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.
