Dark Star, by Alan Furst; In this story of Europe in the late thirties, Alan Furst portrays a grim world but one not without humanity. I haven't read John le Carre in a long time, but I remember his novels being a lot bleaker, even cynical. Furst is a first rate writer, not just cranking out thrillers. Every so often, a truly luminous passage appears like this one talking about a poem by Alexander Blok "The Scythians": " He [Szara] would never the mysteries that these two peoples, the Russians and the Germans, shared between them. Blok had tried, as only a poet could [here it comes!]applying images, the inexplicable chemistry at the borders of language." Isn't that marvelous; the inexplicable chemistry at the borders of language.

I found this in the novel, Under Occupation, by Alan Furst:

Well, he wasn't, by his accent, French. ,Ricard thought.He didn't sing the language the way the French did,enjoying every word.

This makes me think of the greeting "Bon jour!" from every shopkeeper. As if we sang "Good morning!" to each person we met.