The Russia House (1989)

A rescued book, from the "Kantoorpaleis" Moem had to move out of. The books needed new homes, new readers and this one ended up with me. :-)

It looks like I found a new reader for it, so it'll be going on a journey soon.

Probably not a book for reading on the bus. The Russia House is one of those slow-burn, deliberately told stories that requires contemplation and uninterrupted reading time. The story begins at a book fair in Russia, where a woman named Katya delivers a manuscript for the attention of Bartholomew Scott "Barley" Blair, a publisher. The contents: Soviet defence secrets. Naturally, once the British Secret Service and the CIA find out about the manuscript, they have to get their hands on it. The story is told from the perspective of Horatio dePalfrey, a Service lawyer, as they do a postmortem on l'affaire "Bluebird" (their code name for the author of the manuscript). Of course, nobody will take the blame for anything, but "note was taken. Passively, since active verbs have an unpleasant way of betraying the actor."

This is the first le Carré I can recall reading that has first-person narration, and overall it works very well. Palfrey (most often referred to without the "de" for some reason) is self-effacing and unobtrusive, like the good Service lawyer he is. It's over 200 pages before we find out he's even married, for example. One does have to suspend a bit of disbelief when he reconstructs conversations to which he was not directly privy, but one could then counter with the idea that interviews with the people involved and transcripts from taped conversations would help him fill in the gaps. The conflict between the US and UK intelligence officers was also entertaining -- just like the Cold War, when the UK was almost more concerned about keeping secrets from the Americans than from the KGB.

I may try reading this again after getting some more historical background of the period, since most of my Cold War reading takes place before perestroika/glasnost. And if you're interested in reading it, do give it a spin, but make sure you read it without distractions! ( )

Complicated but well written..It took me a while to get into the storyk but it was fun. ( )

פלפרי ונד הם חיקויים עלובים לסמיילי. הדלי הגיבור ב​על כרחו הוא דמות מעניינת יותר. עם זאת כל הספר הוא ​רק צל של ההצלחות הקודמות ובפרט של התלמיד המכובד. כ​נראה שבלי מלחמה קרה קשה לכתוב ספרי מתח​ ( )

Enjoyed this one, as with all le Carre, but not one of my favorites... thought it was a bit forced, trying to make a russia/england spy novel after the cold was was over and all... i think this was his last one before he moved on to different settings... still worth the read, of course, he's the master. ( )