Farewell John le Carre, thank you for all the extraordinary books and the immortal George Smiley. It was no doubt very hard work, but you made it look so effortless, made it all so human.
[proofs of 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy']
[proofs of 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy']
https://twitter.com/business/status/1338257054109200384
‘Mole’
Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘Well said, old mole! Canst work i’ the earth so fast? A worthy pioneer!’
Karl Marx: ‘The revolution is thoroughgoing ... It does its work methodically...& when it has accomplished ... Europe’ll leap from its seat & exult: Well burrowed, old mole!’
Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘Well said, old mole! Canst work i’ the earth so fast? A worthy pioneer!’
Karl Marx: ‘The revolution is thoroughgoing ... It does its work methodically...& when it has accomplished ... Europe’ll leap from its seat & exult: Well burrowed, old mole!’
I reread this essay by Ian Buruma where he astutely notes this:
"People associate le Carré with the spy novel. This is accurate, up to a point....But le Carré’s novels also belong to a genre at which English writers often excel: the comedy of manners."
"People associate le Carré with the spy novel. This is accurate, up to a point....But le Carré’s novels also belong to a genre at which English writers often excel: the comedy of manners."
https://twitter.com/KS1729/status/786023502289612801?s=19
“David Cornwell (farthest right) is the only dwarf without a beard in a junior school production of Snow White.”
NYT Bestseller List, 23 August 1964.
‘The Spy who Came in from the Cold’ was #1 for 35 weeks.
[fascinating fiction list: ‘Julian’ by Gore Vidal & ‘Armageddon’ by Leon Uris]
‘The Spy who Came in from the Cold’ was #1 for 35 weeks.
[fascinating fiction list: ‘Julian’ by Gore Vidal & ‘Armageddon’ by Leon Uris]
If le Carre's novels were turned into paintings, they would perhaps be something like the ones done by James Hart Dyke, who painted a year in the life of MI6.
My favorite le Carre line: "The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on another cat's mat is a story".
Le Carre on spies who left the business of espionage and took up writing (Somerset Maugham, Compton Mackenzie, Graham Greene)
"Forbidden by his employers to write under his own name, the author fixed on “John le Carré.” Over the years he gave various explanations for it, finally admitting that he could not remember which, if any, were true."
nytimes.com/2020/12/13/boo…
nytimes.com/2020/12/13/boo…
Where did le Carre learn to write?
le Carre on Richard Sorge, arguably, the most *consequential* spy of WW2
https://twitter.com/KS1729/status/1111696177068761089?s=19
"General Drozdov [was the closest to Karla] the Soviet intelligence officer who spars with the agent George Smiley. He was probably the “closest that there really was to a figure like John le Carré’s Karla” as a “committed tradecraft professional.”" nytimes.com/2017/07/10/wor…
On French TV:
'The entire plot is set in motion when Malotrou betrays his country for a woman he met undercover in Syria. Suspense simmers in conference rooms & in the field. “That’s the legacy of John le Carré."
[who can resist Nadia el Mansour?]
nytimes.com/2020/06/17/art…
'The entire plot is set in motion when Malotrou betrays his country for a woman he met undercover in Syria. Suspense simmers in conference rooms & in the field. “That’s the legacy of John le Carré."
[who can resist Nadia el Mansour?]
nytimes.com/2020/06/17/art…
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy -- 1979 vs 2011
“MI5 agent-runner John Bingham, who shared an office with le Carre for a while; he was the physical model for George Smiley.”
“John le Carre stands on the left of the picture & the great Don Bradman stands next to his stepmother, Jean, holding aloft his half-sister Charlotte, 1948.”
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