RIP JOHN LECARRE
George Smiley, Call for the Dead & Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, John le Carre
Short, fat, and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad. Sawley, in fact, declared at the wedding that ‘Sercomb was mated to a bullfrog in a sou'wester’. And Smiley, unaware of this description, had waddled down the aisle in search of the kiss that would turn him into a Prince. (Call for the Dead)
From the outset of this meeting, Smiley had assumed for the main a Buddha-like inscrutability from which neither Tarr’s story nor the rare interjections of Lacon and Guillam could rouse him. He sat leaning back with his short legs bent, head forward, and plump hands linked across his generous stomach. His hooded eyes had closed behind the thick lenses…Here Guillam sensed a wave of unusual anger, imparted by a ghostly smile that crossed Smiley’s pale lips. (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)
Alec Leamas, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, John le Carré
Leamas was a short man with close-cropped, iron gray hair, and the physique of a swimmer. He was very strong. This strength was discernible in his back and shoulders, in his neck, and in the stubby formation of his hands and fingers…He had an attractive face, muscular, and a stubborn line to his thin mouth. His eyes were brown and small; Irish, some said. It was hard to place Leamas. If he were to walk into a London club the porter would certainly not mistake him for a member; in a Berlin night club they usually gave him the best table. He looked like a man who could make trouble, a man who looked after his money; a man who was not quite a gentleman… His brown eyes rested on her for a moment: “I’ll tell you when,” he replied.
