Reading The Secret Pilgrim
Mar. 16th, 2004 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeregenestJohn le Carré’s Cold War novels are studies of the monumental political, philosophical, and psychological struggle threatening the peace of the world for two generations. Certainly le Carré painted that struggle as far more complex than simply a global cops-and-robbers thriller, for the novels from Call for the Dead through the "Karla trilogy" emphasized the subtle resemblances between the antagonists, the sordid techniques that compromised both East and West, and the depths of human psychology.
This game shall attempt to do a bit of that taking as one of its cues The Secret Pilgrim, which is really a collection of short stories, a grab bag of "tales of the Circus" and as such has some useful similarities with the structure of a roleplaying campaign.
Scope and Scale
The structural road map of The Secret Pilgrim is drawn by geography. The locus of action is constantly changing, and the East and West German border (what comes to most folks minds when they think Cold War) is not even the center of most of the European stories in the collection. This is le Carré’s fictional world stretched out to represent the entire globe.
So too will this campaign attempt to focus beyond Berlin (not that I’d be disappointed to be in Berlin).
Pacing
Each of the stories in The Secret Pilgrim could be the basis for a complete novel, and there is a sense of speed here as opposed to the more deliberate development, with pages of qualification, of a Perfect Spy or The Honourable Schoolboy.
I’d like to combine this into the card play I envision (which I really need to take a second stab at). The main stories will be paced much like the “Karla Trilogy” or Absolute Friends, but the flashbacks triggered by the characters can and probably will have the rollercoaster atmosphere of many of the anecdotes from The Secret Pilgrim.
This game shall attempt to do a bit of that taking as one of its cues The Secret Pilgrim, which is really a collection of short stories, a grab bag of "tales of the Circus" and as such has some useful similarities with the structure of a roleplaying campaign.
Scope and Scale
The structural road map of The Secret Pilgrim is drawn by geography. The locus of action is constantly changing, and the East and West German border (what comes to most folks minds when they think Cold War) is not even the center of most of the European stories in the collection. This is le Carré’s fictional world stretched out to represent the entire globe.
So too will this campaign attempt to focus beyond Berlin (not that I’d be disappointed to be in Berlin).
Pacing
Each of the stories in The Secret Pilgrim could be the basis for a complete novel, and there is a sense of speed here as opposed to the more deliberate development, with pages of qualification, of a Perfect Spy or The Honourable Schoolboy.
I’d like to combine this into the card play I envision (which I really need to take a second stab at). The main stories will be paced much like the “Karla Trilogy” or Absolute Friends, but the flashbacks triggered by the characters can and probably will have the rollercoaster atmosphere of many of the anecdotes from The Secret Pilgrim.
