Single & Single - Themes

Themes

Oliver Single is a complex character, disaffected and clumsy, a giant of a man, who has tried for years to lose his identity. He gave up a glittering lifestyle and career for his principles. However, he cannot abandon his father and risks everything to save him, even though, in a moment of pure clarity, he sees his father for the empty and amoral scoundrel he really is.

The story reads like many of le Carré's earlier spy novels, and much spycraft is applied in the hunt for Tiger Single. Now that the wall is down, the enemy is not so clearly defined. In his search for his father, he realises that his betrayal was not the only one.

The book takes the reader to Georgia, Istanbul and a greedy, sparkling West End of London.

Novels by John le Carré
  • Call for the Dead (1961)
  • A Murder of Quality (1962)
  • The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)
  • The Looking Glass War (1965)
  • A Small Town in Germany (1968)
  • The Naïve and Sentimental Lover (1971)
  • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974)
  • The Honourable Schoolboy (1977)
  • Smiley's People (1979)
  • The Little Drummer Girl (1983)
  • A Perfect Spy (1986)
  • The Russia House (1989)
  • The Secret Pilgrim (1990)
  • The Night Manager (1993)
  • Our Game (1995)
  • The Tailor of Panama (1996)
  • Single & Single (1999)
  • The Constant Gardener (2001)
  • Absolute Friends (2003)
  • The Mission Song (2006)
  • A Most Wanted Man (2008)
  • Our Kind of Traitor (2010)
  • A Delicate Truth (2013)

Read more about this topic:  Single & Single

Famous quotes containing the word themes:

    “In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
    —Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)

    “I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)