12-10-2010, 03:16 PM
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy remains one of English's literature's most compelling and masterful meditations on betrayal -- of country, of lover, of friend, of colleague, of class, and of self.
It grew from le Carre's obsession with Kim Philby, which initially presented as outrage at the ultimate betrayer. Yet there always seemed to be a hitch in le Carre's swings at Philby (to use an American baseball term), and what later emerged was the realization that no flag was any more or less deserving of allegiance than any other.
"You're my country now," says Barley Blair to Katya in The Russia House.
It grew from le Carre's obsession with Kim Philby, which initially presented as outrage at the ultimate betrayer. Yet there always seemed to be a hitch in le Carre's swings at Philby (to use an American baseball term), and what later emerged was the realization that no flag was any more or less deserving of allegiance than any other.
"You're my country now," says Barley Blair to Katya in The Russia House.
Charles Drago
Co-Founder, Deep Politics Forum
If an individual, through either his own volition or events over which he had no control, found himself taking up residence in a country undefined by flags or physical borders, he could be assured of one immediate and abiding consequence: He was on his own, and solitude and loneliness would probably be his companions unto the grave.
-- James Lee Burke, Rain Gods
You can't blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.
-- Graham Greene
Co-Founder, Deep Politics Forum
If an individual, through either his own volition or events over which he had no control, found himself taking up residence in a country undefined by flags or physical borders, he could be assured of one immediate and abiding consequence: He was on his own, and solitude and loneliness would probably be his companions unto the grave.
-- James Lee Burke, Rain Gods
You can't blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.
-- Graham Greene