Here’s my book review of A Small Town in Germany by John le Carré. Written decades ago by the recently deceased author, its plot has chilling parallels to today’s news.
A Small Town in Germany is one of le Carré’s first novels, written not long after he left the employ of the British Foreign Service in 1964. One of his first postings was in Bonn, the postwar capital city of West Germany, and the small town of the title. In the past, I’ve been effusive in my praise for le Carré’s writing style. My one criticism of this book is its occasionally strained efforts at poetic imagery. At times in his later career, the novelist’s prose has been to spare. But in this early work, he’s reaching for colorful analogies. The results too often come across as overwritten:
No dawn is ever wholly ominous. The earth is too much its own master; the cries, the colors, and the sense too confident to sustain our grim foreboding.
The fictional premise is that Dr. Klaus Karfeld, a crowd-pleasing politician, is rising to power on a wave of renewed German nationalism. A younger generation resents economic malaise and their parents’ having lost the war. Karfeld promises to break off ties with the Common Market, predecessor of the European Union, and pursue a new alliance with Russia.
The principal characters in the story are diplomats stationed at the British embassy, who are bewildered and threatened by the impending power shifts, including possible retaliation against the English occupiers. Most worrisome to these Brits, one of their employees, Leo Harting, a Polish-born German, has gone missing. Apparently, he took some secret files. They worry that the information in these files might not only embarrass the Queen’s government, but also help Karfeld in his rise to power and repudiation of NATO.
Welshman Alan Turner, an undercover operative, is summoned on an official mission to find the missing man and the stolen files. Turner has all the skills, along with the surly and irreverent personality of the classic noir detective. (As far as I know, he doesn’t reappear in any of the other le Carré novels.)
Turner runs afoul of almost everyone at the embassy, especially when he learns that, far from being a spy, Harting was hunting war criminals. He had uncovered Karfeld’s secret past as a Nazi scientist. Turner’s job changes from searching for a presumed defector to trying to prevent Karfeld’s goons from finding and then killing Harting.
The cynical Turner begins to realize that the Brits want the missing files, but not the man who took them. And most disturbing of all, they don’t want Karfeld’s crimes dredged up, even if it means Harting’s death. The Karfeld movement has gained too much popularity. The pragmatic diplomats are apparently ready to embrace the election’s expected winner even though they know he once supervised a laboratory that tested the homicidal effects of poison gas.
It was a coincidence that I picked this book up again recently. Perhaps you’ve guessed by now why I think this story resonates with today’s headlines.
In Clifford’s Spiral a stroke survivor tries to piece together the fragments of his memories. Was he the victim or the perpetrator? 2020 IPA Distinguished Favorite in Literary Fiction.