I'm surprised that I don't at least recognize the title of this book, or the poster of the movie which released six years later. I feel like I must have known about it, probably even saw a trailer for it at one point, but nonetheless don't recognize anything about it.
Of course, I did finally recognize something about it. I was about halfway through this tale of a father dividing up his farm between three daughters, though his favourite daughter wanted nothing to do with it, when I finally recognized the plot of King Lear. Reading up on Smiley's intent afterwards, she said she felt a little mad trying to riff on Shakespeare with her eye on trying go get behind the daughters' actions, but that it was the one element of the play that always felt lacking to her. It's a terrific adaptation.
It reads quickly, which is not a knock on its lack of complexity because it certainly has that; all I mean is that it flowed easily and chapters were moving along at a surprisingly quick pace. The complexity is in how, much like my experience with A Summons to Memphis, the book challenged me to carefully consider every tidbit of evidence it provided leading up to the nuclear bomb of a surprise it delivers to shake up everything we may have thought about the characters and their relationships to one another. From that point onwards, the hope is for the people who need it to find their peace as best they can.
Smiley's seamless transition from the exploration of farming, where it seemed like the main thrust of the book was to reveal and celebrate the workings of the business, to turning everything on a dime is an impressive and memorable trick. Even though it took a while, I'm sure this was on track towards film production from very early on.
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