When I was younger, I almost never left unfinished a book that I once started reading. Even if it bored me completely and I didn't like it at all. I think it was because of school reading, which was often boring but I still had to read it. At the age of fifteen, I went with my mother for a two-week vacation abroad. No one had heard about kindle back then and we took only two books with us. One of them was by John le Carré. I read the second one in the first two days, what left me with twelve days and only le Carré to read. I could not make it. I haven't even gone through the first fifty pages of this book. I read from cover to cover all the magazines that fell into my hands (even those that didn't interest me at all), I read two newspapers in foreign languages that I didn't speak at all and probably some boring romance in English (and I didn't know English so well at that time, so it was quite a job). But in two weeks I couldn't read le Carré. Bored over the top and left with this one possibility, I still couldn't read this book.

Now, being a lot older, I decided to give le Carré one more chance and reached for one of his most famous novels, The Tailor of Panama. Oh, no no no no. Nothing has changed in the last several years. I still can't read his book. I forced myself as much as I could, reached a little over 40% and the thought that I have to read the next 60% is enough to make me feel miserable.

I can't even say what exactly I have a problem with. I think it's his writing style. Which stretches like chewed gum you try to unstick from under the chair, numb like a thirteen-hour flight after which you get a jet lag that leaves you totally confused and at times pseudo-poetic like poems of a thirteen-year-old with this bizarre pseudo-depth. Generally one of the most boring things I've read recently.

The situation is not saved by the plot or the characters. The plot may still be there, but the action is completely missing. Everything drags on. At a snail's pace. Scene after scene. Little by little. One meaningless conversation after another. Unhurriedly. From time to time a side thread that supposed to diversify the story and enrich the character, what story do I ask? And of course, a flashback, as if everything was not slow enough. Christ, how slow it is, counted in minutes! If you can handle this pace, that's fine, you might even like this book, but I couldn't stand it. After reading one page I was so bored that I couldn't bring myself to read the next one.

The thing is, Harry Pendel is even quite an interesting hero. But the writing style killed any desire to follow his actions in me. There was also something that irritated and upset me. I can't even say exactly what.

I was seriously wondering whether to force myself to finish this book, but reading it is such an unpleasant experience for me that I decided to abandon it. Le Carré is probably just not for me. I doubt I'll ever read his book again or finish this one. In fact, I'm so uninterested in this story that I don't even feel like watching a movie to find out how it all ended.

My first le Carré, and although I understand that it's not his typical work, I can still understand why he's not only popular but well respected. This is a writer who is a master of the slow but never boring reveal. The setting is incredibly detailed without ever resorting to information dump, and every character breaths. If only the satire hadn't become so predictable, this would have been a really good book.

This is not my favorite le Carre title ([b:Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy|18989|Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (The Karla Trilogy #1)|John le Carré|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327889127s/18989.jpg|2491780] holds that post, closely followed by [b:A Perfect Spy|19001|A Perfect Spy|John le Carré|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348765215s/19001.jpg|2492347]), but it has all the hallmarks that define le Carre's oeuvre: vivid writing, an immensely complex plot, more characters than you can shake a stick at (almost none of them likeable and all the women portrayed with a degree of sexism I only hope is unintentional), a well-researched and richly depicted setting, and a concern above all else for the moral implications of the spy trade and its impact on the human soul. Not recommended for newcomers to le Carre, as it is likely to overwhelm those not already accustomed to his tendency to barrage readers with complex secondary details while only hinting at crucial ones, but a worthwhile choice for fans who want to enjoy more of his work.

I recently read a lovely, hilarious piece on Popula in praise of le Carré, particularly his semi-indecipherability and how that is, in fact, a feature and not a bug of his work. (Here's that link: https://popula.com/2019/02/03/like-many-of-john-le-carres-women-she-has-a-creepy-energy-that-i-can-only-describe-as-sex-mother/)

This one is a great look at bullshitters managing to ride the whip for as long as they can. Pendel is a world-class creation, absolutely delightful, and watching him dig himself a hole (and then learning that everyone else is also digging away, for themselves and each other) is quite compelling. The book could've been a tad shorter, without a doubt, and even if I didn't entirely understand what was going on the whole time, I still had a damn good time.

I'm beginning to think that spy stories are not for me. This took me forever to finish.

Originally published on my blog here in July 1998.

As the acknowledgements at the end of The Tailor of Panama, this book owes a large debt to Grahame Greene's [b:Our Man in Havana|133394|Our Man in Havana (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)|Graham Greene|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327926887s/133394.jpg|1912267]. Le Carre says that ever since he read that book, he's been fascinated with the idea of the fabrication of intelligence information, which is the central theme of both novels.

Harry Pendel is the tailor of the title; he runs an exclusive gentleman's tailor in Panama City. His past is not the past that people think; the tale he tells of his apprenticeship to his partner Braithwaite in Savile Row, his immense gratitude to one who saved him from being led into a life of crime in the East End by his wicked Uncle Benny, are all fabrications.

Into the life he has built up for himself, which is seriously endangered by a rash investment in a rice farm, comes British diplomat Andrew Osnard. Osnard is actually a spy sent out to gain intelligence about the future of the Panama Canal after its return to Panama from US control on December 31, 1999. He knows the truth about Harry's past - the fact that Braithwaite never existed, the fact that far from being saved from his Uncle Benny, Harry took the blame for a crime he committed and went to prison.

The attraction of Pendel for Osnard is that a tailor has some sort of confidential relationship with his clients, and Pendel & Braithwaite's client list includes most of the rich and powerful men in Panama. Harry promises important intelligence, unwilling to admit that he doesn't have the influence he is expected to have. In the end, his inability to admit his own unimportance leads him to fabricate intelligence, which Osnard then further manipulates for his own ends - he aims to defraud British intelligence by inflating his costs, and makes the made-up intelligence fit in with the things that are not known in London using the convenient list of intelligence items that London would like to know.

As far as the two of them are concerned, everything works out fine until Harry is asked to recruit other people as spies; combining a list of fictional people with some of his friends causes Harry to lose control of what he is doing.

There are not really likeable characters in this book; everyone is deeply flawed. I always find South American settings difficult to empathise with. Aside from that, The Tailor of Panama is well-written, and demonstrates le Carre's flexibility as an author of spy stories (unlike [a:Len Deighton|31234|Len Deighton|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1279065290p2/31234.jpg], who seems to be having a great deal of difficulty putting the Cold War behind him).

Not my favorite of his. Disturbing and despressing. I think I need to read something a little more lighthearted right now...

A tailor living in Panama reluctantly becomes a spy for a British Agent.

A movie was made based on this book, with Pierce Brosnan, Geoffrey Rush, Jamie Lee Curtis.