Charges of Geresy

Really good book, yeah.

That’s probably how Ed would describe it.

Mirroring the structure of its plot, on the surface this book appears to be one thing (a spy novel), underneath it is something very different – namely a critique of Britain’s departure from Europe, and its departure from decency and the Western world in general’s trend towards xenophobia, populism, and hypocrisy.

The main character of this book, Anatoly, AKA Nat, is a former agent runner reaching the end of his working life who believes he is being put out to pasture. But, he soon gets involved in something much bigger than he could have anticipated, and something much closer to home than he would have liked.

Although the whole book is written in the first person from Nat’s perspective, arguably the book has a second main character, who Nat happens upon by chance during his one of his weekly badminton matches at his club, the Athleticus. Ed, a “researcher”, is a strong-minded Europhile who acts as Le Carré’s voice in the novel and gives him license to express a range of opinions from the perspective of a younger person in the United Kingdom witnessing the “free fall” of society, whilst stopping short of voicing them directly, showing us rather than telling us. He believes Brexit is “the most important decision facing Britain since 1939”. Using Ed as a voice, Le Carré can get away with using phrases such as “unmitigated clusterfuck” to describe Brexit, while still preserving the semblance of neutrality from the narrator’s perspective.

The book is full of characters with almost excessively varied European backgrounds. Nat’s assigned station, The Haven, contains 3 nationalities for every employee, and Nat himself has ancestry and links to countries ranging from Scotland to Germany to Russia, subtly emphasising the interconnectedness of Europe – and Britain’s firm place within it.

The novel constantly foreshadows its climax through Nat’s sarcastic references to his ‘chers collègues’, and his mentions of having to recall various events to them. Ultimately, the book is an engaging read which gradually unveils truth after truth, while keeping the grander background machinations of subterfuge hidden behind the veil of the perspective of a tired, old agent runner, who takes it upon himself to find out what’s going on. Ultimately, it emphasises Le Carré’s recurrent theme of conflicting loyalties, having to choose between one’s personal relationships and his or her duty to queen and country. It seems Le Carré’s ties towards country in particular were feeling stretched at this time.

John Le Carré never did get to witness the end of the Brexit transition period, having very sadly passed away in December. It is so sad that we will never see a new book by the great writer, and yet it is almost poetic in a sense that his passing came before the end of an era which he so strongly rejected.