John le Carré's private life, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell | Hacker News Reader

John le Carré's private life, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell

spectator.co.uk

32 pointspepys26 comments

I have a large book collection and one of the cornerstones is a first edition of every John le Carre book published. I've read them all, and while he is probably best known for "Tinker Tailor ..." and "Smiley's People", I found "The Perfect Spy" to be just an exceptional work of literature - and at times it is also autobiographical (his father was a con man). I'm not surprised he was at times profoundly unhappy - in my experience, many highly creative people never find contentment.

The TV miniseries of "Tinker Tailor ...", "Smiley's People", "The Perfect Spy", and "The Night Manager" are just amazingly well done and highly recommended.

RIP David Cornwell.

I watch Smiley's People with Alec Guinness once a year. You can't make film like that today.

Definitely. I think it is even better than "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (also with Alec Guinness). The execution, the acting, the plot, the screenplay, everything is just marvelous.

The scene with Toby Esterhase and George Smiley in the basement office of Toby's gallery is one of my favorite scenes on film of all time.

Alec Guinness was a master at not overplaying a role

I watch it in part or whole, monthly (sometimes I swap it for the film, or for Smileys People...once I swapped it for The Night Manager, but that wasn't as comforting).

I read Call for the Dead and unfortunately found it pretty boring. Do you think I would probably also find Smileys People boring?

The best is "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold". It's a short read but a wallop of an ending.

Interesting I’m about eighty pages into it and was beginning to question the Le Carré hype.

His style and pace is a lot different than the modern genre writers like Vince Flynn, Lee Child, and even Ludlum (though Ludlam was of similar age) which excel at fast plot driven stories. A lot of Le Carre's stuff is from the '60s and '70s, and I'm not sure how well it actually ages. (I haven't read him since 1990ish, and I've been wanting to read the Tinker series, just never got past the first chapter.)

I remember that even the movie version of The Russia house was a little slow, and it came out on the tail end of the cold war era.

I admit I was always much more in the Ludlum camp when I was reading the genre 20-30 years ago. I've read Le Carre and watched the films but, while I could appreciate what his admirers were saying, I never really got into him.

Ludlum's books are pure escapism, similar to the James Bond books. Le Carre's books are much more realistic describing how espionage is really done, which is mostly paperwork and interviewing people. Which admittedly is less exciting than gunfights and car chases.

Totally. I just never really got into them.

FWIW: I didn't like it either, but really enjoyed "Tinker.." and "Smiley's People".

FWIW, I've been in your boat most of my life. The only reason I kept revisiting it was because my dad was a huge fan. I really started appreciating the pace and nuance as I got into my late thirties. Nothing in these stories spell anything out to you, so you have to do the work to get in their heads. It's why spies are so fascinating.

I finished the book this afternoon and must concede I enjoyed it.

I do wonder if it would have been possible to figure out the conclusion by getting sufficiently into the characters’ heads?

Maybe try A Perfect Spy. Le Carre’s novels are certainly not thrillers, more like anti-thrillers. I think of the whole spy thing as a metaphor for the ways that humans lie, conceal and hurt others.

Many of his books carry a subtext of small and big personal betrayals. I wonder if he projected his own desires into the narrative.

Smiley is deceived. Anne and Haydon's relationship is written down to Haydon doing what his paymasters ordered but Anne's role is unclear. Willing participation is implied.

The perfect spy is a super book.

His son (Nick Harkaway) is one of my favorite authors, and one of the best in SF right now.

which book would you suggest someone starts with?

The Gone Away World is my personal favorite - creative (and outright bonkers in a sophisticated way), funny, and deeply humane.

Thanks. Added to my reading list.

I'm just finishing up Nick's 'Gnomon', and it has blown my mind. It's been quite a while since a book has enthralled me just as as this.

FWIW, _Gnomon_ is IMHO a sprawling mess that has pretentious metaphors and numerous loosely connected strands. Like _Cloud Atlas_ but with less structure and more tangents.

You may be OK with that (and I am); but if you aren't, it won't be for you.

https://archive.ph/NnH7W

He was able to capture so much in just the smallest of observations.

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