John le Carré's private life, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell
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Re: John le Carré's private life, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell
#2I have a large book collection and one of the cornerstones is a first edition of every John le Carre book published. I've read them all, and while he is probably best known for "Tinker Tailor ..." and "Smiley's People", I found "The Perfect Spy" to be just an exceptional work of literature - and at times it is also autobiographical (his father was a con man). I'm not surprised he was at times profoundly unhappy - in my experience, many highly creative people never find contentment.
The TV miniseries of "Tinker Tailor ...", "Smiley's People", "The Perfect Spy", and "The Night Manager" are just amazingly well done and highly recommended.
RIP David Cornwell.
Re: John le Carré's private life, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell
#3I have a large book collection and one of the cornerstones is a first edition of every John le Carre book published. I've read them all, and while he is probably best known for "Tinker Tailor ..." and "Smiley's People", I found "The Perfect Spy" to be just an exceptional work of literature - and at times it is also autobiographical (his father was a con man). I'm not surprised he was at times profoundly unhappy - in…
I watch Smiley's People with Alec Guinness once a year. You can't make film like that today.
Re: John le Carré's private life, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell
#4I have a large book collection and one of the cornerstones is a first edition of every John le Carre book published. I've read them all, and while he is probably best known for "Tinker Tailor ..." and "Smiley's People", I found "The Perfect Spy" to be just an exceptional work of literature - and at times it is also autobiographical (his father was a con man). I'm not surprised he was at times profoundly unhappy - in…
I watch Smiley's People with Alec Guinness once a year. You can't make film like that today.
Definitely. I think it is even better than "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (also with Alec Guinness). The execution, the acting, the plot, the screenplay, everything is just marvelous.
Re: John le Carré's private life, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell
#5I have a large book collection and one of the cornerstones is a first edition of every John le Carre book published. I've read them all, and while he is probably best known for "Tinker Tailor ..." and "Smiley's People", I found "The Perfect Spy" to be just an exceptional work of literature - and at times it is also autobiographical (his father was a con man). I'm not surprised he was at times profoundly unhappy - in…
I read Call for the Dead and unfortunately found it pretty boring. Do you think I would probably also find Smileys People boring?
Re: John le Carré's private life, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell
#6Re: John le Carré's private life, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell
#7I have a large book collection and one of the cornerstones is a first edition of every John le Carre book published. I've read them all, and while he is probably best known for "Tinker Tailor ..." and "Smiley's People", I found "The Perfect Spy" to be just an exceptional work of literature - and at times it is also autobiographical (his father was a con man). I'm not surprised he was at times profoundly unhappy - in…
I read Call for the Dead and unfortunately found it pretty boring. Do you think I would probably also find Smileys People boring?
The best is "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold". It's a short read but a wallop of an ending.
Re: John le Carré's private life, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read Call for the Dead and unfortunately found it pretty boring. Do you think I would probably also find Smileys People boring?
The best is "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold". It's a short read but a wallop of an ending.
Interesting I’m about eighty pages into it and was beginning to question the Le Carré hype.
Re: John le Carré's private life, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
The best is "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold". It's a short read but a wallop of an ending.
Interesting I’m about eighty pages into it and was beginning to question the Le Carré hype.
His style and pace is a lot different than the modern genre writers like Vince Flynn, Lee Child, and even Ludlum (though Ludlam was of similar age) which excel at fast plot driven stories. A lot of Le Carre's stuff is from the '60s and '70s, and I'm not sure how well it actually ages. (I haven't read him since 1990ish, and I've been wanting to read the Tinker series, just never got past the first chapter.)
I remember that even the movie version of The Russia house was a little slow, and it came out on the tail end of the cold war era.
Re: John le Carré's private life, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell
#10His son (Nick Harkaway) is one of my favorite authors, and one of the best in SF right now.