptive detail is desirable to flesh out a character, to make a character believable so you care what happens to him or her. But in this case, all the main characters are so unappealing, why should we care to wade through it all?

The use of stereotype, especially toward the American characters, is a further irritant. Consider, from the last third of the book: "Gary was your typical Kentuckian-tall, spare and amusing." It makes one wonder if the full extent of LeCarre's exposure to Kentuckians has been a fleeting glimpse at a bio of Abraham Lincoln.

Strip the book of its flashbacks and other narrative gimmicks, and you end up with a boring tale of an unlikable character who has betrayed his country in uninteresting ways, and the parade of unlikable, uninteresting people that helped shape his uninteresting life.

A predictable, relentlessly dark and bleak story, made even more difficult to read in both style and method.

Slow and plodding book with no excitement. The main character is barely likeable. Although I always finish books that I start, this book took me 3x's as long to finish as it should due to my disinterest. This is the first book in several years that I will not be taking to Salvation Army to share with other readers... i wouldn't want to inflict this book on anyone else.