© Always Worth Saying 2025, Going Postal
The children have a WhatsApp group where they conspire to buy me useful things for Christmas and birthdays. This is a big improvement on the old scattergun approach, where everyone either bought me the same thing or assumed someone else would — once resulting in me getting less than the dog.
This past Christmas was a great success. I received a long, sturdy, extendable pole for cleaning the conservatory roof. A new Akula-class submarine, resplendent in barnacle repellent Russian navy black, sits on the mantelpiece, stalking my last birthday’s USS Wasp.
Beside the fire on Christmas morning, sat a couple of books. One was Boris Johnson’s — interesting enough, though, in character, cheerleading for nothing other than Boris. Already reviewed, you can read of it here. The other was Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway, who takes up his late father, John Le Carre’s, spy book legacy. That one didn’t go down quite as well, as evidenced by the fact that it’s taken me from December to the end of July to finish it.
Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, the book explores the shadowy world of intelligence services, focusing on the escalating confrontation between East and West.
The novel fills part of the narrative gap in le Carré’s George Smiley saga in the years from The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), in which Smiley plays a minor but significant role, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974). It was this work, and the accompanying BBC TV series, which catapulted the author and his character to literary mega-stardom.
That 1974 book, along with the television adaptations of what was to become known as the Karla Trilogy, helped establish Smiley as le Carré’s defining creation, and in doing so threatened to overshadow the author’s other characters and works.
Karla, Smiley’s formidable KGB counterpart across the Iron Curtain, also became a Cold War icon in his own right. Karla’s Choice picks up where the 1963 work left off. George, now retired from MI6 (known as “the Circus”), is enjoying a quiet domestic life with his elusive and often wayward wife, Ann.
Smiley’s retirement turned out to be long-lived — lasting over 50 years. He reappears in 2017’s A Legacy of Spies, which, when matched against earlier biographical details, puts him at the improbable age of 116. A testament, perhaps, to the quiet endurance of the secret servant — or for the need to squeeze every penny out of a franchise.
However, Smiley is dragged out of retirement (no plot spoilers) after a Mittel-European émigré’s tale of derring-do knocks on the Circus’s door.
Suffice it to say much of the interest revolves around Susanna, or rather Zsuzsanna, and yes, Suzhanna is young, pretty, vulnerable, and a refugee. Yay! We hear the full refugee twaddle from the author, although diluted to death by being set in the early 60s with Suzanna crossing by ferry rather than a small boat.
Not as polemical as le Carré’s posthumous 2020 anti-Brexit nonsense, Agent Running in the Field, but Karla’s Choice does try (and fail) to resonate with the modern-day victimhood wokeness of ‘undocumented migration’.
At least Susanna is a girlie. The le Carré novels have faced criticism for their thinly drawn female characters, and while Karla’s Choice features more women, they remain unconvincing. Most are relegated to traditional wife or daughter of somebody in the Service roles — research, admin, or emotional support — often working behind the scenes for other women.
This is also true of Susanna who is “put to use” by the Circus, but never quite escapes the sense of being a helpless narrative device trying to find agency, rather than a fully developed character.
The plot, which I won’t spoil, includes a spin around continental Europe chasing after émigrés of interest, while trying to decipher why arch-nemesis KGB Karla might be taking an interest in them too. Hmm.
Cold Warriors amongst us (taps nose) may be unconvinced by the border crossings. Characters flit from country to country and block to block with too much ease, as if an author falling into the trap of darting between the insides of his creations’ heads.
Speaking of which, far too much time is spent within minds — hopping between perspectives, lingering on introspection, and indulging in layers of psychological fog. What’s the first rule in the real world of derring-do? Too much attention to detail wastes valuable time. And the second? A single point of maximum concentrated effort: Berlin or bust. Bring me the head of Osama bin Laden. Sink the Bismarck.
While Puffins are in their tanks blasting their way to the Reich Chancellery, le Carré’s characters are still holed up in a bedsit (or meandering along the banks of the Danube), second and third-guessing outcomes they’ll never be able to calculate while at least one frustated reader shouts, ‘For God’s sake man, get on with it!’
Several familiar faces from le Carré’s Smiley universe return, including Control, Peter Guillam, Jim Prideaux, Toby Esterhase, and Connie Sachs — thus re-establishing the core ensemble of the Circus. They’re joined by a few new additions: a gifted linguist and research officer who is Jamaican (Yawn) and a brainy Indian (zzzzz). It’s supposed to be 1963, not 2025.
And here’s the problem, in Karla’s Choice the core ensemble reminds of a modern-day ‘universe’ trying too hard to keep the franchise going.
Why so? Because such universes offer built-in brand recognition, audience loyalty, and narrative scalability. For publishers (and studios), they’re a safe bet in a risky market.
If a reader or viewer is already invested in a world — Middle-earth, Marvel, Westeros, Harry Potter or the Circus — they’re more likely to buy the next book, stream the next spin-off, or show up for the prequel.
But, the strategy allows less latitude for a thumping good story or trying something new. Creative stagnation ensues. Familiarity trumps originality; new voices and fresh stories can struggle to emerge. There’s also the tangle of explaining retro-fitted backstories that never needed telling, weakening the mystery or ambiguity that made the earlier works original.
No doubt another le Carre universe novel will appear in time for next Christmas. In the process, rather than shoot us in the back of the head, or poison us with a jab from the tip of a murderous umbrella, the executors of the author’s estate will continue to disappoint us to death.
© Always Worth Saying 2025
