She is duly shot as she tries to climb over – but Leamas still has the opportunity to make it to freedom. The paradox at the end of this superb, tough, highly sophisticated novel is that Leamas, in refusing to come in from the cold as a spy, does in fact come in from the cold as a person. The storyline itself is very complex. Working undercover as a spy is referred to throughout the novel as being “in the cold.” In this sense, the cold represents the danger, isolation, and emotional hardship of spy work. "What do you think spies are: priests, saints, martyrs? My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class.”, LitCharts uses cookies to personalize our services. However, his operatives have been hunted down and killed by Mundt, the head of East German counter-espionage. "We have to live without sympathy, don’t we? 2 likes. One of the most important and complicated characters is Mundt, who is one of the top men in the German intelligence agency, Abteilung. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!”, “This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. It was interesting to compare the spying methods of countries in the past and today – double agents and spies vs. internet surveillance and HTTPS hacking. He is given one last mission, and it's an incredibly dangerous and complex one. . Everywhere that air of conspiracy which generates amongst people who have been up since dawn – of superiority almost, derived from the common experience of having seen the night disappear and the morning come.". To “come in from the cold” means to retire as a spy, but also symbolizes the emotional relief (and renewed potential for human connection) that comes with that decision. | . I think that this book gives a very accurate representation of this topic. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. 2 likes. Taglines one can't be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold . Overall, I'd rate this book nine point five out of ten for its excellent plot and profound understanding of British intelligence during the Cold War. We will refer to it as The Spy from now on, for brevity's sake, but it's worth starting any current assessment of the novel with something of a thought-experiment. Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue. In other words, it's very sophisticated and one of the appeals of sophistication in art is the understanding that such precision, such tastes, such values, such understatements are shared. His struggle back from dehumanization becomes the final focus of the story. Le Carré's writing style involves plenty of description and dialogue, and sometimes it's hard to tell who is speaking. Control suggests that there is a vacancy, a desk job, that might interest him, but Leamas declines adamantly. My feeling was that an agent of Leamas's vast experience and worldliness would surely be aware that such a means of escape was riven with jeopardy. See our, Read a limited number of articles each month, You consent to the use of cookies and tracking by us and third parties to provide you with personalized ads, Unlimited access to washingtonpost.com on any device, Unlimited access to all Washington Post apps, No on-site advertising or third-party ad tracking. The Brits expect Mundt's second in command, an East German Jew named Fiedler (Oskar Werner) who hates his ex-Nazi boss, to be the unsuspecting accomplice in this plan.

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