Talk:The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

message: :Image:JohnLeCarre TheSpyWhoCameIn.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:JohnLeCarre TheSpyWhoCameIn.jpg

message: I removed the section that just told about other people's quotes and reviews of the book. This is an encylopedia not Amazon where one posts a review, even if it's a review by a famous critic, that's opinon not facts
63.26.212.132 (talk) 17:02, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Quotes Removed

message: As the film has been split from the book I've removed the film infobox. --Shimbo 10:31, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed Film Project related infobox

message: I chuckled when I read in the article that Leamus’s seedy alcoholism and cynicism was an antidote to the image of James Bond as the “perfect English gentleman”. I am old enough to remember the buzz surrounding the publication of Ian Flemming’s novels and the films based on them. In those more shockable days, Bond was regarded as anything but a gentleman. He had the sexual morals of an alleycat, and the sheer scale of his promiscuity was something not found in earlier spy literature, where spies tended to be dowdy and furtive. This makes sense, for a spy should hardly be drawing attention to himself by constant displays of lechery. The other factor that shocked early audiences was Bond’s sadism, and his nonchalant attititude to assassination and murder, and also the notion that the British Government gave certain agents the licence to kill at will. Times have changed so much that it is Bond now who is the “perfect English gentleman”, and no one bats an eye at the notion of a hero who does not fight by Queensbury rules, nor at the concept of the double O agents’ “licence to kill”. Myles325a (talk) 02:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a good point, especially considering that the statement about Bond being a perfect English gentleman was unreferenced.  I've replaced that with a quote from Alexander Cockburn about the Bond series: that it presented a romantic public fantasy of what a secret service should be, which is a true statement even if you believe Fleming's Bond to be a sadist. AyaK (talk) 05:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Bond is a fantasy character that really has nothing to do with spies and the cold war. To a great extent, the characters roots are in world war two and special operations in world war two rather than spying or any sort of secret service. Bond belongs to an era of little oversight, no restraint and near unlimited budgets where certain people could live the high life at government expense while producing no useful results. 75.17.124.137 (talk) 06:30, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leamus and Bond 

message: Who is Marcus Eklund?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.219.20.157 (talk) 08:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the unreferenced and notability-challenged Marcus Eklund quote.  Unless the original poster could provide a link and a reason that it is notable, it will be deleted. - AyaK (talk) 23:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marcus Eklund 

message: "It is not entirely clear which side in the Cold War had Liz and Leamas killed" - I disagree with this statement having just finished the book.  It is clear to me that the death of Liz Gold was arranged by Mundt, especially as the method with which the wall should be scaled was detailed to Leamas (he should go first) - and that Liz could be lifted by him.  The only reason, IMHO that Leamas was shot was that he descended on the Eastern side to check on her and had he not have been shot at this point, suspicion may have been raised for MundtGamesetmatch (talk) 20:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I'll disagree with your disagreement.  We know Smiley didn't plan to have Liz killed (unless he's a better actor than we were ever led to believe), because he questions what happened to Liz after the shooting.  But we have no idea whether Mundt decided to kill Liz on his own, or whether Control told him to do it without sharing that information with Smiley.  Yes, Liz's death had been planned, as you point out -- but we don't know who was behind the plan.  (Leamas' death was obviously unintended, as you also point out -- that's why the guards didn't shoot Alec when he descended to Liz's body.)  When I get a chance, I'll post an update with a link to someone else's analysis of the ending, so that it doesn't look like original research. - AyaK (talk) 19:21, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Smiley doesn't question what happened, he says "The girl, what about the girl?"  While I agree that he could be acting as if he doesn't know, he also could be seeking confirmation that she is definitely dead.  Either way, I agree with you that we don't know whether Mundt or Control or both were responsible (well, I suppose a "both" goes to Control).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.23.40.34 (talk) 20:02, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The book leaves the responsibility unclear (unlike the film). In the book, the lights come up, she slips off the steps, then she is shot a few times while hanging in the air and then falls. There is a pause and then Leamas goes down. He is then shot as well. From the material in the book, its impossible to know if her death was planned by the information present the in the story. The book presents Leamas as thinking Mundt might take her back before they got away, but thats about it. The trap wasn't absolute because if Liz had not lost her footing, they might have both got away. The only other information in the book is the pause betwen Liz being shot and Leamas being shot. Its suspicious, but not definitive. In the film, everything is very explicit and points directly at Mundt as being responsible. 108.60.192.155 (talk) 20:16, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Who killed Leamas/Gold

message: I removed the description of Liz as Jewish . At one point, the novel mentions that "she used to go to church" . It's true that when he meets her, Leamas guesses she is Jewish, and perhaps some of the East German characters assume she is Jewish, but that mention of her having attended church is definitive. Mathew5000 (talk) 10:09, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: What about the end of the book, when Mundt enters her cell and she gets scared specifically because she has heard that "Mundt knows what to do with Jews"?  Jews can go to church, especially Jews who are trying to hide the fact that they are Jews, so the "going to Church" quote to which you refer is quite far from definitive as far as specifying her religion. 47.23.40.34 (talk) 20:05, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, IP:47.23.40.34 (talk) thatguamguy is correct. — | Gareth Griffith-Jones |The WelshBuzzard| — 11:33, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liz Gold's ethnicity 

message: I notice you have been keeping a watching brief on this article and are doing a good job of keeping the plot section on track. To my eyes, however, that section was much too long and, in the final para, too dramatically written. I have tried to slim down the outline, clearing it of redundancy and too much fussy detail. Ideally it could do with losing another hundred words, but that is probably impossible in view of the complication of the plot. I thought I would contact you to explain my thinking and leave future edits in your capable hands. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 21:30, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Good morning ,Thank you for coming to my Talk page and for what you have written above.Three points:
# I think you are mistaken in your editing of the opening section, so I have restored the Lead.
# I do not have time right now to scrutinise your considerable revision of the Plot, so I shall leave it for a few days to allow other editors time to react.
# With that in mind, I shall copy this thread to the article's Talk page. — | Gareth Griffith-Jones |The WelshBuzzard| — 12:07, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copied from my Talk page 

message: Substituted at 08:25, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: This quote was added in May 2009 by an IP user, with incomplete bibliographic information (the bibliographic information, but not the quote itself, has somehow been removed from the article over the past seven years).  
I am unable to find any independent evidence of Ms Compton, her alleged essay "Is Common Human Decency a Scarce Commodity in Popular Literature?", or the volume ("Essays on Moral Philosophy and Literature", ed. Theodore Brown, 1972) in which the essay is said to have been originally published.  Perhaps a longstanding hoax or joke?  Grover cleveland (talk) 03:54, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: ... Oh dear: adding bullshit quotes cited to bullshit sources is something that's happened to this article more than once. DS (talk) 05:38, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Mysterious "Margaret Compton" quote

message: Isn't come in a phrasal verb, thus requiring in to be capitalized in the title?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.223.46.150 (talk) 07:33, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are right, although other than where every word is capitalized, "in" seems to be the almost universal choice by sources. I did notice this entry and edition of the book where it's "In from". --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 20:10, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in Capitalization of the Title 

message: In chapter 8 Leamas is flown to "the airport" at The Hague - the problem being that The Hague does not have an airport. I can't discover that Ypenburg airfield ever hosted commercial flights, and Rotterdam airport has only recently added "The Hague" to its name. So is this a simple failure of research by Le Carré? TobyJ (talk) 08:27, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  What "The Hague" airport?