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The Secret Pilgrim Audiobook
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(3.01) - 1,367 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
“The many ingredients are skillfully marshaled: story elides into story; flashback and flash-forward, reminiscence, analysis and prognosis are lucidly and elegantly controlled. Indeed, The Secret Pilgrim is, technically, Mr. le Carré's most magisterial accomplishment.” —The New York Times Book Review (1991)
With his time in British intelligence drawing to a close, veteran spy “Ned” asks his colleague George Smiley to address his graduating class of trainee spies in Sarratt. Smiley’s remarks on espionage in the wake of the Cold War serve as trigger and backdrop for a series of recollections and memories of Ned’s many decades as a British spy.
Both a reminiscence of times past and a meditation on the future, The Secret Pilgrim—published more than ten years after Smiley's People and little more than a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall—is a mosaic that masterfully captures the complex and contradictory moral landscapes of Cold War intelligence.
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"With the Cold War over and George Smiley providing little more than a cameo appearance, this episodic retrospective falls slightly short of being classic Le Carre but the novel's examination of the psychological effects of intrigue and deceit upon it's perpetrators is compelling nonetheless."
— Lazarus (4 out of 5 stars)
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Intriguing… magisterial… The many ingredients are skillfully marshaled… Lucidly and elegantly controlled.
The Secret Pilgrim Listener Reviews
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" Excellent. Really shows le Carre's range, particularly at the end, when he veers away from European intrigue to write about bored clerks, Cambodian jungle nightmares, and ferreting out a Dwight Schrute-like traitor from the Foreign Office. "
— Max, 2/15/2014 -
" I think this George Smiley novel is a bit disappointing since he's simply invited by Ned to share his knowledge/ideas, that is, he showed up once in a while in a class of young people hoping to be a great secret agent like him. Of course there're some exciting episodes worth reading but, I think, reading his Karla Trilogy is all right and you can say, "That's it!" In other words, you won't feel guilty or inadequate if you skip this one. "
— umberto, 2/14/2014 -
" Remembrances of past spy experiences "
— Eddie, 2/6/2014 -
" I'm a big fan of LeCarre'. And this is very good. Not maybe his best. A series of really short-stories, tales, from the vantage point of 'Ned'. Pulls together some of the threads from his earlier novels, wrapped around the character George Smiley. Worth it. "
— Zane, 2/4/2014 -
" The first LeCarre book I ever read; it is a compilation of short stories that is fast paced and intriguing. "
— Bryan, 2/2/2014 -
" I guess with John Le Carre there is no such thing as a happy ending. It's always bittersweet at best. I think that with age I will appreciate it more, but now I wish for something more definitive. "
— Kienie, 1/17/2014 -
" Quite a gentle one here. Its something like a book of short stories crafted into a novel - tales looking back over a lifetime of spying. Not much glamour, quite a lot of regret. Beautifully written and put together as usual. Borrowed from the Histon Library. "
— Lera, 1/16/2014 -
" Entertaining book of short stories threaded together into a loose Smiley narrative. Fun, generally-predictable Russia House and Circus intrigue. Maybe I've been reading too much Le Carre of late... but it felt a little more forced, like an Alfred Hitchcock Presents compendium. "
— Andy, 1/4/2014 -
" A masterpiece by Le Carre exploring the morality/amorality of the politics of the West & of the Intelligence community. Great compassion - I think it's one of his best. "
— Julie, 12/10/2013 -
" I`m a fussy and unfortunately lazy reader so I don`t want to make unfair comments about this particular book. It just didn`t click in and I`ve already read better Le Carre`s books. "
— Pawel, 12/7/2013 -
" This is like a bunch of small Le Carre novels rolled into one. All thought provoking and interesting. "
— Glenna, 11/27/2013 -
" A very reflective book but one which raises a lot of questions, examining the underside of intelligence work. Well worth the read. "
— Paul, 9/5/2013 -
" Long and quite melancholy farewell to the Cold War. Le Carre is always the best. "
— Terry, 6/15/2013 -
" A reflection on the end of the Cold War. A bit of George Smiley and a lot of one of his spies. "
— Geoff, 5/5/2013 -
" One of my very favourite books. I'll have to explain more later, but I've learned more about the nuance of the human condition from this than from nearly anywhere else. Human insight is the legacy of the spy novel. "
— Mark, 12/24/2012 -
" I have read most of his books. I love his mystery and the way that he builds it. "
— Mike, 12/17/2012
About John le Carré
John le Carré, the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell (1931–2020), was an English author of espionage novels. Eight of his novels made the #1 spot on the New York Times bestsellers list between 1983 and 2017. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, his third book, secured him a worldwide reputation as one of the greatest spy novelists in history. Numerous major motion pictures have been made from his novels, as well as several television series. After attending the universities at Berne and Oxford, he taught at Eton and spent five years in the British Foreign Service, serving briefly in British Intelligence during the Cold War. Being a member of MI6 when he wrote his first novel, Call for the Dead in 1961 in Hamburg, it necessitated the use of a nom de plume, by which he continued to be known. His writing earned him several honorary doctorate degrees and the Somerset Maugham Award, the Goethe Medal, and the Olof Palme Prize.
About Simon Vance
Simon Vance (a.k.a. Robert Whitfield) is an award-winning actor and narrator. He has earned more than fifty Earphones Awards and won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration thirteen times. He was named Booklist’s very first Voice of Choice in 2008 and has been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009. He has narrated more than eight hundred audiobooks over almost thirty years, beginning when he was a radio newsreader for the BBC in London. He is also an actor who has appeared on both stage and television.