“Intelligence work has one moral law - it is justified by results.”

“What do you think spies are: priests, saints, and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists, and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs?"

Graham Greene had called this the best espionage novel, ever! Words to take notice of, given that he has written a few excellent read on that subject himself.  But before I came across  Greene's words I was surprised to see this ranked among the  Top 100  novels that Times Magazine had recognized. These  trivialities tend to stay in one's mind, and one fine day they reap their rewards - in this case, resulting in listening/reading  to this fine novel, through the medium of an audio book.

Of the novel; It's rich with plots and layers of deception as the narration keeps the reader guessing in spite of the rather dated somewhat omniscient style. Duplicity is the name of the game. While The British on their side, ideologically barren, justified whatever the means they took to justify their ends, The Socialist state of German Democratic Republic, was ideology driven - until it wasn't. Yes, there were exceptions to both sides. While the Brits maintained that their efforts were to safeguard the unsuspecting average citizen, they didn't  hesitate to sacrifice one here, and another there to achieve its ends. The Socialist garb in the meantime, slips to show the German's anti-Semite traits when the occasion demands. Reading it today, in a climate where the novel is considered  firstly a work of art, the political intent of the author is apparent, over whatever aesthetic the author may have had in mind. I feel that suspense, and the traits of the trade ( duplicity, betrayal, twists) were in fact the only tools that Le Carré had, and he knew how best to use them.

Personally, I loved the character of  ideology drive Jospeh Fiedler. The manner in which he questions the rather ideologically shallow Alec Leamas on what drives the Brits, to me was an highlight of the book. Note the following conversation between Fiedler and Leamas.

"If they do not know what they want, how can they be so certain they are
right?"
"Who the hell said they were?" Leamas replied irritably.
"But what is the justification then? What is it? For us it is easy, as I said to you last night. The Abteilung and organizations like it are the natural extension of the Party's arm. They are in the vanguard of the fight for Peace and Progress. They are to the Party what the Party is to socialism: they are the vanguard.

Yet,  Le Carré's mastery is, he hints quite clearly, as to who passes for "the party" towards the conclusion of the novel. This is one duplicity that the typical socialist political party chooses not to identify and accept ( and I have one, more closer at home in mind ).



Le Carré's attempt to show the "human factor" ( a title of one Green's books, incidentally), when it comes to an emotional attachment, despite the low value that those involved in espionage regards human life with,  isn't lost on the reader too.

I read this book 56 years after its publication. And the images of "The Bridge of Spies" shifted across my mind. I learn that there is a movie adaptation of this book, starring Richard Burton, and it is likely to be one of the rare movies that I will be watching.

Highly recommended for lovers of thrillers and and espionage novels. Even the lover of literature has much to appreciate here.