Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

How this book is acclaimed to be one of the best spy novels is completely beyond me!

I was really excited to read this book as the movie is coming up soon. Turns out it was such a pain to read and I am so disappointed. The main plot was so simple – a former secret service agent searching for a mole in the service. Yet, there were, in my opinion, so many unnecessary characters, descriptions and sub-plots that diverged my attention and confused the hell out of me.

While I was reading, I kept asking myself if my English was up to understanding this “masterpiece” because I got so lost. I thought it was my problem. But then after reading a lot of reviews on the Internet afterwards, I realised at least I was not alone. Also, once you put the book down, it was so difficult to pick it up again as you would then lost the characters and/or the plot. So it actually took me quite some time to revisit some previous episodes before I could continue once again. Thankfully I read it with my Kindle and could easily make cross-references to the earlier parts of the book. Otherwise, I can imagine it would take so much longer for the process and my suffering would hence be prolonged.

Many a times, I was on the verge of abandoning the book because I thought I would never comprehend everything. But I hate so much to give up on books in the middle I kinda bite my lips and finished it – painstakingly if I might add. Even after I’ve finally completed the whole thing, there were still so many episodes dangling in my mind for they were not concluded / explained properly – loose ends not tied up. It was so irritating when I didn’t understand something, kept dwelling on it and couldn’t move ahead. Other times I just presumed what the author was trying to say only to find myself so wrong in the later pages. Pretty discouraging!

I wish I could like this book but it’s just never to be. Hopefully the movie will be better – I was told the movie presented the whole story in a more comprehensible way.