The le Carré Cast

A podcast on the world of John le Carré

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Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway Explored Part Two

In this episode we continue to look at Nick Harkaway’s 2024 George Smiley novel, Karla’s Choice. You can find part one here.

Steven Ritterman, le Carré expert and collector, returns to talk through what we thought about this new Smiley novel.

Plus, an exclusive discussion with Nick Harkaway about Karla’s choice.

All that and much more in this episode.

Steven’s episode on collecting John le Carré is here.

Spybrary’s interview with Nick Harkaway.

The le Carré Cast interview with Nick Harkaway.

Jeff’s site – SpyWrite.com

Jeff’s twitter – @spywrite

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One response to “Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway Explored Part Two”

  1. kfmacmichael Avatar
    kfmacmichael

    It would be interesting to hear from someone who has come to this book without any previous engagement at all – and to hear from someone perhaps younger. How, for example, does a younger millennial or Gen Zed deal with the historical aspect of this story? I found myself making notes to look up some references during my second reading, and I was alive when the wall came down. (I wasn’t very old, but I was alive!) I fear some younger readers might be thoroughly confused by the setting.

    I was also confused by the order of fancy chicken during one of the restaurant scenes, but that’s just because I’m an ignorant uncultured North American lout.

    I will now confess that while it’s been at least a decade since I read a LeCarre, I cheated before reading this book and watched 1965’s film adaption of the chilly spy first, which I’m sure helped my comprehension of this book, although I understand as with all film adaptions, it may not have been entirely faithful to the source novel.

    There were many easter eggs I missed, but I didn’t mind. One of the things I was conscious of while I was reading KC was that I was going to have a much wider and wilder field of suspects than many readers who already knew what happened next – for example, for quite a long time into my first read, I assumed that Karla was a woman, and then also spent a fair amount of time thinking it would be revealed that Mundt was Karla. I found Mundt to be an absolutely fantastic character, and I’m surprised to learn there’s no more about him in the canon – however, it could be that leaving where he ends up is actually a strength, allowing everyone to come up with their own speculations.

    Am I looking forward to another Harkaway entry into this world? I’m not sure. I think it’s very well done, and I’m grateful I was given a copy at Christmas, but if a significant impetus behind the writing of KC was to provide a fresh entry into LeCarre world for new readers (or previously disengaged readers such as myself) in hopes of inciting renewed interest in the existing body of work, then I would say that job has been done, and it might be better not to play with it anymore.

    I’ve added Call for the Dead to my library order list, because KC (and the LeCarre Cast!) has inspired me to try Le Carre again, and if I’m going to try again to get into all of this spy world, I’m going to try and start “properly,” at the beginning.

    Thank you again for sharing these interviews with all of us!

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