There is an entire section of my bookshelf filled with orphaned books, volumes that somebody just dropped in my lap when they were moving or clearing out. Loath to let anything remain unread, I accept them and pick at them when I have time. Usually they are of the breezy beach read variety, and I was fully expecting this to match that description, well written and entertaining, but not particularly significant. For 90% of the book, I was confirmed in my assessment.
As I drew near the end, however, I began to get nervous. How on earth would the author extract his hero and the obligatory love interest from the mess into which he had written them? There were only 30 pages left in which to do it. Then 20. Then the book was finished, the characters were explicitly not saved, and I found myself staring into the void, when I had not intended to. If I had wanted to be reminded that we are fundamentally alone in a brutal world, there are plenty of other books on my shelf to serve that purpose. Schopenhauer is always happy to oblige on that point.
And yet there I was, ambushed by what I thought would just be a light diversion. It is never far from my mind that "Si che non basta l'esser uomo dabbene e virtuoso," as per Cellini. "It is not enough in this world to be a man of talent and virtue." Before facing this truth, I usually raise my shields, but I ran into it completely defenseless here. As LeCarre's characters found out, being good at your job and doing the right thing, more often than not, bring ruin and little else.
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