RIP to the Master of Spies: John Le Carré

[Zorral]

An interesting remembrance of John le Carré by one who knew him:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/opinion/john-le-carre-spy-novelist.html?

Quote

 

...I became a different type of reader, immersed in his style and forensic attention to particulars, recognizing how matters of structure and form were harnessed to bring the reader to the heart of a dilemma, as yet another decent human called upon to act with unspeakable duplicity. The lens usually had something to do with spies, but not always, and over the years he went back and forth in time. In 2017, he even brought back George Smiley, the most famous of his characters, in “A Legacy of Spies." 56 years after his first appearance, Smiley was called upon to address the decline of Britain and the mendacities of Brexit.

Over time, my own writing on the origins of genocide and other international crimes in the years of the Nuremberg trial connected unexpectedly to matters of espionage. Looking into the murky world of the Nazi escape route from Europe to South America, known as the ratline, I turned to my neighbor for insights into the post war years. I wanted to understand how could it possibly be that senior SS officers came to be recruited by the Americans, so soon after the war’s end.

David surprised me. “I was a tiny part of that world,” he explained. As a young man doing national service in Austria in 1949, he ran agents to watch over the Soviets. “Little guys on motorbikes selling pornographic photographs to Russian sentries, that kind of thing,” he said, with an eyebrow raised and the faintest of smiles. He was a Nazi hunter, trawling displaced-persons camps; I hadn’t known. “To prosecute them?” I inquired, innocently. “Not at all,” he replied, “To recruit them. To get our hands on their Rolodexes.” Indeed, it was “perplexing,” given that he came of age learning to despise Nazism and then, at 18, he was ordered to recruit mass murderers as allies in the struggle against the new enemy, Communism....

 

 

 

[shortstark]

RIP to John LeCarre.. Who has not written a bad book imo. Agree with the consensus that the Karla Trilogy was probably the heights of his works, Smiley is a great character 

atmospheric, understated and dense.. 

A reread is imminent.. 

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

On 12/19/2020 at 1:49 PM, shortstark said:

RIP to John LeCarre.. Who has not written a bad book imo. Agree with the consensus that the Karla Trilogy was probably the heights of his works, Smiley is a great character 

atmospheric, understated and dense.. 

A reread is imminent.. 

 

Wouldn’t agree he’s never written a bad book. I didn’t like Our Game, and The Honourable Schoolboy wasn’t that good.

[Gaston de Foix]

8 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Wouldn’t agree he’s never written a bad book. I didn’t like Our Game, and The Honourable Schoolboy wasn’t that good.

Second this.  I watched Tinker Tailor twice (the Gary Oldman movie) and the Night Manager (once) and on the strength of that, and the general and justifiable celebration of his work, I started the Honourable Schoolboy.  40 pages in, its simultaneously quite dated and boring.  Maybe I should try another?

[Derfel Cadarn]

24 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Second this.  I watched Tinker Tailor twice (the Gary Oldman movie) and the Night Manager (once) and on the strength of that, and the general and justifiable celebration of his work, I started the Honourable Schoolboy.  40 pages in, its simultaneously quite dated and boring.  Maybe I should try another?

Tinker Tailor and Smiley’s People work mostly fine without Hon Schoolboy (which is book 2 in the Karla Trilogy).

The Secret Pilgrim is very good but spoileru for a lot of the earler books (including The Russia House).

[Gaston de Foix]

2 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Tinker Tailor and Smiley’s People work mostly fine without Hon Schoolboy (which is book 2 in the Karla Trilogy).

The Secret Pilgrim is very good but spoileru for a lot of the earler books (including The Russia House).

Yeah, thanks for the reccie. 

I was thinking the Smiley trilogy is core Le Carre and needs to be read first even though a lengthy New Yorker piece (!) on which is the best le Carre novel ended up recommending up the one that has his dad as a thinly disguised character.   But if you like spies (which I do) and spy games then I assume the hunt for Karla trilogy the one to read. 

Actually thinking about it I read the Night Manager and I rate the Tom Hiddleston starrer tv show as superior with Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman as particular highlights.  

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Yeah, thanks for the reccie. 

I was thinking the Smiley trilogy is core Le Carre and needs to be read first even though a lengthy New Yorker piece (!) on which is the best le Carre novel ended up recommending up the one that has his dad as a thinly disguised character.   But if you like spies (which I do) and spy games then I assume the hunt for Karla trilogy the one to read. 

Actually thinking about it I read the Night Manager and I rate the Tom Hiddleston starrer tv show as superior with Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman as particular highlights.