Call for the Dead
Encyclopedia
Call for the Dead is John le Carré
's first novel, published in 1961. It introduces George Smiley
, the most famous of le Carré's recurring characters, in a story about East German spies inside Great Britain. It also introduces a recurring fictional version of British Intelligence, called "the Circus" because of its location in Cambridge Circus
, that is apparently based on MI6.
civil servant Samuel Fennan apparently commits suicide after a routine security check by Circus agent George Smiley. Smiley had interviewed and cleared Fennan only days previously after an anonymous accusation; however, Circus head of service Maston sets up Smiley to be blamed for Fennan's death. While interviewing Fennan's wife Elsa (a Jewish concentration-camp survivor) in her home, Smiley answers the telephone, expecting a call from the Circus for him. Instead, it is a wake-up call from the local exchange, but Elsa Fennan seems surprised by it.
Smiley then meets Inspector Mendel, a police officer on the verge of retirement who is investigating the Fennan case, and finds out through him that the wake-up call had been specially requested by Samuel Fennan the night before. When Elsa later tells Smiley that she requested the call from the exchange (which Smiley knows to be false), he tells Mendel and Maston. However, Maston unequivocally orders Smiley to refrain from any further investigation into Fennan's death. Back in his office, Smiley receives a letter posted by Fennan the night before, requesting an urgent meeting that day. Believing that Fennan was murdered to prevent the meeting, Smiley promptly resigns from the Circus and attaches his resignation to Fennan's letter, which he forwards to Maston.
On returning home, Smiley notices a tall blond stranger inside his house, avoids going inside and notes the number plates
of all the cars parked nearby. Mendel traces one car to a criminal named Adam Scarr, who tells Mendel that he rents it out twice a month to a stranger known as "Blondie", who matches Smiley's intruder. Smiley is subsequently attacked and nearly killed while trying to track the car to "Blondie", and Adam Scarr is killed. Investigating further, Mendel learns that Elsa attends a local theatre twice a month with "Blondie" and that the two exchange music cases at each performance. "Blondie" is soon identified by fellow Circus agent Peter Guillam
as Hans-Dieter Mundt, an East German agent under diplomatic cover working for Dieter Frey, a German spy of Smiley's during World War II
who has since become an important East German agent. Smiley believes that Frey would use a courier like Mundt to service only one highly-placed resident agent. Guillam reports that Mundt has fled England.
When confronted with Smiley's evidence, Elsa Fennan confesses to Smiley that her husband was an East German spy, that she was his unwilling accomplice in passing secret documents in the music cases, and that Fennan was killed by Mundt after Frey saw him talking to Smiley. However, Guillam learns that during the last six months Fennan had been taking home insignificant, unclassified documents. Smiley realizes that Elsa Fennan herself is the East German spy and that Fennan had accused himself to meet someone with whom he could discuss his suspicions about his wife. Smiley sets a trap, using his knowledge of Frey's tradecraft
from WWII to arrange a rush covert meeting between Frey and Elsa Fennan. When Frey realises he has been tricked, he kills Elsa, but he is trailed by Mendel and killed by Smiley while trying to escape.
At the end of the story, Smiley turns down Maston's offer to rejoin the Circus and instead flies to Zurich
to see his estranged wife Ann.
One of these was Dieter Frey, a young German Communist who at the time had a common cause with Smiley in fighting the Nazis and also became his personal friend. Because of the Cold War, Frey had become Smiley's foe, while in a way still remaining his friend. When meeting Smiley again, in the fog near the Thames, Frey greets Smiley with "Servus, George!" before commencing the battle. After killing him, Smiley feels extremely guilty:
Dieter Frey is the first of several considerably sympathetic Jewish/Communist characters appearing in the le Carré books, followed by Liz Gold and Fiedler in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
.
as The Deadly Affair
. It was directed by Sidney Lumet
from a script by Paul Dehn
, and starred James Mason
as Smiley (renamed Charles Dobbs, as le Carré had sold the use of the name George Smiley with the rights to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
), Harry Andrews
as Mendel, Simone Signoret
as Elsa Fennan and Maximilian Schell
as Dieter Frey. The major change in the script from the book is the addition of an affair between Ann Smiley and Dieter Frey, which presages the events of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
.
Call for the Dead was first adapted as a BBC Radio 4 drama in 1978. Subsequently, it was the first story to be broadcast in BBC Radio 4's major series to feature all the Smiley novels ("The Complete Smiley"), with Simon Russell Beale
in the main role. Other characters and actors are as follows: Inspector Mendel—Kenneth Cranham
; Elsa Fennan—Eleanor Bron
; Ann Smiley—Anna Chancellor; Peter Guillam—Richard Dillane; Maston—James Laurenson
; Dieter Frey—Henry Goodman; Adam Scarr/Mundt—Sam Dale; Ludo Oriel—Janice Acquah; Nursing Sister—Caroline Guthrie; With Benjamin Askew and Jonathan Tafler. The novel was adapted as a 90 minute drama by Robert Forrest, produced by Patrick Raynor, and was transmitted on 23 May 2009.
John le Carré
David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
's first novel, published in 1961. It introduces George Smiley
George Smiley
George Smiley is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is an intelligence officer working for MI6 , the British overseas intelligence agency...
, the most famous of le Carré's recurring characters, in a story about East German spies inside Great Britain. It also introduces a recurring fictional version of British Intelligence, called "the Circus" because of its location in Cambridge Circus
Cambridge Circus
Cambridge Circus may be a reference to:* Cambridge Circus , a group of economists who worked with John Maynard Keynes* Cambridge Circus, London, the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road in London...
, that is apparently based on MI6.
Plot summary
Foreign OfficeForeign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
civil servant Samuel Fennan apparently commits suicide after a routine security check by Circus agent George Smiley. Smiley had interviewed and cleared Fennan only days previously after an anonymous accusation; however, Circus head of service Maston sets up Smiley to be blamed for Fennan's death. While interviewing Fennan's wife Elsa (a Jewish concentration-camp survivor) in her home, Smiley answers the telephone, expecting a call from the Circus for him. Instead, it is a wake-up call from the local exchange, but Elsa Fennan seems surprised by it.
Smiley then meets Inspector Mendel, a police officer on the verge of retirement who is investigating the Fennan case, and finds out through him that the wake-up call had been specially requested by Samuel Fennan the night before. When Elsa later tells Smiley that she requested the call from the exchange (which Smiley knows to be false), he tells Mendel and Maston. However, Maston unequivocally orders Smiley to refrain from any further investigation into Fennan's death. Back in his office, Smiley receives a letter posted by Fennan the night before, requesting an urgent meeting that day. Believing that Fennan was murdered to prevent the meeting, Smiley promptly resigns from the Circus and attaches his resignation to Fennan's letter, which he forwards to Maston.
On returning home, Smiley notices a tall blond stranger inside his house, avoids going inside and notes the number plates
British car number plates
Vehicle registration plates are the mandatory number plates used to display the registration mark of a vehicle, and have existed in the United Kingdom since 1904...
of all the cars parked nearby. Mendel traces one car to a criminal named Adam Scarr, who tells Mendel that he rents it out twice a month to a stranger known as "Blondie", who matches Smiley's intruder. Smiley is subsequently attacked and nearly killed while trying to track the car to "Blondie", and Adam Scarr is killed. Investigating further, Mendel learns that Elsa attends a local theatre twice a month with "Blondie" and that the two exchange music cases at each performance. "Blondie" is soon identified by fellow Circus agent Peter Guillam
Peter Guillam
Peter Guillam is a fictional character in John le Carré's series of espionage novels. He first appears in Call for the Dead at which time he is working for the Ministry of Defence....
as Hans-Dieter Mundt, an East German agent under diplomatic cover working for Dieter Frey, a German spy of Smiley's during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
who has since become an important East German agent. Smiley believes that Frey would use a courier like Mundt to service only one highly-placed resident agent. Guillam reports that Mundt has fled England.
When confronted with Smiley's evidence, Elsa Fennan confesses to Smiley that her husband was an East German spy, that she was his unwilling accomplice in passing secret documents in the music cases, and that Fennan was killed by Mundt after Frey saw him talking to Smiley. However, Guillam learns that during the last six months Fennan had been taking home insignificant, unclassified documents. Smiley realizes that Elsa Fennan herself is the East German spy and that Fennan had accused himself to meet someone with whom he could discuss his suspicions about his wife. Smiley sets a trap, using his knowledge of Frey's tradecraft
Tradecraft
Tradecraft is a general term that denotes a skill acquired through experience in a trade.The term is also used within the intelligence community as a collective word for the techniques used in modern espionage...
from WWII to arrange a rush covert meeting between Frey and Elsa Fennan. When Frey realises he has been tricked, he kills Elsa, but he is trailed by Mendel and killed by Smiley while trying to escape.
At the end of the story, Smiley turns down Maston's offer to rejoin the Circus and instead flies to Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
to see his estranged wife Ann.
The antecedents of Smiley and Frey
The book starts with a chapter describing Smiley's earlier career (including his unlikely marriage to and unsurprising separation from Lady Ann Sercombe, a beautiful and promiscuous aristocrat), his recruitment by a lecturer in Oxford and his work in locating promising young Germans with "agent potential" and recommending them for recruitment by the British service prior to WWII.One of these was Dieter Frey, a young German Communist who at the time had a common cause with Smiley in fighting the Nazis and also became his personal friend. Because of the Cold War, Frey had become Smiley's foe, while in a way still remaining his friend. When meeting Smiley again, in the fog near the Thames, Frey greets Smiley with "Servus, George!" before commencing the battle. After killing him, Smiley feels extremely guilty:
Dieter was dead, and he had killed him. The broken fingers of his right hand, the stiffness of his body and the sickening headache, the nausea of guilt, all testified to this. And Dieter had let him do it, had not fired the gun, had remembered their friendship when Smiley had not. They had fought in a cloud, in the rising steam of the river, in a clearing in timeless forest: they had met, two friends rejoined, and fought like beasts. Dieter had remembered and Smiley had not.
Dieter Frey is the first of several considerably sympathetic Jewish/Communist characters appearing in the le Carré books, followed by Liz Gold and Fiedler in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold , by John le Carré, is a British Cold War spy novel that became famous for its portrayal of Western espionage methods as being morally inconsistent with Western democracy and values. The novel received critical acclaim at the time of its publication and became an...
.
Characters in Call For The Dead
- George SmileyGeorge SmileyGeorge Smiley is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is an intelligence officer working for MI6 , the British overseas intelligence agency...
– an officer of the CircusCambridge Circus, LondonCambridge Circus is a traffic intersection at the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road in central London... - Samuel Fennan – a British civil servant, who committed an apparent suicide
- Elsa Fennan – his wife, formerly a refugee from Nazi GermanyNazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
- Inspector Mendel – Smiley's contact with the Metropolitan Police
- Peter GuillamPeter GuillamPeter Guillam is a fictional character in John le Carré's series of espionage novels. He first appears in Call for the Dead at which time he is working for the Ministry of Defence....
– an officer of the Circus subordinate to Smiley - Maston ("The Adviser") – head of service for the Circus
- Adam Scarr – a semi-criminal "businessman"
- Hans-Dieter Mundt, aka "Blondie" – an agent of East German intelligenceStasiThe Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
- Dieter Frey – an agent of East German intelligence, and a former wartime agent of Smiley's
Film, TV, Radio and theatrical adaptations
Call For The Dead was filmed in 19661966 in film
The year 1966 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Animation legend Walter Disney, well known for his creation of Mickey Mouse, died in 15 December 1966 of acute circulatory collapse following a diagnosis of, and surgery for, lung cancer...
as The Deadly Affair
The Deadly Affair
The Deadly Affair is a 1966 British espionage–thriller film, based on John le Carré's first novel Call for the Dead. The film stars James Mason, Harry Andrews, Simone Signoret and Maximilian Schell and was directed by Sidney Lumet from a script by Paul Dehn. In it George Smiley, the central...
. It was directed by Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his credit. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men , Dog Day Afternoon , Network and The Verdict...
from a script by Paul Dehn
Paul Dehn
Paul Dehn was a British screenwriter.-Biography and work:Dehn was born in 1912 in Manchester, England. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, and attended Brasenose College, Oxford...
, and starred James Mason
James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...
as Smiley (renamed Charles Dobbs, as le Carré had sold the use of the name George Smiley with the rights to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold , by John le Carré, is a British Cold War spy novel that became famous for its portrayal of Western espionage methods as being morally inconsistent with Western democracy and values. The novel received critical acclaim at the time of its publication and became an...
), Harry Andrews
Harry Andrews
Harry Fleetwood Andrews, CBE was an English film actor known for his frequent portrayals of tough military officers. His performance as Sergeant Major Wilson in The Hill alongside Sean Connery earned Andrews the 1965 National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor and a nomination for the...
as Mendel, Simone Signoret
Simone Signoret
Simone Signoret was a French cinema actress often hailed as one of France's greatest movie stars. She became the first French person to win an Academy Award, for her role in Room at the Top...
as Elsa Fennan and Maximilian Schell
Maximilian Schell
Maximilian Schell is an Austrian-born Swiss actor who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Judgment at Nuremberg in 1961...
as Dieter Frey. The major change in the script from the book is the addition of an affair between Ann Smiley and Dieter Frey, which presages the events of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a 1974 British spy novel by John le Carré, featuring George Smiley. Smiley is a middle-aged, taciturn, perspicacious intelligence expert in forced retirement. He is recalled to hunt down a Soviet mole in the "Circus", the highest echelon of the Secret Intelligence...
.
Call for the Dead was first adapted as a BBC Radio 4 drama in 1978. Subsequently, it was the first story to be broadcast in BBC Radio 4's major series to feature all the Smiley novels ("The Complete Smiley"), with Simon Russell Beale
Simon Russell Beale
Simon Russell Beale, CBE is an English actor. He has been described by The Independent as "the greatest stage actor of his generation."-Early years:...
in the main role. Other characters and actors are as follows: Inspector Mendel—Kenneth Cranham
Kenneth Cranham
Kenneth Cranham is a film, television and stage actor. He starred in the title role in the popular 1980s comedy drama Shine on Harvey Moon. He also appeared in Layer Cake, Gangster No. 1, Rome, Oliver! and many other films. He is probably best known to horror genre fans as the deranged Dr...
; Elsa Fennan—Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron is an English stage, film and television actress and author.-Early life and family:Bron was born in 1938 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a Jewish family of Eastern European origin...
; Ann Smiley—Anna Chancellor; Peter Guillam—Richard Dillane; Maston—James Laurenson
James Laurenson
James Laurenson is a New Zealand actor, who has performed many classical roles on stage and television.Laurenson was born in Marton, New Zealand...
; Dieter Frey—Henry Goodman; Adam Scarr/Mundt—Sam Dale; Ludo Oriel—Janice Acquah; Nursing Sister—Caroline Guthrie; With Benjamin Askew and Jonathan Tafler. The novel was adapted as a 90 minute drama by Robert Forrest, produced by Patrick Raynor, and was transmitted on 23 May 2009.
Sources
- Call For The Dead, PenguinPenguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
, 1965.