Roy Bland
Roy Bland is a fictional character created by English author and novelist John le Carré, who features prominently as one of the titular characters in the novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Bland features in the book as one of four men, the others being Percy Alleline, Toby Esterhase, and Bill Haydon, who take control of The Circus, Le Carré's fictitious version of the Secret Intelligence Service, in the wake of the failure of Operation Testify, an operation planned by the former spymaster Control in order to obtain the identity of a Soviet mole codenamed Gerald from a defector in Czech intelligence and thus expose him.
Bland has been portrayed in both the film and the miniseries by Ciarán Hinds and Terence Rigby respectively.
Character and Background[edit]
Of the four main antagonists in the Circus that Le Carré presents, Roy Bland seems to be the most calm and personable of the four, perhaps due to George Smiley's perception of him. Smiley considers his feelings towards him "ambivalent" despite the investigation he is undertaking, and notes that "Like Smiley, Bland had no childhood".[1] Despite this, he stills seems to exhibit pride in his working class origins, refusing to alter his language at his place of work to a more formal demeanour, and maintaining what Le Carré calls a "caustic Cockney voice".[2] His father was noted as a "passionate trade unionist, and a Party man",[3] and this played into his upbringing. Despite echoing his fathers political leanings, he was routinely beaten for showing academic prowess, which has father believed showed that he "had lost his son to the ruling class".[4] He overcame this to attend university, and was hand picked by contacts at university for showing the prowess to succeed in such a life. After his recruitment he was secretly encouraged to be more embracing towards Marxism, building up support by writing for left wing publications and eventually winning a place as "assistant lector in economics at the University of Poznan",[5] where he spent several years undercover. He moved around to Budapest, Prague, Sofia, and Kiev, before suffering a nervous breakdown and being recalled and reassigned manage the foreign operatives he recruited
Bland is seemingly the quietest and most reclusive of his associates. He features less prominently in the book, and speaks significantly less than the others. In the film he features more, and is seen to have a more combative style when he believes that he is right, such as when he ignores Alleline's chastising him in front of Oliver Lacon to point out the Circus has been the only thing between Moscow and "the third bloody world war".[6] He is also often presented as a contrast amongst the more conservative traditions of the Circus' leadership, and the outright right-wing chauvinism of Bill Haydon. Despite this, Bland acts as his number two in London Central
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy[edit]
Bland's role in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is less prominent than that of his colleagues. He is much more of a support character than Alleline or Haydon, and indeed even Esterhase. However, he is key in maintaining the current balance of power. Haydon sides with Percy Alleline in the wake of the failure of Operation Testify, and supports Alleline's decision to promote the use of Operation Witchcraft, which pertains to a Soviet source codenamed Merlin who reports to Alleline and feeds him secret intelligence on the various dealings of the Soviet Union. The only time this intelligence is ever discussed is in a meeting with Control, where Alleline presents a report from Merlin on Soviet naval drills in the Black Sea. Bland's role in this is merely to support Alleline's usage of the source, but they do not realise until it too late that Witchcraft is actually allowing the mole to send American intelligence that the British traded their leaked Soviet intelligence to, and that Witchcraft was orchestrated by the USSR in order to increase the relationship between America and Britain, thus benefitting the Soviet Union.
After the outing of Bill Haydon as the mole at the end of the book, Bland, like Alleline, is disgraced and removed, and does not feature again in a Le Carré novel.
References[edit]
- ↑ Le Carré, John (1974). Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 0-394-49219-6. Search this book on
- ↑ Le Carré, John (1974). Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 0-394-49219-6. Search this book on
- ↑ Le Carré, John (1974). Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 0-394-49219-6. Search this book on
- ↑ Le Carré, John (1974). Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 0-394-49219-6. Search this book on
- ↑ Le Carrè, John (1974). Tinker Tailor Solider Spy. Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 0-394-49219-6. Search this book on
- ↑ Le Carré, John (3 April 2014). "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". Youtube. Retrieved 14 October 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help)
This article "Roy Bland" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Roy Bland. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
