Full disclosure here. Even though I have read
other Le Carré selections, The Night
Manager only came to my attention by way of AMC’s fantastic miniseries.
That miniseries, which I highly recommend watching, was one of those rare
instances where the adaptation slightly exceeds the source material. The
miniseries edited out much of the backroom politics and verbal backstabbing,
which Le Carré excels at, and was replaced with character drama, situational tension,
physical action of all types, and explosions, which, cliché or not as a truth,
Americans most eagerly respond to.
The Night Manager, the novel, with its grimy
locales, dry dialogue, and political guesswork in hopes to obtain knighthood,
probably presents a more accurate take of a modern day spy more so than
England’s reigning pop-culture Superman, James Bond, as well as, you know, the
alluring looks of Tom Hiddleston. A spy who crawls into deep, tight situations,
conspires with uncomfortable characters, and, one would think, doesn’t rely on
pithy one-liners during a bout of fisticuffs, is exactly Jonathan Pine’s role
in the story; even though he does get to throw the occasional punch, as well as
take one. Or a dozen. If anything, the true hero of the tale is Pine’s MI-6
contact Burr, the protagonist with a raging desire to take down,
once-and-for-bloody-all, drug-runner and arms-broker Richard Roper, who has
been tagged with the title “The Worst Man in the World”. As such, he fails to
be awarded with a corporate beer sponsorship.
While Pine’s plight is definitely the more
sexy one of the story, Burr gets a great deal of attention as he seeks to fight
evil internally not only among his peers at the Riverhouse, but to do so with
bureaucracy. Friends, bureaucracy ain’t sexy. And it can make for an overly-lengthy
read. Burr is a fun character to get into, he’s strong and just, which gives
the many overly-dry chapters that John Le Carré is known for a reason to continue.
The American male side of me, however, was waiting for the explosions. Waiting
for that denouement of “Ha-ha! Got you Dickie Roper!” But Le Carré doesn’t work
that way, frustratingly so.
The Night Manager is a long, slow read that
is probably a great representation of deep cover sting work but makes for a
tiring read, with a resolution that is unfulfilled and wanting. What was
missing were a few more well-placed explosions.
As Always,
theJOE
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