Happy 83rd Birthday To John le Carre

Happy 83rd birthday to British spy novelist John le Carre.

John le Carre is the author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

You can learn more about John le Carre via a link to History.com.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/john-le-carre-is-born

You can also read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of John le Carre's Our Kind of Traitor via the below link:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/LeCarreOurKindOfTratiorReview.jpg  

A Delicate Truth: John Le Carre Gets Personal For New Novel

 

Jon Stock in the British newspaper the Telegraph offers a piece on spy thriller writer John le Carre's new novel.

David Cornwell, better known as the spy writer John le Carré, has always enjoyed keeping secrets — the real-life inspiration for spymaster George Smiley, for example, or le Carré’s own role with British Intelligence. Sooner or later he breaks, telling us that Smiley was based on the Rev Vivian Green, his tutor at Lincoln College, Oxford, and that he once worked for MI5 and later MI6, but you can’t help feeling that the information is always extracted under duress.

So it is a pleasant surprise that le Carré has decided to reveal, without the use of electrodes or bright lights, that his much-anticipated 23rd novel is his most autobiographical for years, a book that “comes closer to my skin than any of my more recent novels”. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9972523/John-le-Carre-gets-personal-for-new-novel.html

You can also read my review of John le Carre's previous novel, Our Kind of Traitor, which appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, via the below link:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/LeCarreOurKindOfTratiorReview.jpg

And you can read my Crime Beat column on John le Carre and Ian Fleming, Spy Writer vs Spy Writer, via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/08/spy-writer-vs-spy-writer-john-le-carre.html    

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Almost Perfect, But For The Politics

 

Andrew Roberts at the Daily Beast likes the new film version of thriller writer John le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but he dislikes the anti-American, anti-west politics.

The new movie version of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is as good as cinema gets: subtle, taut, intelligent, gripping. The normally jaded audience at the theater where I watched on the Upper West Side of Manhattan burst into unaccustomed applause at the end. Because the book was written by the now obsessively anti-American John le Carré, it had the inevitable despicable moral equivalency one has come to expect from his work (more on that later), but stylistically, the film could hardly be bettered.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/11/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-almost-perfect-but-for-the-politics.html

I liked the novel and the TV miniseries based on the novel. And despite having the same objections as Andrew Roberts, I plan to see the film as well.

I wrote about le Carre's spy world in a previous post that responded to le Carre's unfair attack on the late Ian Fleming.

As for le Carre’s realism, I’ve spokened to a good number of former and current CIA and military intelligence officers who object strongly to the moral ambiguity found in his novels. Most Cold War intelligence officers were, like Bond, patriots who were dedicated to fighting communism.

British, American and other Western intelligence officers were certainly not like their utterly ruthless KGB and Eastern bloc counterparts who were defending a totalitarian, evil empire. There was a moral distinction between the Cold Warriors that you will not find not in a le Carre novel.

William F. Buckley Jr, the late author, columnist and political talk show host, noted that films and novels in the 1960s and 1970s often portrayed CIA officers as no better than the KGB.

Having served briefly as a CIA officer, he objected. Buckley, who wrote his own series of spy thrillers, believed the CIA and the Western intelligence services were a force for good in the Cold War. I agree.

You can read the rest of my piece via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/08/spy-writer-vs-spy-writer-john-le-carre.html

You can also read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of John le Carre's latest novel via the below link:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/LeCarreOurKindOfTratiorReview.jpg

Adam Sisman to Pen John Le Carre Biography

The web site Booktrade reports that Adam Sisman will write "the definitive life of John le Carre."

The spy thriller writer will provide Sisman with information and his private archive, but he will have no control over the biography, which is the wish of both writers.

You can read the piece via the below link,

http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/32659

You can also read my review of le Carre's latest thriller, which appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, via the below link:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/LeCarreOurKindOfTratiorReview.jpg

How John Le Carre Tinkered With His Spy Character

The British newspaper The Telegraph reports that spy novelist John le Carre has donated 85 boxes of material to Oxford University's Bodleian Library.

The material includes photos and hand-written pages about his novels. The pages show how le Carre "tinkered" with his George Smiley character in the process of writing what I believe is his finest novel, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

You can read the newspaper story via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8343870/John-Le-Carre-donates-archive-to-Oxford-University.html#

Although I don't subscribe to le Carre's anti-American leftist worldview, I think he is a good writer and an interesting writer.

You can read my review of his latest novel, Our Kind of Traitor, which appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, via the below link:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/LeCarreOurKindOfTratiorReview.jpg

You can also read an earlier post on le Carre and his comments regarding his fellow spy thriller writer Ian Fleming via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/08/spy-writer-vs-spy-writer-john-le-carre.html

My Philadelphia Inquirer Review Of John Le Carre's 'Our Kind Of Traitor'

The Philadelphia Inquirer published my review of John le Carre's latest thriller today.

You can read my review via the below link:

And below is a link to an earlier post about le Carre regarding his disparaging remarks about fellow thriller writer Ian Fleming:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/08/spy-writer-vs-spy-writer-john-le-carre.html

John le Carre Reads An Extract from His Latest Novel, Our Kind of Traitor

Youtube.com offers John le Carre reading an extract from his latest novel, Our Kind of Traitor.

Although I disagree with le Carre's worldview, I believe he is a fine writer, and as one can judge from the video, he is a fine actor as well. He does the voices of his characters very well.

You can view the video via the below link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKnn8t2d6oc

John le Carre's Last TV Interview

British TV's Channel 4 offers John Snow's interview with author John le Carre.

In the interview, which le Carre said is his last, the former British intelligence officer talks about his life and his new novel Our Kind of Traitor.

He also talks about his early life in the security services and how he was "blown" by the double agent and traitor Kim Philby.

Le Carre's latest thriller is about Russian organized crime, money laundering, politics and British spies.

You can read about the interview and view a video via the below link:

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/le+carr233+betrayed+by+aposbad+lotapos+spy+kim+philby/3766077



Photo of John le Carre and book cover by Viking.

John le Carre's Spook World

John le Carre's Spook World

By Paul Davis

Last month I wrote a piece here about John le Carre’s disparaging remarks about Ian Fleming’s iconic character James Bond. The piece generated some interesting responses.

Although I attempted to offer a spirited defense of Ian Fleming and James Bond (the character from the novels, not the films), I did note that I also liked le Carre’s novels, especially Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

This is perhaps le Carre’s year as a film is being made of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (the TV miniseries based on the novel was outstanding), and he has a new novel coming out called Our Kind of Traitor.

To promote his new book, the 79-year-old author gave an interesting interview to the British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph.

In the interview, le Carre, a/k/a David Cornwell, spoke of how he struggled to demystify and de-romanticise the spook world in his thrillers. He also spoke of his time in the British Security Services and of his con-artist father.

He explained why he refused to meet the British traitor and spy Kim Philby when he was visiting Russia. I admire his stance.

Although le Carre’s spy novels are known for their moral ambiguity, le Carre spoke of the difference between the West’s intelligence officers and the Communists on the other side of the Iron Curtain in the Cold War.

“But there is a big difference in working for the West and working for a totalitarian state,” le Carre told the Telegraph. “I promise you that even when quite ruthless operations are being contemplated, the process of democratic consultation was still relatively intact and decent humanitarian instincts came into play.

“Totalitarian states killed with impunity and no one was held accountable. That didn’t happen in the West,” le Carre said.

Le Carre is right. According to The Black Book of Communism, the communists murdered more than 94 million people.

Although I disagree with le Carre’s politics and worldview, I look forward to seeing the film version of Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy and I look forward to reading his new novel, Our Kind of Traitor.