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This piece below is a review of the John le Carré book Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and I admit it is only tangentially related to ‘horror’, however that tangent is quite strong as it centers on both folklore and ‘the Unmarked Space’, both central to modern ideas about horror. Luhmann’s “meaning thesis” he tells us “excludes … absolute void, nothingness, chaos in the original sense of the word, and also … [Spencer-Brown’s concept of] the ‘unmarked state’ of the world.” (Theory of Society, Vol 1, p. 21) However, “a distinction does not negate what it does not indicate. It proposes it as ‘unmarked space.’” (TOS v.1 p. 133) “All observation … separates off an ‘unmarked space’ into which the ultimate horizon of the world withdraws.” (TOS v.1 p. 139) Communication itself generates the ‘unmarked space’, the other side of the distinction. Counterintelligence, the other side of intelligence (spy) work, is an effort to create an ‘overmarked space’ through generation of noise and misinformation to make any serious research of a subject difficult. If you increase the number of observations you are increasing the ‘unmarked space’ by necessity. You can see this has happened with UFOs. This could be due to government desire to keep secret projects secret, or if you are a UFO believer, it’s because the government wants to keep its crashed UFO retrieval program and reverse engineered alien technology a secret. I won’t pick sides in that debate (though I do favor one explanation over the other) but mostly point out that you might now see how the overmarked space resembles the Unmarked Space and this connects to horror, or the unknown. Folklore too touches on the unknown and the ‘dark wood’ or the Unmarked Space. Below is my review also on Amazon and Goodreads, of the ‘folklore-heavy’ John le Carré book Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy:
Gary Oldman’s impeccable taste in early 70s eyewear notwithstanding, this book is much better than the 2011 film version. It’s interesting that Oldman’s choice in specs echoes the real life Kim Philby, the true-to-life mole at the heart of British intelligence. (Google for a picture if you like.) Le Carré’s fictional description here plays with the idea of “the real world” vs “the Circus”. (p. 110) Within the Circus too there is the distinction between “the official memory” (p. 147) - what’s written down in the bureaucratic reports - as opposed to the individual memories and stories as related by the agents. Despite this “official” bureaucracy, much that happens in “the Circus” remains part of an oral tradition, or as they say, ‘folklore’. The book too plays with literate notions about ‘fairy tales’ as a label to denote a false or childish story told to a credulous audience. If you’ve studied folklore you know that Märchen are defined as incredulous stories, but “legends” are told to an audience as if true. The intelligence trade idea of “legends” is connected in the text to the tall tales agents tell about themselves and each other. (p. 217) Most of the action is related through dialogue between the characters, telling stories, some true and some not. The suggestion of folklore in the children’s rhyme of the title is carried to the extremes of ‘magic’ and superstition. “Witchcraft” and “Merlin” are watched over by “owls” and “juju men”. The idea of a “mole” in combination with the “owls” also suggests animal fables. Like animals, spies inhabit a “secret world” that to ordinary people borders on the supernatural. This is the ‘dark wood’ of counterintelligence and disinformation. To dig deeper, we might wonder how this entire story is itself a type of ‘fairy tale’ about the Cold War and British Intelligence. The Americans are both loathed and desired, but nothing more than a shadow in the background of this book. Unlike in the film, the book does not accuse Americans of having people tortured. This and the change to Guillam’s character and subplot in the film seem to me now as hyperbolic caricatures that insult the novel’s carefully constructed historical verisimilitude. Rumors about Bill Hayden going “both ways” are not “laughable”, yet hardly a desperate, career-destroying secret. (p. 198) Still, in real life the mole Kim Philby was only fully unearthed with the help of a Soviet defector. The fairy tale version told here is that the day is carried nearly in its entirety by the astonishing mind and tradecraft of George Smiley, “a fat, barefooted spy”, (p. 378) which suggests the phrase (in a folkloric sense) ‘barefoot and pregnant’. “Control’s grey-haired ladies”, his receptionists and secretaries, are called “the mothers”. (p. 138) We have the notion of toilet training expressed in folklore about ‘treasure hunts’, and the training center for spies is called ‘the Nursery’. Sometimes spies need ‘babysitters’ to keep them safe. The illusions of childhood are cast in sharp relief against an adult ‘game’ fueled chiefly by intelligence, information or “treasure” but occasionally violence, rumor and gossip. As noted, ‘gold’ or ‘treasure’ in folklore has been described as a Freudian cover for excrement. Spies are constantly trying to pass excrement (“chickenfeed”) to the other side disguised as ‘gold’. (p. 352) The ‘babysitters’ keep an eye on the spies while they play at digging for ‘gold’. Roll up into a little ball the idea that the “tinker tailor” children’s rhyme is descended from premodern forms of divination, forecasting or what we in the modern world like to call ‘risk management’ or even ‘control’—now you’ve got the bare outline of an academic article in your hands, also a kind of ‘gold’ in the world “of the juju men, … anyone with intellectual pretensions”. (p. 14) In an oral society, memory (and memorable phrases, what literary society might call ‘clichés’) are important.
If ‘the juju men’ are about pretension, the “owls” are about memory. The book tells us that Smiley, “[a]fter a lifetime of living by his wits and his considerable memory, … had given himself full-time to the profession of forgetting.” (p. 83) Memory and childhood too are inextricably bound. “In [Smiley’s] memory, these things were like part of childhood; he would never forget them.” (p. 115) Having myself lived through the closing chapters of the Cold War as a child, this resonates on multiple levels. Smiley wears his doubts on his sleeve—“Nothing is worth the destruction of another human being. Somewhere the path of pain and betrayal must end.” (p. 377) But Smiley’s doubts are a good thing in this uncertain, modern world. His mentor, Control, tells him, “I like you to have doubts … But don’t make a cult of them or you’ll be a bore.” (p. 233) In contrast, Smiley’s adversary “Karla is … a fanatic … And … that lack of moderation will be his downfall.” (p. 235) Lack of moderation, lack of love—“Illusion? Was that really Karla’s name for love?” (p. 401) Fairy tales and folklore too are often thought of as romance or love stories deemed a type of illusion by society’s ‘official memory’, but a bureaucracy that starves its people of love becomes a cult, and leaves room only for fanatics.
“Ha—” He knows and this particular responsability increases the weight on his shoulders. “I… I just suppose it makes things even more complicated.” He praises your innocence, even the fake one.
In that very moment, he was convinced of two things. First of all, Itachi was the result of improbable wanderings of natural laws. He was an Uchiha, gifted at that, kind hearted, smart, wise, understanding, gracious… ho, hell, yes…, so gracious and perfectly conceived, those things were beautifuly contradictory. And second, the soft, warm light of the rising sun had been invented through eons in the unique purpose of gracing Itachi’s slender shape and silky hair, covering them with ethereal gold. A marvelling smile remained tangled on his lips, contemplative gaze lingering on his friend’s features in silence, careful fingers still slowly brushing his hair.
Two worlds but only one common point, the warm, deadly, delicate shape of those thin shoulder and arm, barely lit by a shy sun beam, covering their pale skin with gold. Dark attentive eyes slipped on Itachi’s thoughtful expression, tired shadows gracing his face. “You didn’t sleep ?” Voice deep, slightly sleepy, still tangled in a web of dreams, woven with long silky hair, now flowing softly between the careful fingers of the older Uchiha.
“Ah. I’m not that little kid anymore, but you look strange. Brother has something happened?”
He couldn’t help but worry over him, and it showed. Those normally cold eyes were coated with worry and a tint of sadness.