John le Carré is dead to me.

It's the oldest question of all.

Most of his books were such fun reads and had rather good adaptations.

The BBC announced years ago they were going to make The Spy Who Came in From the Cold into a miniseries but nothing seems to have happened with it.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Cunt.

On Blair and the "Coalition of the Willing":

"It seems to me that any politician who takes his country to war under false pretenses has committed the ultimate sin. We’ve caused irreparable damage in the Middle East. I think we shall pay for it for a long time.”

How does one pronounce his last name?

Le Karraye

Thanks R7

[quote] On Blair and the "Coalition of the Willing": "It seems to me that any politician who takes his country to war under false pretenses has committed the ultimate sin. We’ve caused irreparable damage in the Middle East. I think we shall pay for it for a long time.”

That much I agree with, but I'm more of Len Deighton man myself. I suppose he'll be next; he's 91.

Rather handsome. RIP

I saw the mini series “Tinker Tailor...” and honestly didn’t see what the fuss was about.

Are his other works more original and engaging?

Oh, that’s a shame. I guess these won’t be manufactured anymore.

Tinker Taylor is incomprehensible, but it's atmospheric.

The recent movie is indeed atmospheric but the plot takes at least a few viewings to nail down.

Le Carré, Deighton and Fleming all describe bureaucratic bullshit and tedium in their spy novels. As well as scores to settle with colleagues. Tedium is not what you would see in the Broccoli Bond franchise!

He had a great ass, but I guess he didn't live forever.

That’s French for “John the Car,” you know.

Jean The Square

I'm glad I searched for Carré separately from LeCarré, lest I start a second thread and be called Mein Führer or a fat whore.

I thought his prose was frequently gassy. LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL is probably the easiest to read. (Remember flavor-of-the-month Diane Keaton, desperately miscast in the movie?)

We had to watch the film The Constant Gardener for our English class. That film, out of necessity, became my most watched film. I really quite enjoyed it by the end.

[quote] ITTLE DRUMMER GIRL is probably the easiest to read.

I think that's his worst book by far. He departs from his usual prose rendering the book inscrutable.

For me, his usual prose DID render most of his books inscrutable!

Kathy Burke & Beryl Reid were great as Connie Sachs in TTSS.

Kaffy Burke, a bog's a bog, was quite good. I don't remember Beryl in that role.

TTSS was a bit like The Big Sleep: you enjoy the ride even if you never really find out where you were going or what you saw.

The 1979 tv version of *Smiley's People* featured DL fave Siân Phillips as Mrs. Smiley.

There you go R25

She was very good in that role.

He was a great writer, much more difficult than one would expect. He adopted the concept of ‘in medeas res’, which meant you had to plough through his books until you understood what was going on. Then he made you feel clever. He was also the opposite of the idea that the older you get the more conservative you will be. He couldn’t really write women except for some vague noir idea that sometimes would work. And he had great hair. Having read Agent Running in the Field Last moth, i will miss him.

So, farewell then...

His books were always on my dad's bed side table- a nice memory.

[quote] I don't remember Beryl in that role.

She was in the tv version which I consider to be vastly superior. She’s absolutely phenomenal.

[quote] His books were always on my dad's bed side table- a nice memory.

Mine too — he’d throw them at the cat if it scratched at the door. Ah childhood.

Yes R31 I saw it on BBC back in the '80s when it came out. I don't remember Beryl from then but I was not on DL then so may not have been sensitized to her appearance by that time. I always liked Alec tho - I watched the show for him. Then I read the book and a lot of the show became clearer. My father thought all this was too intellectual... sigh.

Tbh I didn't know what was going on the first time.

It was only by rewatching them again, did I understand them.

I went to see TTSS with three friends. We all went to graduate school and had no idea what was what in the movie.

The only thing I remember was Patsy Stone's editor Magda being in it.

[quote] Tbh I didn't know what was going on the first time.

That was me in the '80s with the TV series with Alec and Beryl. I watched again and kind of got it. I read the book and got it a bit more. Successful guy that le Carré. RIP

I was too young to watch the original TV series with Alec Guinness but loved the movie version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

The Constant Gardner, The Night Manager and The Little Drummer Girl (Florence Pugh version) and A Most Wanted Man were all brilliant adaptions.

Worth noting that with the exception of Our Kind Of Traitor (which I've not seen) all the adaptations mentioned were directed by non Brits.

The Constant Gardner - Fenando Meirelles (Brazil)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Tomas Alfredson (Sweden)

A Most Wanted Man - Anton Corbijn (Holland)

The Night Manager - Susanne Bier (Denmark)

The Little Drummer Girl - Park Chan-wook (South Korea)

John le Carré is a pseudonym. His real name is David Cornwell.

Best books: The Perfect Spy, Secret Pilgrim, A Legacy of Spies

He was a brilliant writer, and was fortunate in that the tv/movie adaptations were (mostly) done by competent and sensitive directors and producers. When he writes about the "Secret World", you are left with the clear impression that the author is writing from lived experience and not from research or the recollections of others.

How fact met fiction in Le Carré's secret world

I rewatched TTSS on Netflix last night. I had seen it before but I like most people never understood what was happening on screen. Such a beautifully constructed visual journey but it may have well as been a foreign language film that you're forced to watch with no subtitles.

Is the book worth reading?

I think I only got to grips with TTSS (the Alec Guinness one) on the third watch. The book is better, if only because you can stop and re-read things as the lights go on in your head.

Tinker Tailer Sholdier Shpy

I read a few of the early Cold War novels and then, I finished one—can’t remember which but it featured a lot of metal scaffolding at the end—and I realized I had NO clue what happened. I didn’t like it well enough to reread it so I never read any more until I saw the movie, Tailor of Panama and really enjoyed it. I wondered how the author would fare once the Berlin Wall came down. So I read that book and then several more. I liked that they were less “spy bureaucracy “ and more retired spy or spy adjacent. He was a very good writer til the end.

Le Carre understood the world was complicated and it wasn't always an either/or situation.

He was a vocal critic of the nationalism of Trump and Putin, he loathed Boris Johnson and the nationalism of Brexit and was one of several respected authors who signed an open letter last year to say that as former Labour voters they could not vote for Corbyn because he was a rancid antisemite.

[quote]The coming election is momentous for every voter, but for British Jews it contains a particular anguish: the prospect of a prime minister steeped in association with antisemitism. Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Labour has come under formal investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission for institutional racism against Jews. Two Jewish MPs have been bullied out of the party. Mr Corbyn has a long record of embracing antisemites as comrades.

[quote]We listen to our Jewish friends and see how their pain has been relegated as an issue, pushed aside by arguments about Britain’s European future. For those who insist that Labour is the only alternative to Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit, now, it seems, is not the time for Jewish anxiety.

[quote]But antisemitism is central to a wider debate about the kind of country we want to be. To ignore it because Brexit looms larger is to declare that anti-Jewish prejudice is a price worth paying for a Labour government. Which other community’s concerns are disposable in this way? Who would be next?

[quote]Opposition to racism cannot include surrender in the fight against antisemitism. Yet that is what it would mean to back Labour and endorse Mr Corbyn for Downing Street. The path to a more tolerant society must encompass Britain’s Jews with unwavering solidarity. We endorse no party. However, we cannot in all conscience urge others to support a political party we ourselves will not. We refuse to vote Labour on 12 December.

A moral man.

The obliqueness and understatement of the original TV TTSS absolutely added to its impact and fascination. Those qualities spoke of all the ambiguities and subtleties of serious spying itself.

In addition the locations brilliantly evoked sheer Englishness: glimpses of London, Oxford and the countryside authenticated the action perfectly. Flawless casting and a fine-tuned script ensured classic status. I can't think of that unforgettable theme tune without chills.

Surprising that the film in its way held its own against all the above. But certainly didn't supersede it.

There's an amusing story told (can't remember by whom, alas) as a testament to Alec Guinness' acting skills. While he was filming TTSS, he was met on the set by a friend with whom he was going for lunch. Guinness suggested a particular restaurant which was very popular. His friend was worried that Guinness would be recognised and they wouldn't get any time to chat. "Not to worry," said Guinness, "I'll put my 'bank manager' face on". He went to fetch his coat, and when he returned, the friend hardly recognised him - his carriage, his gait, even his facial expressions had all changed completely, and he looked exactly like you might expect a mousey, fussy little bank branch manager would look. No one looked at him twice on the way to the restaurant, or over lunch. On the way back to the studio, he adopted his normal mannerisms, and was stopped several times by people seeking an autograph.

I think I will check out the miniseries on Britbox tonight. I hope I understand it better than the film.

The TTSS movie is a Cliff Notes version of the book. It's good primarily due to the acting, but Oldman isn't quite on Guinness' level.

I've only read some of his books: TTSS, Spy Who Came in From The Cold, Little Drummer Girl, and A Perfect Spy (his best IMO).

Has anyone seen the miniseries of Perfect Spy?

The movie of Drummer Girl is flat and neither of the lead actors is good. It's too bad Judy Davis wasn't considered box-office as that role was made for her at that time. Even with Keaton the film flopped. The miniseries is better, but still not great. Florence Pugh was just decent in the lead and she and Skarsgaard had zero chemistry.

Ugh it turns out TTSS miniseries is only available on the Britbox you can subscribe to in Britain. It’s not available in the US Britbox. Fortunately the series is on YouTube, but I’m out $7 for a month of stupid US Britbox.

[quote]Has anyone seen the miniseries of Perfect Spy?

It's as atmospheric and absorbing as the Guinness TTSS. Very much the same tone and mood, focusing on one man's progress from boyhood onwards, into the Intelligence world. I immersed in it again quite recently and had the same pleasure as that from reading an unputdownable novel. (Philip Roth called "A Perfect Spy" 'the best English novel since the war.')

Le Carre certainly had the luck his work deserved with the TV adaptations of TTSS, 'Smiley's People', and 'A Perfect Spy.' I go back to them with assured anticipation every few years.

'The Night Manager' more recently on TV was good, but just a bit too broad and glitzy for my taste. The downbeat character-driven complexities of the above three are for me more authentic and memorable.

How I wish they did the originally planned The Honourable Schoolboy adaptation so we had the full Karla trilogy with Guinness.

R47 - That's a marvellous story about Guinness. Thanks for sharing it.

DL fave Meg Tilly recounts LeCarre taking Jeremy Irons to task.

I found the original miniseries on YouTube last year and watched it. What sticks in my head most vividly about it, was the way Alec Guinness played his character in the beginning, as this retired man, and then the moment at the end of the first episode where is asked to take the case on again and his whole manner changes - he went from this sweet, doddering, seemingly ineffectual man to someone who seemed quite formidable and you could see how excellent he had been at his job.

I don't remember the plot being really confusing but at the same time, I don't actually remember the story at all haha. But I did enjoy it!

You just know Roddy Martindale would've been a DLer.

It's not linked to le Carre at all, but I'd also recommend a British series called The Sandbaggers, written by a Royal Navy officer who was widely suspected of being involved in intelligence himself too.

I started watching the miniseries on Youtube but I'm not going to finish it. It's so dry and uncinematic... all I saw was actors talking lines, not characters immersed in a story.

One of the reasons Tinker, Tailor is complex is because it's a story of the post-WWII decline of Britain. The discovery of the identity of "Gerald the Mole" is difficult because British Intelligence can't face having made such terrible mistake. It's about spies deceiving themselves.

[quote]You just know Roddy Martindale would've been a DLer.

Big smile, so true. He'd have been specially vigilant in the Royal Family and history threads: keen to answer innocent queries and correct hapless errors at forceful length.

I am watching the movie on Netflix again and it’s interesting to pick out the flaws in storytelling (would it have killed them to do some text overlays identifying different characters, locations and years?) But I’m also enjoying it more than in previous viewings. The atmosphere and period recreations are phenomenal. And the Istanbul flashback with Tom Hardy at his most beautiful is a flawless little movie within the movie.

[quote] I saw the mini series “Tinker Tailor...” and honestly didn’t see what the fuss was about...Are his other works more original and engaging?

I think that was the point. He said spying is a tedious, ugly profession and definitely the opposite of the fantasy world presented by 'James Bond'.

I only watched the show because of Sir Alec Guinness but he admitted he wanted to make himself as boring and as invisible as possible.