Le Carré situates spying within the wider, mundane world. This, I believe, is why so many insist that he is a genre outlier, rather than an example of what can be accomplished within “genre writing” when the material is honored.

I’ve figured out other things too, things that would be obvious to anyone but me, like how those friends weren’t really my friends. They were Buddy’s. And going our own ways would feel like nothing.