El espía que surgió del frío by John le Carré

I do not think of other spy novels when I think of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. No matter whose side they are on, or what their particular goals may be, there can be no heroes in this dirty, duplicitous game. In the course of this tale of a complex double-agent operation, which he tells in a style that somehow combines both cold rage and white heat, Le Carre reveals the heartlessness of British Intelligence-and, by implication, of all intelligence systems-which will not hesitate to crush the innocent and betray its own in pursuit of secrecy and success. But The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is only “just a spy novel” in the sense that Moby Dick and “The Secret Sharer” are “just sea tales” or “The Turn of the Screw” and “Afterward” are “just ghost stories.' Sure, they fulfill the requirements of their genres.

I certainly was stupid all these years, for I did not read this book-at least in part-because I considered it “just a spy novel” (albeit a superb one), and the “spy novel'-at least since Ian Fleming ruined it-is not one of my favorite genres.

I am of two minds now that I have finished The Spy Who Came in From the Cold for the first time: I am irritated at myself for having postponed the pleasure of reading this magnificent book for so many years, and yet I am exhilarated and excited too, marked by this unqualified encounter with greatness.

El espía que surgió del frío by John le Carré