[HN Gopher] John le Carre's search for a vocation
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John le Carre's search for a vocation
Author : lermontov
Score : 49 points
Date : 2023-01-22 16:36 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| Man...is it just me or does Hacker News really love John le
| Carre? Or is it journalists? Don't get me wrong, his books are
| great with good eye for character and plot. They're dreadfully
| slow, but that's just his style. I'm mostly amazed at the
| frequency to which articles about le Carre make the front page.
| bombolo wrote:
| I read one of his books once and it was really boring and I
| never finished it.
|
| I'm an habitual reader, I read tens of novels every year, quite
| used to reading.
| havblue wrote:
| I thought the Spy Who Came in From the Cold had a more
| straightforward plot than some of his other books, if you
| want to give him another try.
| dang wrote:
| > the frequency to which articles about le Carre make the front
| page
|
| A dozen times over 8 years. Certainly more frequent than usual
| for a literary figure but probably not excessive?
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I think HN appreciates his insight into real tradecraft.
| Anecdotes about people who actually did the thing are valued
| here. Stories about Fleming, Forsyth and Christopher Lee have
| also been well received.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| John le Carre was a vicious anti-Semite [1].
|
| [1] https://www.jns.org/opinion/a-mystery-in-its-own-right-
| the-a...
|
| _However, from his description of this visit in his memoir,
| The Pigeon Tunnel, it was the Palestinians who entranced him.
| He writes of being embraced by their terrorist leader, Yasser
| Arafat, who placed le Carre's hand on Arafat's "Palestinian
| heart."
|
| He was clearly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Yet that
| cause is the destruction of Israel. Ignoring this, he invested
| both sides with moral equivalence which he appeared to think
| was a fair and just approach._
| HEmanZ wrote:
| I don't know enough to know if he was anti-Semitic, he could
| have been. But your quote really doesn't make him seem an
| anti-Semite. If that's the worst leveled against him, I think
| it's just hot air.
| wahern wrote:
| I would encourage anyone to read that article before taking
| "vicious anti-Semite" at face value. I think the article
| speaks for itself, both in what it says, and in what the
| author clearly fails to achieve. It does achieve one thing,
| however: illustrating what the _opposite_ of moral
| equivalency looks like.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| There is no such thing as being anti-Zionist and _not_
| being anti-Semite. And the Brits of his generation were
| both.
| streb-lo wrote:
| > Don't get me wrong, his books are great with good eye for
| character and plot. They're dreadfully slow, but that's just
| his style. I'm mostly amazed at the frequency to which articles
| about le Carre make the front page.
|
| I think it's more that he offers an inside perspective during
| one of the one of the most renowned espionage defections of the
| 20th century than his ability as an author although I did enjoy
| his books.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Quite possibly.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| They are slow, but that's what makes them interesting... the
| antithesis of 007 is George Smiley and that's how espionage and
| operations are really like.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Another author I can recommend is Alan Furst, who has written
| a series of realistic espionage novels set during WWII.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| I swear, if anyone ever invents a time machine, I want to
| go visit Brasserie Heininger - he puts that place in every
| one of his espionage novels. The menu sounds amazing.
| dmix wrote:
| What is Brasserie Heininger about in the novels?
| lostphilosopher wrote:
| I like the Laundry Files approach - James Bond-esque action
| plus Dilbert-esque bureaucratic and IT disfunction. (Also
| monsters.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files
| JadeNB wrote:
| > I like the Laundry Files approach - James Bond-esque
| action plus Dilbert-esque bureaucratic and IT disfunction.
| (Also monsters.)
|
| On re-reading old Dilbert with an eye towards modern Scott
| Adams, I find it harder to enjoy, but more time with
| Stross, e.g., on https://www.antipope.org/charlie, just
| makes me enjoy the Laundry Files more.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| On his blog as well as his speaking engagements, Stross
| does mention that he tried to make politics as absurd as
| possible yet reality seemed to make him seem like the
| "straight man" in a comedy duo.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "the antithesis of 007 is George Smiley and that's how
| espionage and operations are really like"
|
| Much more realistic of course, but reality is likely more
| trivial.
|
| Like the case about Kim Philby, the famous spy le Carre wrote
| about in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". The book is way more
| complex and the characters engage in way more sophisticated
| double plays and schemes, than in reality, where they make
| quite trivial and dumb misstakes all the time.
| rospaya wrote:
| It's a bit later in the text:
|
| > In "A Private Spy," a new volume of his letters gathered by
| his son Tim Cornwell, le Carre corresponds with an eclectic
| array of recipients
|
| There's a new book about him so this is a review basically.
| JadeNB wrote:
| According to
| https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Carre&sort=byDate&type=story , in
| reverse chronological order, there was this post, then 6 days
| ago, then a month ago, then 3 months ago, then a year ago, then
| 2 years ago. For a writer who's probably in the midst of a re-
| evaluation not so long after his death (which was the subject
| of the post 2 years ago), that doesn't seem to be absurdly
| many.
| mypastself wrote:
| I can only speak for myself, but I've always felt he's far more
| intellectually challenging than other espionage authors. I
| remember reading one of his books (can't remember exactly
| which, possibly _The Little Drummer Girl_ or _The Honorable
| Schoolboy_ ) and realizing that every single line of dialogue
| in the book has multiple layers of subterfuge, double meaning,
| pretense, irony... Even the simplest exchange requires focus on
| part of the reader, which is not common for the genre.
| taude wrote:
| Le Carre is definitely more on the literary side, and was
| likely a big influence in the history of the genre. Also, he
| was an actual spy, I believe at one point in his career.
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