John Le Carré’s books are often labors of love to read. This was both love and labor with neither of them necessarily intertwining.
I don’t want to go into details but there was a specific moment at my job this past week where I had to face down reminders of a rough work moment from years before. Nothing bad in terms of abuse or harassment but awful stuff. And it felt good to be reading “Magnus Pym’s” (Le Carré’s, David Cornwell’s) story at the same time, a semi-autobiographical, roman a clef from the legendary espionage scribe. The literal escapism of a man escaping his job and family to write the story of his life to his son while his supervisors frantically search for him for reasons that become clear later resonated with me. And no, I have not left my wife and kids to write this review. But I appreciated the symmetry all the same.
At any rate, this book only worked in fits and starts. Le Carré is a genius but like many, he overwrites too much for my tastes. I appreciate what he is trying to do but I am so rigidly middlebrow that I’d often find myself frustrating and missing key moments. The overall story is good, if a bit too long. The method of telling it is of high quality and deep intimacy, if tedious.
But it was a book that very much met the moment. It won’t go down as my favorite Le Carré but it will perhaps go down as my favorite reading experience of indulging in a Le Carré novel.