Britain has always been open to enterprising outsiders. Disraeli, for instance, or the Sassoons, or my own family, who were 19th century Germans. They needed to learn the code – how to speak, write, dress and to some extent think, but they were quickly accepted. There is a good joke told by the late Milton Shulman. Goldberg is strolling down Piccadilly when he runs into an orthodox rabbi of his acquaintance. After exchanging pleasantries, the rabbi gives Goldberg an appraising look. “Tell me Goldberg, how do you manage to look so English? I would like to look like an Englishman too.” “It is very simple, rabbi, you just have to shave off your beard, stop wearing that long coat and the old black suit. Then it is just a matter of wearing the right clothes.” “But where do I find these clothes?” “You just have to go to the right shops: you buy your shoes at Lobb, your hats at Locks, you get your shirts and ties at Turnbull & Asser, your suits at Huntsman and your wallet and signet ring at Aspreys.” The rabbi notes all this down, thanks Goldberg and goes on his way. Six months later Goldberg runs into the rabbi in Berkeley Square. The transformation is total: the rabbi is clean-shaven and wearing a beautifully cut tweed suit and soft trilby, carrying a tightly furled umbrella. Goldberg congratulates him. “It was all thanks to you Goldberg, you showed me how to do it,” he said mournfully. “But rabbi, why are you so sad?” “I am sad, Goldberg, because we have lost India.”
Writers write about what they know, see and imagine. Ian Fleming’s Bond, Aston Martins, Riviera lifestyle and fast women cheered up the grey austere world of the 20th Century and did more for national pride than anything, much envied still around the World. That Le Carré painted a more realistic picture struck some balance. Spies lie and murder and damage governments. Loose lips sink ships, the role of journalists these days.
Are there such people now days? All I hear are opinion and agenda. The sacred and impartial ‘5W1H is shorthand for “Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.”.’ of the journalism trade are now long gone.
Brett H
1 year ago
Stretching things a bit in this article. Nice try but doesn’t really work.
“the circus is also, by contrast, a world of foreigners (the Hungarian Toby Esterhase), misanthropes (its boss, Control) and outright weirdos (the donnish Connie Sachs). Even his most famous character, the irretrievably English George Smiley, is a cuckold and, by the standards of his world, an outsider from the Establishment due to his “minor” public school and unfashionable Oxford college.”
Foreign is different. But misanthropes,, weirdos and cuckolds, they’re just the others in town? Nothing different in that.
Indeed, the misanthropes, weirdos and cuckolds are irretrievably English, just like George. As an American my understanding of Englishness was, is still, limited in breadth and depth. But the Smiley books seemed to capture its essence. That Cornwall was really Smiley comes as no surprise.
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
The thing it made me realize – once again – is that I’m generally better off not knowing much about the background of writers, because – like actors – it taints their work ever after. I really enjoyed reading “Tinker, Tailor…” and “Smiley’s People” many years ago. I doubt I would have had I known some of this background.
It shouldn’t be that way – I know. But it’s the same with actors. There are a collection of actors whose public behavior (particularly when they get extremely political) makes it virtually impossible for me to watch movies they are in afterward. I’m not boycotting them. I find it impossible when I’m watching them act to separate in my head my knowledge of who they are as people. It’s my loss – some of them are good actors. I just can’t separate the two domains.
No human being can live a life without doing and saying stupid things they regret (or should regret). If one is going to make a living that requires public acclaim, it seems foolish to do and say things which will alienate a large percentage of your potential customers. Now LeCarre didn’t probably do this – in fact he seems to have attempted to keep his private life private. Good for him. To bad his mistress didn’t do likewise. But then she seems to have nothing to lose and everything to gain by it.
I guess there is a lesson for me in that – once again – I fabricated a phony backstory of a non-existent personality. We all need people to look up to, I guess. And when they don’t exist we make them up.
Of course, if we didn’t read writers who act like complete shits, we’d have a rather thinner choice of literature to explore
Erik Hildinger
1 year ago
I’ve always considered Le Carre a remarkable stylist– really a writer who transcended his genre. His literary technique is worth studying, I think. The repetition of his basic themes (lying, betrayal and immoral government) can be seen in his early economical Looking Glass War which, I think, contains all of the themes you find in his later books. His themes are repeated across his other works of course, but that seems quite usual for artists.
erikhildinger.com
For me, after the Smiley books, he just wrote the same thing with different names. I read on, hoping for some leavening of approach, but reward came there none.
Bromley Man
1 year ago
Last para doesn’t make sense. It’s the spivs not Smiley who have taken over – Ronnie’s world.
Although with today’s hiring quotas god knows who will be running it in the future.
Mark epperson
1 year ago
Not bad. Unfortunately, the mistress really can’t be believed as she has every reason to make it up. Not saying it didn’t happen the way she says it did, but I certainly discount her story, as well as her virtue.
That being said, le Carre was, by far, the best of his genre, and right up there with the best as one other commenter mentioned. The author despised the upper echelons of the British Government, and rightly so.
Just because the current ruling class is less “British” certainly doesn’t mean that are any better, and one can argue, they are worse. I would imagine le Carre would despise the current crop as much as he did the ones of the last 60 years. That is why I love his writing.
Vaguely related, the third paragraph reminded me of this Dream Academy lyric: She shared a house with her sister and mother It belonged to a painter who rented out for the summer Her father had already gone home The days were quiet and we were both alone
andy young
1 year ago
“All of which is, in of itself, slightly sad, reeking of a middle-aged man living out the fictional life of so many of his characters.” His resultant sex life didn’t seem too sad. I suppose he might say the ends justified the means.
Jim Petts
1 year ago
What a totally ruthless swine Smiley was: he threw Alec under a bus without a backward glance, and got his executioner to plug Jerry.
The revelations about David Cornwell’s sex life are not the sort of posthumous applause most would seek! Nevertheless I am glad to see John le Carré’s Night Manager is back in fashion in India and his private letters et al in A Private Spy have entered the public domain. In his lifetime, every time John le Carré published a new thriller most of his contemporary authors deemed it yet another masterpiece but John le Carré doesn’t have a record of being enamoured by his fellow authors let alone journalists. Le Carré, Ian Fleming and Len Deighton did meet one another from time to time but apparently their meetings ended in near nuclear arguments about who was best equipped to write realistic espionage novels. It’s a shame all three focused on fiction but of course not one of them had first-hand experience of being a secret agent notwithstanding Fleming’s experiences in the Admiralty and le Carré’s in Five and Six until Kim Philby outed all le Carré’s agents operating in Europe. Of course, Philby and Oleg Gordievsky both knew Col Alan Pemberton CVO MBE aka Mac, Bill Fairclough’s true life MI6 handler in The Burlington Files which is a must read for all espionage cognoscenti. Bill Fairclough, MI6 codename JJ, aka Edward Burlington, was the protagonist in The Burlington Files series of fact based spy novels and did have real life experience of being a secret agent albeit not focused so much on the USSR in the Cold War. Critics have likened Fairclough to a “posh or sophisticated Harry Palmer” which probably didn’t appeal to le Carré. We do know that Fairclough once contacted le Carré in 2014 to do a collaboration. Le Carré responded along the lines of “Why should I? I’ve got by so far without collaboration so why bother now?” A realistic response from a famous expert in fiction who lost his MI6 job after being deceived by Philby! Do look up the authors or books mentioned on Amazon, Google The Burlington Files or visit https://theburlingtonfiles.org and https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang
Malcolm Webb
1 year ago
I recommend The Pigeon Tunnel ( 2016) for an unreliable part autobiography/ part reflections on the world . His family life clearly was very painful. Not only Ronnie but also the unloving mother Olive. He seemed keen to demonstrate his wealth, his love of Germany and his enjoyment of deception. I didn’t find it an easy read but it might improve on a second read, which I may give it.
Fred Paul
1 year ago
How I miss the rhythm, a skilled writer can impose artfully manipulating your heartbeat on a piece. This isn’t one. But, nice read. More on the subject here… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_le_Carr%C3%A9
Tony Taylor
1 year ago
The 1980 TV version and the 2011 version of TTSS are fantastic. I reckon the 2011 version is better casted than the 1980 version. I’d be Smiley or Jim Prideaux. I’d be very smug when I took over; much smugger than either Guinness or Oldman.
Sorry, but the 1980 tv series was the gold standard for J leC novels. The grainyness of the images, the slow pace and the location backgrounds epitomise the Cold War Context beautifully. The movie seemed to be aimed at mid west pop corn guzzlers.
Okay, so I went back to watch the 1980 version, and even though I’ve seen it before, it pulled me right in right away. It’s still fantastic, but I stand by my observation that the 2011 cast is fabulous.
Britain has always been open to enterprising outsiders. Disraeli, for instance, or the Sassoons, or my own family, who were 19th century Germans. They needed to learn the code – how to speak, write, dress and to some extent think, but they were quickly accepted. There is a good joke told by the late Milton Shulman.
Goldberg is strolling down Piccadilly when he runs into an orthodox rabbi of his acquaintance. After exchanging pleasantries, the rabbi gives Goldberg an appraising look.
“Tell me Goldberg, how do you manage to look so English? I would like to look like an Englishman too.”
“It is very simple, rabbi, you just have to shave off your beard, stop wearing that long coat and the old black suit. Then it is just a matter of wearing the right clothes.”
“But where do I find these clothes?”
“You just have to go to the right shops: you buy your shoes at Lobb, your hats at Locks, you get your shirts and ties at Turnbull & Asser, your suits at Huntsman and your wallet and signet ring at Aspreys.”
The rabbi notes all this down, thanks Goldberg and goes on his way.
Six months later Goldberg runs into the rabbi in Berkeley Square. The transformation is total: the rabbi is clean-shaven and wearing a beautifully cut tweed suit and soft trilby, carrying a tightly furled umbrella. Goldberg congratulates him.
“It was all thanks to you Goldberg, you showed me how to do it,” he said mournfully.
“But rabbi, why are you so sad?”
“I am sad, Goldberg, because we have lost India.”
fantastic
Writers write about what they know, see and imagine. Ian Fleming’s Bond, Aston Martins, Riviera lifestyle and fast women cheered up the grey austere world of the 20th Century and did more for national pride than anything, much envied still around the World. That Le Carré painted a more realistic picture struck some balance. Spies lie and murder and damage governments. Loose lips sink ships, the role of journalists these days.
”the role of journalists these days.”
Are there such people now days? All I hear are opinion and agenda. The sacred and impartial ‘5W1H is shorthand for “Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.”.’ of the journalism trade are now long gone.
Stretching things a bit in this article. Nice try but doesn’t really work.
“the circus is also, by contrast, a world of foreigners (the Hungarian Toby Esterhase), misanthropes (its boss, Control) and outright weirdos (the donnish Connie Sachs). Even his most famous character, the irretrievably English George Smiley, is a cuckold and, by the standards of his world, an outsider from the Establishment due to his “minor” public school and unfashionable Oxford college.”
Foreign is different. But misanthropes,, weirdos and cuckolds, they’re just the others in town? Nothing different in that.
Indeed, the misanthropes, weirdos and cuckolds are irretrievably English, just like George.
As an American my understanding of Englishness was, is still, limited in breadth and depth. But the Smiley books seemed to capture its essence.
That Cornwall was really Smiley comes as no surprise.
The thing it made me realize – once again – is that I’m generally better off not knowing much about the background of writers, because – like actors – it taints their work ever after. I really enjoyed reading “Tinker, Tailor…” and “Smiley’s People” many years ago. I doubt I would have had I known some of this background.
It shouldn’t be that way – I know. But it’s the same with actors. There are a collection of actors whose public behavior (particularly when they get extremely political) makes it virtually impossible for me to watch movies they are in afterward. I’m not boycotting them. I find it impossible when I’m watching them act to separate in my head my knowledge of who they are as people. It’s my loss – some of them are good actors. I just can’t separate the two domains.
No human being can live a life without doing and saying stupid things they regret (or should regret). If one is going to make a living that requires public acclaim, it seems foolish to do and say things which will alienate a large percentage of your potential customers. Now LeCarre didn’t probably do this – in fact he seems to have attempted to keep his private life private. Good for him. To bad his mistress didn’t do likewise. But then she seems to have nothing to lose and everything to gain by it.
I guess there is a lesson for me in that – once again – I fabricated a phony backstory of a non-existent personality. We all need people to look up to, I guess. And when they don’t exist we make them up.
Of course, if we didn’t read writers who act like complete shits, we’d have a rather thinner choice of literature to explore
I’ve always considered Le Carre a remarkable stylist– really a writer who transcended his genre. His literary technique is worth studying, I think. The repetition of his basic themes (lying, betrayal and immoral government) can be seen in his early economical Looking Glass War which, I think, contains all of the themes you find in his later books. His themes are repeated across his other works of course, but that seems quite usual for artists.
erikhildinger.com
For me, after the Smiley books, he just wrote the same thing with different names. I read on, hoping for some leavening of approach, but reward came there none.
Last para doesn’t make sense. It’s the spivs not Smiley who have taken over – Ronnie’s world.
well said
Although with today’s hiring quotas god knows who will be running it in the future.
Not bad. Unfortunately, the mistress really can’t be believed as she has every reason to make it up. Not saying it didn’t happen the way she says it did, but I certainly discount her story, as well as her virtue.
That being said, le Carre was, by far, the best of his genre, and right up there with the best as one other commenter mentioned. The author despised the upper echelons of the British Government, and rightly so.
Just because the current ruling class is less “British” certainly doesn’t mean that are any better, and one can argue, they are worse. I would imagine le Carre would despise the current crop as much as he did the ones of the last 60 years. That is why I love his writing.
“Crumbs.” Day. Made.
A lovely bit of classic British writing….one perfect word, I noticed that too….
good article thanks
bio recommended – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22535415-john-le-carr
Vaguely related, the third paragraph reminded me of this Dream Academy lyric:
She shared a house with her sister and mother
It belonged to a painter who rented out for the summer
Her father had already gone home
The days were quiet and we were both alone
“All of which is, in of itself, slightly sad, reeking of a middle-aged man living out the fictional life of so many of his characters.”
His resultant sex life didn’t seem too sad. I suppose he might say the ends justified the means.
What a totally ruthless swine Smiley was: he threw Alec under a bus without a backward glance, and got his executioner to plug Jerry.
Have you ever met Trump. And that was real life!
The revelations about David Cornwell’s sex life are not the sort of posthumous applause most would seek! Nevertheless I am glad to see John le Carré’s Night Manager is back in fashion in India and his private letters et al in A Private Spy have entered the public domain. In his lifetime, every time John le Carré published a new thriller most of his contemporary authors deemed it yet another masterpiece but John le Carré doesn’t have a record of being enamoured by his fellow authors let alone journalists.
Le Carré, Ian Fleming and Len Deighton did meet one another from time to time but apparently their meetings ended in near nuclear arguments about who was best equipped to write realistic espionage novels. It’s a shame all three focused on fiction but of course not one of them had first-hand experience of being a secret agent notwithstanding Fleming’s experiences in the Admiralty and le Carré’s in Five and Six until Kim Philby outed all le Carré’s agents operating in Europe. Of course, Philby and Oleg Gordievsky both knew Col Alan Pemberton CVO MBE aka Mac, Bill Fairclough’s true life MI6 handler in The Burlington Files which is a must read for all espionage cognoscenti.
Bill Fairclough, MI6 codename JJ, aka Edward Burlington, was the protagonist in The Burlington Files series of fact based spy novels and did have real life experience of being a secret agent albeit not focused so much on the USSR in the Cold War. Critics have likened Fairclough to a “posh or sophisticated Harry Palmer” which probably didn’t appeal to le Carré. We do know that Fairclough once contacted le Carré in 2014 to do a collaboration. Le Carré responded along the lines of “Why should I? I’ve got by so far without collaboration so why bother now?” A realistic response from a famous expert in fiction who lost his MI6 job after being deceived by Philby!
Do look up the authors or books mentioned on Amazon, Google The Burlington Files or visit https://theburlingtonfiles.org and https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang
I recommend The Pigeon Tunnel ( 2016) for an unreliable part autobiography/ part reflections on the world . His family life clearly was very painful. Not only Ronnie but also the unloving mother Olive. He seemed keen to demonstrate his wealth, his love of Germany and his enjoyment of deception. I didn’t find it an easy read but it might improve on a second read, which I may give it.
How I miss the rhythm, a skilled writer can impose artfully manipulating your heartbeat on a piece. This isn’t one. But, nice read. More on the subject here… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_le_Carr%C3%A9
The 1980 TV version and the 2011 version of TTSS are fantastic. I reckon the 2011 version is better casted than the 1980 version. I’d be Smiley or Jim Prideaux. I’d be very smug when I took over; much smugger than either Guinness or Oldman.
Sorry, but the 1980 tv series was the gold standard for J leC novels. The grainyness of the images, the slow pace and the location backgrounds epitomise the Cold War Context beautifully. The movie seemed to be aimed at mid west pop corn guzzlers.
Thanks – I enjoyed them both but the BBC series is the far better version.
Okay, so I went back to watch the 1980 version, and even though I’ve seen it before, it pulled me right in right away. It’s still fantastic, but I stand by my observation that the 2011 cast is fabulous.