John le Carré R.I.P.

[Jean-s]

With a gift for German which he had studied in Switzerland, John le Carré (real name David Cornwell) came to the attention of Britain's MI6, the overseas spy agency. He did not trust socialists at Oxford University but pretended to be one and spied on fellow students on behalf of MI5, the British domestic counter spy agency. In other words, he was a creep. But being two-faced was useful when he undertook work in Bonn working for MI6, dealing in particular with East German defectors who were willing to spill the beans on their agents working in West Germany. How many of those named to le Carré were bumped off is something the author has refused to talk about. Spying on fellow students who thought you were their friend to interrogating those defectors who were doing the same to socialist comrades is nasty business and deadly serious.

His first real success as an author was the espionage story The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Something of the conflict that might have gone through a less self-assured man is captured in that story where the alcoholic protagonist is not sure what he believes except that he despised the East Germans more than he disliked his friends in MI6. It was all very different from the urbane womanizing hero of Ian Fleming's James Bond.

Back in England he was up to his old tricks of using disenchanted ex-socialists to inform on the activities of trade unionists and whatever communists were still to be found. For an undeclared reason, he sought a transfer to MI6 and he was back in Bonn as a fluent German speaker in 1960. Then came the Berlin Wall followed by The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

John le Carré died last week aged 89.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/14/john-le-carre-obituary

 

[Helix]

Rest in peace.

 

[Closer]

One of my favorite fiction writers. I loved his books, especially the Smiley's People novels and his A Small Town in Germany; all of his books were good but he never topped that one,imho.

 

[MaryP]

With a gift for German which he had studied in Switzerland, John le Carré (real name David Cornwell) came to the attention of Britain's MI6, the overseas spy agency. He did not trust socialists at Oxford University but pretended to be one and spied on fellow students on behalf of MI5, the British domestic counter spy agency. In other words, he was a creep. But being two-faced was useful when he undertook work in Bonn working for MI6, dealing in particular with East German defectors who were willing to spill the beans on their agents working in West Germany. How many of those named to le Carré were bumped off is something the author has refused to talk about. Spying on fellow students who thought you were their friend to interrogating those defectors who were doing the same to socialist comrades is nasty business and deadly serious.

His first real success as an author was the espionage story The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Something of the conflict that might have gone through a less self-assured man is captured in that story where the alcoholic protagonist is not sure what he believes except that he despised the East Germans more than he disliked his friends in MI6. It was all very different from the urbane womanizing hero of Ian Fleming's James Bond.

Back in England he was up to his old tricks of using disenchanted ex-socialists to inform on the activities of trade unionists and whatever communists were still to be found. For an undeclared reason, he sought a transfer to MI6 and he was back in Bonn as a fluent German speaker in 1960. Then came the Berlin Wall followed by The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

John le Carré died last week aged 89.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/14/john-le-carre-obituary

I loved his novels! RIP.

 

[MaryP]

One of my favorite fiction writers. I loved his books, especially the Smiley's People novels and his A Small Town in Germany; all of his books were good but he never topped that one,imho.

I loved the Smiley novels. Never read Small Town ( I don't think--thought I'd read them all, but that doesn't sound familiar).--will have to check it out.