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54
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
55/100Critics
53/100Scholars
Author:
John le Carré
Publisher:
Viking
Date:
August 22, 2024
A collection of reminiscences from John le Carré, the legendary bestselling author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; and The Night Manager.
What The Reviewers Say
...recounted with the storytelling élan of a master raconteur — by turns dramatic and funny, charming, tart and melancholy.
The Pigeon Tunnel is written in episodic chapters that can be read like short stories. Every sentence strives for effect. Mr. le Carré never relaxes control over his readers. Wherever he goes, he watches relentlessly and is collecting copy. Resentful anger and virile aggression are kept in check so that his descriptions are pungent but never spiteful.
The result is not so much a memoir as a collection of memories, many of them containing tantalizing intimations of a powerful autobiography that still yearns to be written.
That is the memoir’s beauty. Apart from stories of a Romantic wanderer through powerful haunts it offers thrills of recognition as le Carré’s archetypes spring to life.
