Droll story of a tailor in Panama fooling British intelligence with stories of a "left-wing" conspiracy. Like the proverbial wolf, he finds his stories coming true, and he's stuck in a nightmare of his own making.

This is a slow-moving, but very intelligent book on how dependable intelligence actually is. I loved it overall, even if I found the book a bit too descriptive and pedantic in places.

For a complete review, see http://nishitak.com/2017/03/23/the-tailor-of-panama/

I stopped reading at page 121. I just can’t stay interested in this book. I was hoping for a page turner and this book is not that.

I have yet to read Graham Greene’s famous spy satire Our Man in Havana, but I’m familiar with the premise and am well aware that John Le Carré is aping it here. He’s having a blast splattering colored paint on the immaculately white walls of British imperialism. Until he remembers that these characters have stories, hearts and lives too.

That’s what makes The Tailor of Panama so fascinating. Transparently a satire of western intelligence work, Le Carré also paints vivid portraits of characters whose lives are impacted by their failed pursuits at advancement in western culture. There’s Harry Pendel, the half-Scottish half-Jewish secretly reformed criminal making his living off of fiction and money from debts that are about to be called in. There’s his wife Louisa, the lesser sister who acts like her neurotic parents and is saved only by fierce devotions to husband, country and God. There’s Andy Osnard, cynically bitter of how Britain’s changes led to the decline of his minor noble family, so he seeks an institution to ruin and finds it in espionage. There’s Mickie Abraxas, a spoiled rich secret revolutionary whose desire to do the right thing always puts him on the wrong side.

And then there’s Panama herself, a destitute Central American country ruined by American and European imperialism, which would otherwise be ignored by the rest of the world if not for its narrow strip of land that provided for an economic connection between east and west. Even with the Canal losing its relevance, it’s quite clear that the Americans and Japanese want to hold onto it for…well because they can’t imagine doing so otherwise. And the British of course hate standing on the sidelines. So…

There are parts of this book where the story drags, where Le Carré goes a little too long on his characters inner monologues. Nevertheless, this is a rollicking read, one of his more accessible books. You may laugh, you may cry, but the point will still be made.

This started out so good, but just, well, I couldn't finish it. Maybe I will try to finish it, but I can't right now. It just lost all of its interest for me. Abandoning with very little left to read.

“We’ve got everything God needed to make paradise. Great farming, beaches, mountains, wild life you wouldn’t believe, put a stick in the ground you get a fruit tree, people so beautiful you could cry.”

The Tailor of Panama was a CHORE for me — both literally and figuratively. As I prepare to live in Panamá, I am slowly making my way through an educational reading list in order to learn the history of my new country.

Although le Carré's writing was good from a technical standpoint, I found it very challenging to connect to the story and every single character. I was powering through without too much grumbling until about 2/3 of the way through when the narration completely flipped and totally lost me. It required some major mental effort to finish, but I did! (Were it not for my love of Panamá, I would have ditched it far earlier because, in general, life is too short to read books one doesn't like!)

As I struggled, I kept thinking that me reading this book about espionage is like the toughest of guys reading a sappy romance. So, in fairness to John le Carré, it was (mostly) me! Others might thoroughly enjoy this book.

The struggle was both real and worth it. Although this was fiction, le Carré got positive feedback from Panamanians in the know so my education definitely benefited from reading this book. Looking forward to watching the movie to fill in the gaps created when my brain glazed over.

Good, but not one of my favorites.

I'm a fan of a good title, even if it is ripped straight from Shakespeare. Venice's Merchant, Florence's Enchantress, and now Panama's Tailor. There's just something about calling your book "The (someone) of (somewhere)" that I find romantic in a way. It's the preposition that does it. "The Tailor from Panama" doesn't sound nearly as appealing. But "The Tailor OF Panama"? Oh yes, I'd like to know more about him! It's the idea of belonging, the thought of being "of" a place rather than "from" it. Indeed, that's the nicest thing I can say about this novel - that the author was wise to steal from Shakespeare. Even if it was a tricky, deceptive thing to do.

Why? Because this "Tailor" is nothing to write home about. He ought to stick to ... well, tailoring! Anything other than moonlighting as a struggling fictional character. He's an absolute bore! Which leads me to believe that either Panama is an incredibly boring place with dreadfully boring tailors - why else then should this Mr. Pendel be dubbed "The Tailor OF Panama", as if he were so special - or else le Carre lied.

2 things.

1. I suppose it wouldn't be a stretch for an author famous for writing about spies and deception to lie in the title of his book (especially because the Tailor in question is a liar).

2. No, I won't write give this English writer the respect he apparently feels he is due by giving the accent mark to the final vowel in his pen name. Sorry John, but for wasting my time trying to actually finish this thing, I feel you simply don't deserve it. Maybe if I read and like a book by you, I'll give it back. We'll have to see if I give you that second chance.

And no, I didn't. Finish this I mean. I made it about two-thirds of the way in, saw I had clearly stuck with this thing for too long and then promptly deleted my e-book copy of it.

Sure, I gave it the extra star because I actually did like the opening scene in the Tailor's shop - that made it seem as if something interesting might happen - but ultimately I would have been better off reading about a mundane day in an actual tailor's shop.

A spy thriller without any thrills? Forget thrills. There is no tension. At all. Every English professor I ever had drilled into me this one thing: that without tension, you have no story. Ummm, have you read this Professor Lott? Deaver? Gordon? Apparently not ...

Though on second thought, they might be right. There is no story here. I mean that in the sense that nothing happens. There's that Tailor fellow. Then there's an English spy.

Stop. I know what you're thinking, and it's not James Bond. This is the antithesis of Bond. By which I mean Boring. Very Boring.

Don't let the title deceive you. This isn't "The Tailor of Panama", it's "The Tailor from Omaha".

By far not among le Carré’s best. It frequently loses focus, struggles to shift between tones, and gets stuffed with superfluous details because, I dunno, le Carré thought the original idea was too short for a novel or something. There are some great tense sequences and the characters do have that le Carré richness (except Louisa), but the whole thing feels like it’s being help together with gum and prayer.

The Tailor of Panama is tragi-comic, a portrait of greed,guilt, self-interest, and paranoid fictions colliding with humorous, detestable and loveable idealists. A spy's tale of late capitalist grifters.

Pendel is our humble guide; through his unwitting manipulation of hopes, implication, innuendo and rumour, he steers the reader, just as he does his imagined characters - and world events. He, like the reader, is swept along by le Carré's brisk, cutting prose- to the often tragic consequences of self-serving lies.