My Washington Times Review Of John Le Carre's 'A Legacy Of Spies'

The Washington Times ran my review of John le Carre’s A Legacy of Spies.

Although I don’t subscribe to John le Carre’s leftist worldview, I’ve been reading and enjoying his spy novels since I was a teenager in the 1960s.

I’m not fond of most of his post-Cold War novels, as his political and anti-American sentiments mar the stories for me, but I admire greatly his earlier novels, such as “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” based on the notorious British spy and traitor Kim Philby, as well as “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.”

In his latest novel, “A Legacy of Spies,” his 24th, the 85-year-old author returns to the scene of the crimes, so to speak, from “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” and his other Cold War novels. His great character, the brilliant, bespectacled, physically frog-like master spy, George Smiley, appears in the novel, albeit briefly.

But Smiley is the center of conversation throughout the novel between former spy Peter Guillam and officials of the current-day British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), also known as MI6, and formally known as the “Circus” in Mr. Smiley’s day. (The old headquarters was located at Cambridge Circus in London).

… Peter Guillam, now elderly and in retirement, is the central character in “A Legacy of Spies.” He is recalled to London by SIS headquarters to answer questions regarding the operation that resulted in the death of British intelligence officer Alec Leamas and his companion, Elizabeth Gold, who were shot and killed at the Berlin Wall in “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.” The grown children of the two are suing the SIS and intelligence officials have discovered that nearly all of the classified records of the operation were destroyed by Smiley, or by someone under his command. Guillam, perhaps?

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

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/31/book-review-a-legacy-of-spies/  

John Le Carre To Reveal His Spying Secrets In Memoir

The British newspaper the Guardian offers a piece on spy novelist John le Carre's upcoming memoir.

John le Carré is to open the door to his “secret world” for the first time in a memoir due to be published next autumn.

The bestselling spy novelist, who worked for MI5 and MI6 before he hit the bestseller charts with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, will release The Pigeon Tunnel, subtitled “stories from my life”, in September 2016.

“Out of the secret world I once knew, I have tried to make a theatre for the larger worlds we inhabit,” he writes in the book. “First comes the imagining, then the search for reality. Then back to the imagining, and to the desk where I’m sitting now.”

Publisher Penguin Random House said The Pigeon Tunnel would be le Carré’s first work of non-fiction, adding that it “opens up” the “extraordinary writing life” of the author of novels from The Constant Gardener to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy for the first time.

“It is an exhilarating journey into the worlds of his ‘secret sharers’ – the men and women who inspired some of his most enthralling novels – and a testament to the author’s unique and personal engagement with the last half-century,” said the publisher in a statement.

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

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/12/john-le-carre-reveals-spying-secrets-memoir-pigeon-tunnel  

From Novel To TV Mini-Series To Film: John Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

 

Although I've linked to several reviews and pieces about the film adaptation of John le Carre's classic espionage novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy over the past year, I've only recently watched the film on Comcast Cable.

If I had not read the le Carre 1974 novel or watched the 1979 TV mini-series that featured Alex Guinness as George Smiley, I might have liked the film more. But I have read the novel (twice) and I've watched the mini-series (twice).

I liked the 1970s look of the film, especially the British intelligence headquarters that le Carre called the "Circus." (Which stands for Cambridge Circus in London, where the headquarters is located). But what was with that awful wallpaper in Control's office?

Gary Oldman is a fine actor, but I heard Alex Guinness in his slow and deliberate voice and other than the glasses, he looks nothing like le Carre's short and fat George Smiley.

Oldman and the other actors in the film are fine and I thought Tom Hardy was a standout, but I much prefer the gang from the mini-series.

And two things in the film truly bothered me.

One, Smiley tells Peter Guillam, his young assistant, that Americans tortured the Soviet agent Karla by pulling out his finger nails.

Nonsense. American and Soviet intelligence officers did not torture or kill each other in the Cold War.  American officers, however, were tortured and killed by Soviet proxies like the Viet Cong and Mideast terrorists.

The second thing that bothered me was making Peter Guillam gay in the film. Why? What was the point?

Responding to commentators that have favorably compared the cerebral George Smiley to the man of action James Bond, I've noted that le Carre's own Peter Guillam, a rough and tumble guy and the leader of the Scalp-Hunters, was a James Bond-like character.

In fact, Michael Jayston, the fine actor who portrayed Guilliam in the mini-series, was once considered for the role of Bond. Jayston later provided the voice for Bond in the BBC Radio adaptation of Fleming's novel You Only Live Twice 

Due to the success of the film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Gary Oldman is hoping to portray Smiley again in the remake of Smiley's People.

This novel, the third in le Carre's great Karla trilogy, was made into a mini-series in 1982 and aired on BBC TV. The TV producers skipped the second novel, The Honorable Schoolboy, and it looks like the film producers may as well.

Pity, as The Honorable Schoolboy is a fine spy thriller, despite the awful title, and a good follow up to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. One of the many things I liked about the novel was that it took place in Southeast Asia, where I once served in the U.S. Navy.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the film, was interesting and well done, but I much prefer the mini-series with Alex Guinness. I plan to get hold of the mini-series and watch it again for the third time since the 1970s.