For a master class in the art of observation (and then writing about it), check out John le Carré's latest visit to a film set. Not only does he muse upon the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman, and filmmaking, and fake beards, but one is put in mind of this earlier piece on a similar topic referring to an equally brilliant and equally flawed actor. (You'll need a subscription to read the whole thing.) The two pieces together present interesting bookends to JlC's magnificent career.
A Most Wanted Man was one of the harder JlCs to fathom, so I'm looking forward to the film to see if I figured it out correctly.
Showing posts with label John le Carré. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John le Carré. Show all posts
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Sunday, August 4, 2013
A Delicate Truth
It is hard to write a review of a very, very good book that you really really liked because it is easy to just end up with, I liked this and I loved that. And really, who, outside of you, actually cares what you liked unless you get deeply into the why? For a couple of weeks now after finishing John le Carré's latest novel, A Delicate Truth (Viking, 2013), I find myself desperately wishing that I could write like that. That British-ly elegant structure, that economy of words, that CHOICE of words, that somehow manages to convey a setting, a scene, and sensibility in far less but far more interesting verbiage than pretty much anyone else out there writing crime or espionage or whatever-the-heck-you-call-this fiction - this is my goal, and one that I fear is unattainable. Consider this chapter opener:
"On a sunny Sunday early in that same spring, a thirty-one-year-old British foreign servant earmarked for great things sat alone at the pavement table of a humble Italian cafe in London's Soho, steeling himself to perform an act of espionage to outrageous that, if detected, it would cost him his career and his freedom: namely, recovering a tape recording, illicitly made by himself, from the Private Office of a Minister of the Crown whom it was his duty to serve and advise to the best of his considerable ability." (47)
You don't realize, when reading it, that it is all one sentence; I didn't until I typed it just now! And run-on sentences are usually one of my irritants. But in this one that I didn't even notice, we get both the subject's view of himself (committing an outrageous act, the responsibility of his job), and how he's viewed by Society (earmarked for great things). There is a certain keep-calm-and-carry-on tone when the old Foreign Office types speak. You realize that for a British foreign servant, these two views are ingrained - he represents the Crown (caps usage brilliant, required by protocol I'm sure but really Makes the Point) and that's who he is when he's at home, so to speak. This sensibility, of doing the Right Thing because we are British and that's how we roll, is a central theme of the story. Which is, in standard JlC mode, pretty complex, jumping around in time and place and subject so that you have to Pay Attention, lest you get hopelessly lost.
Loosely, this particularly story involves an illicit operation that may or may not have gone bad, some shady American defense contractors from a company hilariously named "Ethical Outcomes," and a couple of Foreign Office (we call it Service, the Brits call it an Office) Don Quixotes who will tilt at the windmills that claim to protect the Crown in our modern era.
All of this said, this is not as complex a plot as one might find in, say, The Honorable Schoolboy, which was the hardest of the Karla trilogy for me to follow. Generally speaking, JlC's more recent novels are more straightforward than his Cold War classics: black and white hats are stark in their contrast, and a bit obvious. If you follow his work, you'll know that JlC's more recent books have really been about the failings of our great and glorious free and democratic governments, and the institutions that protect them. Big government and its covert strategies, esp. when farmed out to third parties to protect the reputation of said govt. are bad, as is naked capitalism more generally. Le Carré's very public condemnation of the US and friends' involvement in Iraq is well-documented, and stories like The Constant Gardner, The Mission Song, A Most Wanted Man and A Delicate Truth are unambiguous challenges to the US-led new world order. It's funny because of course the old JlC books were set in a world of clear good and bad - West v. East, with all of its Cold War weight - and the characters really wrestled with means vs. ends. And, in more recent works, there is still an individual or two who rails not entirely helplessly against the trend. But I don't know that we have the subtle build-up to the moral dilemma of Smiley or Magnus Pym for example. For Our Heroes (and heroes they are) Kit Probyn and Toby Bell, the moral path is clear, if fraught. Castlekeep is a perfect fantasy of the evil defense subcontractor's headquarters, as is Jay Crispin, and yes, we should despise them. It is clear that in JlC's worldview, most of us have lost even the ability to think about some sense of personal decency, dare I say honor? (How I hate that word, charged as it is with all kinds of meanings and misuses for all kinds of people). Maybe I just know what to expect from a JlC story these days: rage against the machine.
A couple of minor quibbles. It's pretty clear that JlC has it in for the Yanks - they are the source of Ethical Outcomes after all, but he might employ a little more subtlety (see Castlekeep, above). Miss Maisie, the money behind EO, i pretty derivative of Julia Roberts' character in "Charlie Wilson's War." And small note to editors: fact check, please! There is no such Harvard degree as a Masters in Business Studies.
Reading back, this sounds vaguely critical, and it is not. It is more an attempt to wrap my mind around a great - great- writer's oeuvre. Reading this, I found myself thinking about other JlC books constantly. The idea of a little person as a mentor (Oakley) reminded me of George Smiley, and who can read the name Toby and not think of Toby Esterhaze and his lamplighters? But, I'm drawn back to the writing, as always. In chapter 3, which overall exudes that hale-fellow-well-met Britishness that JlC always captures so well, there is an absolutely brilliantly executed recognition scene that stopped me in tracks, and made me read it again. The reader is unwittingly recognizing one character as he is reluctantly - so very reluctantly - recognizing another. To say more would spoil the story, but suffice it to say that you should drop pretty much whatever else you are reading right now and enjoy this. And then wish, as I do every time I sit down to type, that you had a piece of that.
"On a sunny Sunday early in that same spring, a thirty-one-year-old British foreign servant earmarked for great things sat alone at the pavement table of a humble Italian cafe in London's Soho, steeling himself to perform an act of espionage to outrageous that, if detected, it would cost him his career and his freedom: namely, recovering a tape recording, illicitly made by himself, from the Private Office of a Minister of the Crown whom it was his duty to serve and advise to the best of his considerable ability." (47)
You don't realize, when reading it, that it is all one sentence; I didn't until I typed it just now! And run-on sentences are usually one of my irritants. But in this one that I didn't even notice, we get both the subject's view of himself (committing an outrageous act, the responsibility of his job), and how he's viewed by Society (earmarked for great things). There is a certain keep-calm-and-carry-on tone when the old Foreign Office types speak. You realize that for a British foreign servant, these two views are ingrained - he represents the Crown (caps usage brilliant, required by protocol I'm sure but really Makes the Point) and that's who he is when he's at home, so to speak. This sensibility, of doing the Right Thing because we are British and that's how we roll, is a central theme of the story. Which is, in standard JlC mode, pretty complex, jumping around in time and place and subject so that you have to Pay Attention, lest you get hopelessly lost.
Loosely, this particularly story involves an illicit operation that may or may not have gone bad, some shady American defense contractors from a company hilariously named "Ethical Outcomes," and a couple of Foreign Office (we call it Service, the Brits call it an Office) Don Quixotes who will tilt at the windmills that claim to protect the Crown in our modern era.
All of this said, this is not as complex a plot as one might find in, say, The Honorable Schoolboy, which was the hardest of the Karla trilogy for me to follow. Generally speaking, JlC's more recent novels are more straightforward than his Cold War classics: black and white hats are stark in their contrast, and a bit obvious. If you follow his work, you'll know that JlC's more recent books have really been about the failings of our great and glorious free and democratic governments, and the institutions that protect them. Big government and its covert strategies, esp. when farmed out to third parties to protect the reputation of said govt. are bad, as is naked capitalism more generally. Le Carré's very public condemnation of the US and friends' involvement in Iraq is well-documented, and stories like The Constant Gardner, The Mission Song, A Most Wanted Man and A Delicate Truth are unambiguous challenges to the US-led new world order. It's funny because of course the old JlC books were set in a world of clear good and bad - West v. East, with all of its Cold War weight - and the characters really wrestled with means vs. ends. And, in more recent works, there is still an individual or two who rails not entirely helplessly against the trend. But I don't know that we have the subtle build-up to the moral dilemma of Smiley or Magnus Pym for example. For Our Heroes (and heroes they are) Kit Probyn and Toby Bell, the moral path is clear, if fraught. Castlekeep is a perfect fantasy of the evil defense subcontractor's headquarters, as is Jay Crispin, and yes, we should despise them. It is clear that in JlC's worldview, most of us have lost even the ability to think about some sense of personal decency, dare I say honor? (How I hate that word, charged as it is with all kinds of meanings and misuses for all kinds of people). Maybe I just know what to expect from a JlC story these days: rage against the machine.
A couple of minor quibbles. It's pretty clear that JlC has it in for the Yanks - they are the source of Ethical Outcomes after all, but he might employ a little more subtlety (see Castlekeep, above). Miss Maisie, the money behind EO, i pretty derivative of Julia Roberts' character in "Charlie Wilson's War." And small note to editors: fact check, please! There is no such Harvard degree as a Masters in Business Studies.
Reading back, this sounds vaguely critical, and it is not. It is more an attempt to wrap my mind around a great - great- writer's oeuvre. Reading this, I found myself thinking about other JlC books constantly. The idea of a little person as a mentor (Oakley) reminded me of George Smiley, and who can read the name Toby and not think of Toby Esterhaze and his lamplighters? But, I'm drawn back to the writing, as always. In chapter 3, which overall exudes that hale-fellow-well-met Britishness that JlC always captures so well, there is an absolutely brilliantly executed recognition scene that stopped me in tracks, and made me read it again. The reader is unwittingly recognizing one character as he is reluctantly - so very reluctantly - recognizing another. To say more would spoil the story, but suffice it to say that you should drop pretty much whatever else you are reading right now and enjoy this. And then wish, as I do every time I sit down to type, that you had a piece of that.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Sum-mertiiiiiiiime, and the reading is . . .
My bathside bookpile has grown enormously after my birthday - so excited to have the newest le Carré, A Delicate Truth on top. But I find myself uncharacteristically too distracted to dive in immediately to his elegantly bleak worldview, so I may need to check in instead with Salvo Montalbano in perpetually summery Sicily, in The Dance of the Seagull. For tropical splendor, there is also Graeme Kent's One Blood, the next in that Solomons Islands series although I seem to recall reading an interview with the author somewhere that left me a little unsettled about the series (I have a recollection of his coming across as a bit colonialist - but maybe my antennae were overtuned). If it is winter that I need for a break I could always pick up Detective Inspector Huss where I left off. I dropped it because it was kind of boring - everyone was so pleasant and it had a stilted quality that you sometimes find in translated works. Talking about winter, and cold, pretty much all year, I also started Melanie (M.J.) McGrath's The Long Exile, because I so enjoyed White Heat. The exile in question is a forced removal of Inuit from the eastern side of Hudson Bay well north to Ellesmere Island. I stopped reading after a while because I found it pretty dull, but it had a glowing review in the NYT in 2007, so maybe I should try again. The reviewer found it mesmerizing; must be something wrong with my glasses.
While stocking up at Porter Square Books for my son's camp session this year, I discovered Matthew Pearl's The Last Dickens in the sale box, as well as P.D. James' Talking About Detective Fiction. The latter should provide some good fodder for Crime Pays, and if nothing else, a brisk reminder of how really smart people think and write.
And these are just the books in the house; I have a long list going of things that I want to read that I haven't even laid my hands on yet. Damn this working business.
But how have I come this far and not read any of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels? Good god, this must be rectified immediately. It may require a trip to the library, since the Wolfe stories are many and old.
Wolfe reminds me that I'm starting to read a few food blogs regularly, too. I like David Lebovitz, and Dinner: A Love Story (although it veers close to cute at times). I read Smitten Kitchen even when it feels a little full of itself (does a book deal do that?), and My Little Expat Kitchen (she's Greek!). A recent discovery is the charming Miss Foodwise, who writes about British food (a whole article on a watercress farm - imagine!). And I just can't decide if I love or hate The Wednesday Chef. Mostly the former, and the latter is just jealousy of that damn perfect Italian place so get over it. That chicken curry with sweet potatoes was pretty good.
While stocking up at Porter Square Books for my son's camp session this year, I discovered Matthew Pearl's The Last Dickens in the sale box, as well as P.D. James' Talking About Detective Fiction. The latter should provide some good fodder for Crime Pays, and if nothing else, a brisk reminder of how really smart people think and write.
And these are just the books in the house; I have a long list going of things that I want to read that I haven't even laid my hands on yet. Damn this working business.
But how have I come this far and not read any of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels? Good god, this must be rectified immediately. It may require a trip to the library, since the Wolfe stories are many and old.
Wolfe reminds me that I'm starting to read a few food blogs regularly, too. I like David Lebovitz, and Dinner: A Love Story (although it veers close to cute at times). I read Smitten Kitchen even when it feels a little full of itself (does a book deal do that?), and My Little Expat Kitchen (she's Greek!). A recent discovery is the charming Miss Foodwise, who writes about British food (a whole article on a watercress farm - imagine!). And I just can't decide if I love or hate The Wednesday Chef. Mostly the former, and the latter is just jealousy of that damn perfect Italian place so get over it. That chicken curry with sweet potatoes was pretty good.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Keep Calm and le Carré On
Soon, soon, I will write up a review of M. J. McGrath's White Heat, a different (for me) and terrifically engaging direction in crime fiction.
But in the meantime, John le Carré obviously has an awesome agent. With a new book coming out just in time for my birthday, he's popping up in all the correct places. You can read a splendid interview with him here, and a kind of sad but totally charming article by him here (subscription required).
Le Carré is in a class by himself. But I was almost as taken with this interview of Philip Kerr, whose Bernie Gunther series I also quite like. Kerr says to write about what you don't know. Le Carré is pretty much writing about what he does know, although he's not now a practicing spy (so he SAYS). Both work, but JLC's bleak patriotism and British-ly taut command of language always gets me in the end.
But in the meantime, John le Carré obviously has an awesome agent. With a new book coming out just in time for my birthday, he's popping up in all the correct places. You can read a splendid interview with him here, and a kind of sad but totally charming article by him here (subscription required).
Le Carré is in a class by himself. But I was almost as taken with this interview of Philip Kerr, whose Bernie Gunther series I also quite like. Kerr says to write about what you don't know. Le Carré is pretty much writing about what he does know, although he's not now a practicing spy (so he SAYS). Both work, but JLC's bleak patriotism and British-ly taut command of language always gets me in the end.
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