The little drummer girl

What Hacker News says

1. hutzlibuMar 2023
   "If you refuse to utter them, the group will not accept you as a member, you will fail to infiltrate them, their planned terrorist attack will not be discovered in time, and innocent people will be murdered in an attack on the minorities the slurs target."

   Valid point overall. But the problem with undercover agents infiltrating terrorists are not really racial slurs. To be accepted among real terrorists, one has to do real terrorism.

   (book recommendation: The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré)

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2. mypastselfJan 2023
   I can only speak for myself, but I’ve always felt he’s far more intellectually challenging than other espionage authors. I remember reading one of his books (can’t remember exactly which, possibly The Little Drummer Girl or The Honorable Schoolboy) and realizing that every single line of dialogue in the book has multiple layers of subterfuge, double meaning, pretense, irony… Even the simplest exchange requires focus on part of the reader, which is not common for the genre.
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3. ahartmetzDec 2022
   Yes, it's the best spy series together with the two BBC le Carré series.

   Le bureau des légendes is also similar to these three and just slightly worse IMO, and that mostly because of the weaker final season and an accumulation of implausibilities roughly starting in the middle (more series have that than not, sigh). But, for the most part, flawless acting.

   The Night Manager is cool, too, with a very satisfying ending.

   The Little Drummer Girl is also good, though there is some... uncommon? psychological stuff going on in the book that creaks even more in the series.

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4. ahartmetzMar 2021
   I may not have read that one.

   I completely forgot about the main character of The Little Drummer Girl, Charlie. What a book! I cannot judge the realism of the main character because I myself don't understand women well enough to do that, haha. Presumably that's a book where the contribution of Le Carré's wife was crucial.

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5. crossroadsguyDec 2020
   I first read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. I was hooked. Espionage after reading him would never be the same again. I can attribute my Cold War 'philia' just to him, I reckon. I am yet to read his autobiography.

   Other than some well-made new TV works based on his work like The Night Manager and The Little Drummer Girl, you might want to check out the excellent works on TV in the 80s and 90s; usually done by the BBC.

   He was the master of unhurried, ruminating, and unostentatious spy craft writing. Tasteful.

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6. akamakaDec 2020
   As a teenager, I picked out a copy of The Little Drummer Girl from a used book store quite by chance. I expected a simple spy action story, but what I read was a deep and anguishing examination of the personal impact of geopolitics on a someone’s identity.

   If you’re new to Le Carré and want to tip your toe in, I’d recommend watching The Night Manager mini-series.

   For someone who already enjoys Le Carré, it would be a shame to overlook A Perfect Spy, which is his most autobiographical and soul-wrenching work. Both the book and 1987 mini-series are excellent.

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