I can remember when the BBC came out with its mini-series of John le Carré's novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy in 1980. Tinker, Tailor tells the story of a traitor, also called a "mole" by secret services because he "burrows deep into the fabric of Western Imperialism". The mole occupies an executive office on the "Fifth Floor" of the British Secret Service. Le Carré's usual spy-hunter George Smiley reckons on four suspects who plan the Service's operations and control the flow of paper-traffic into and out of the Service.
Le Carré described the traitor as an officer seemingly well-known by his associates. As they learn about his perfidy, however, they ask themselves rhetorically, "How could a chap like this be a chap like that?" He had betrayed, le Carré writes. "as a lover, a friend, a colleague, as a patriot." He had betrayed an exclusive circle of friends and family-members called "The Set", that carried a social rank close to the aristocracy—his education at Oxford and Cambridge, and distinguished service in World War II.
George Smiley has the onerous task of finding the "mole" and taking him into custody—realizing that he probably knows the mole and can guess his identity from among his associates at the Secret Service, Smiley hesitates to take the next step. "Too old?" he asks himself. "Afraid of the chase, or afraid of what he might unearth at the end of it?"
I won't bother to summerize the hunt for the mole, how Smiley unmasks him, or even his identity. The reader should do that, follow the mole-tunnel and unmask the mole himself. He should feel the personal shock of unmasking a man who has professed one value system, while in reality, all that time, he betrays it ruthlessly.
The reader should also experience on a personal level how the betrayal affects the social structure of the Secret Service, and undermines the level of mutual trust that the officers must have in order to carry out their duties. Since the mole betrays the Service to the Soviet Union, the reader has to ask himself what hatred the mole harbors against a freedom-loving society?
Luckily, the reader has George Smiley to show them the way into the mole-tunnal, although Smiley himself cannot supply all the answers; so the reader takes from the novel—not a satisfying ending of a low-brow spy-story, but unanswered questions that will stay in his mind and make him think about the issues.
Le Carré likes especially to call into question people's motives for doing things. For instance, does the mole spy for the Soviet Union because he is a secret Communist? Does he really believe in all the rhetoric about the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and confiscating private property? Or does he have more complex, personal motives for spying? (Note that I do not give away the mole.)
- Leaving King's Cross, Smiley had a wistful notion of liking _______ and respecting him.
- The more Smiley puzzled over ______ 's rambling account of himself, the more conscious Smiley was of the contradictions.
- ____ was a romantic and a snob. He wanted to join the elitist vanguard and lead the masses out of darkness.
- Smiley imagined ____'s Marxism making up for his inadequacy . . . and his loveless childhood.
- Later, of course, it hardly mattered if the doctrine wore thin. . . . Treason is very much a matter of habit.
- When was ____ recruited and how? Was his right-wing stance at Oxford a pose, or was it the state of sin from which spying summoned him to grace?