The intelligence sharing theory is fascinating. The people who have a finger in every pie in any organization seem to see themselves as a higher ring above all rings and all sides.
But of course, if we begin to see that nothing is as it seems to be, ‘that way madness lies.’
There are hints of this in Tinker, Tailor with the idea that Esterhazy is pretending to be giving away ‘chicken feed.’
The intelligence sharing theory is fascinating. The people who have a finger in every pie in any organization seem to see themselves as a higher ring above all rings and all sides.
But of course, if we begin to see that nothing is as it seems to be, ‘that way madness lies.’
There are hints of this in Tinker, Tailor with the idea that Esterhazy is pretending to be giving away ‘chicken feed.’
Thanks Francesca! You've inspired me to change my photos for the piece to reflect that. By the way, there's a whole exegesis for me with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy trying to figure out if Le Carre knew about this system (or was just close enough to the center to hypothesize about it) and that maintained a degree of "plausible deniability" towards his own work. The real point of Tinker Tailor, in a way, is that George doesn't actually exist; that the intelligence-sharing apparatus is the "circus within the circus" that generates all the actual intelligence and drives the Circus' operations. The dialogue between Elliott and Le Carre in 1986 is beyond fascinating. Elliott claims that he had no idea at all of what Philby was up to. And then, in his notes on the meeting, Le Carre writes the following: "I don't believe I ever seriously doubted that what I was hearing from Elliott was the cover story - the self-justification - of an old and outraged spy." A moment later, Le Carre seems to back away from that, but it can feel as if everybody knows how the intelligence-sharing system worked and can hint towards it very obliquely but without ever saying so in plain words.
The intelligence sharing theory is fascinating. The people who have a finger in every pie in any organization seem to see themselves as a higher ring above all rings and all sides.
But of course, if we begin to see that nothing is as it seems to be, ‘that way madness lies.’
There are hints of this in Tinker, Tailor with the idea that Esterhazy is pretending to be giving away ‘chicken feed.’
Thanks Francesca! You've inspired me to change my photos for the piece to reflect that. By the way, there's a whole exegesis for me with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy trying to figure out if Le Carre knew about this system (or was just close enough to the center to hypothesize about it) and that maintained a degree of "plausible deniability" towards his own work. The real point of Tinker Tailor, in a way, is that George doesn't actually exist; that the intelligence-sharing apparatus is the "circus within the circus" that generates all the actual intelligence and drives the Circus' operations. The dialogue between Elliott and Le Carre in 1986 is beyond fascinating. Elliott claims that he had no idea at all of what Philby was up to. And then, in his notes on the meeting, Le Carre writes the following: "I don't believe I ever seriously doubted that what I was hearing from Elliott was the cover story - the self-justification - of an old and outraged spy." A moment later, Le Carre seems to back away from that, but it can feel as if everybody knows how the intelligence-sharing system worked and can hint towards it very obliquely but without ever saying so in plain words.