A Small Town in Germany [Paperback]

When Leo Harting, a German employee of the British Embassy in Bonn (the titular small town in Germany), goes missing with confidential files, London sends Alan Turner to investigate. With anti-British sentiment at a fever pitch in Cold War West Germany, Harting's disappearance takes on significant importance. Is Harting a communist? A neo-Nazi? As Turner pursues his investigation, it soon becomes clear that Harting was a fixture about the embassy, known to all and yet completely unknown. Moreover, Turner comes to the realization that Rawley Bradfield, head of the embassy, is not interested in helping Turner, despite his assurances to the contrary.

"A Small Town in Germany" is my first John Le Carre novel. It won't be my last. Le Carre's reputation as a master of the spy-thriller is well-founded. Publically, writing as the "anti-Ian Fleming," Le Carre concentrates on plausibility (in fairness, Fleming's early books were more plausible than the films). The plot of this book is single-minded: Turner's tenacious search for Harting and his conflict with Bradfield even as events are straining German domestic stability and international relations. Indeed, instead of a lengthy chase novel with Turner trading shots with Harting through the streets of Bonn, Le Carre writes of Turner's more realistic battle with a distracted bureaucracy as he pieces together just who Harting is, and why Bradfield felt compelled to keep him around for so long. Le Carre is quite careful to obscure the truths of his plot. The answer as to why Harting has vanished and how this relates to the unrest in West Germany is surprising, and speaks to Le Carre's gift for misdirection.

While this novel is plot driven, Le Carre allows his characters to grow. Turner, Harting and Bradfield come to us as complete unknowns. We have some vague notions of Turner's past, but Le Carre doesn't simply give us traumatic events in his life to define him. Rather, he uses Turner's speech and actions to show us that Turner is decent, but driven, and with a limited capacity to relate to people. We sympathize with Turner's need to find Leo, not only because it is his job, but because he's naturally inquisitive. He MUST know what makes Leo tick. We also sympathize with Turner as he runs into multiple brick-walls set up by Bradfield and his personnel. We also realize that in any other circumstance, Turner's qualities might make him less likable. The final plot resolution in fact rests on revelations of the protagonists true nature: Harting isn't truly sinister, and Turner isn't so dogged and without true emotion.

Le Carre wears his politics on his sleeve. He's obviously cynical about the foreign relations and intelligence communities, and, in this book, expresses a dim view (mostly, but not completely, dated) of the German people. He admits in his 1991 introduction that he may have fallen into the trap of Germans = Nazis. In a way, this is ironic, as up until the last 40 or so pages of the book, the German setting seems incidental. Only at the end of the book do the anti-British nationalists take a central role. While Le Carre admits to being anti-German in his intro, his central anti-diplomacy theme is his focus, as evidenced by Bradfield's own cynicism, the embassy's incompetence, and the general unwillingness to admit to failure on anyone's part.

While perhaps dated in its details-the Cold War is over, its not hard to see "A Small Town in Germany" as relevant in today's War on Terror, where so much rides on the actions of a few on both sides, and where old wounds from time immemorial motivate ongoing hatreds and violence. In this way, Le Carre has produced something akin to a classic. If nothing else, he's written a nifty and engaging character study.

This might be Le Carre's most ambitious and best written book. It contains a host of well drawn characters and the clever plotting typical of all Le Carre's best work. As with his other good books, Le Carre uses the spy novel format to investigate matters well beyond the usual formulas of thrillers. This book is set in Bonn, in the late 50s or early 60s. Almost all the action takes place within the British embassy. The latter is depicted as a microcosm of British society, with its class, ethnic, and religous divisions, its repressions and emphasis on maintaining British prestige. This book is an allegory and devastating critique of British national policy in that period. Le Carre shows the insularity of British society, its inability to deal with reduction to a second-rate military and economic power, and its preference for preferring shabby deals maintaining British prestige to concrete achievements.

A fascinating plot, with characteristically rich character development. Even the minor players are drawn carefully, in, well, loving detail (the British ambassador's wife with the lovely arms (a la T.S. Eliot), the diplomat-asthete with the harpsichord he never quite gets around to playing, the Dutch diplomat who cruelly points out the historical inaccuracies in a guest's dinner polemic, etc. The end has a rather grand twist that causes the whole thing to linger in the mind for weeks after, like the "Spy Who Came in from the Cold". One of my favorite 20th century novels period.