By the time we hit Oxford Circus I thought someone would say something, move in the way of the guy.
"And she wrote back and said, 'Great, let's go!' She said an aunt of hers had run away with someone in the circus, so it was genetic that she do something like this".
In the novel, it becomes clear that someone within the Circus is actually working for the Soviets, so Smiley – with his exhausted melancholy, his catastrophic love life, and his lovably pedantic skills of inquiry – is brought out of retirement to hunt him down.
I liked this book more than the twinkling stars and I would recommend it to someone who really likes circuses, because it's all about circuses.
They are like circus barkers, assembling a crowd that someone else will pitch merchandise to via advertising.
"Mime these days," argues Daily Telegraph critic Ismene Brown, "means whatever someone says it means - circus acrobats, puppeteers, silent clowns, thunderous physical theatre, even (oh, woe) talking actors".
They could renege on any deal they make with you and simply sell the debt to someone else, starting the whole circus over again.
Someone who had worked in a circus, perhaps.
It is as if someone had employed a team of circus clowns to build the set of some wildly ambitious opera.
Most readers, I suspect, would join me in elbowing Dilbert, Cathy and even the most adorable members of Family Circus out of the way in search of someone, anyone, with something fresh and funny to say.
