Le Carré was born David Cornwell in 1931 and began his career working for the British intelligence service before he started to write complex tales of his own. They included Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.
(HuffPost, December 14, 2020)
You’d be forgiven for thinking that John le Carré drew on experience to write his critically acclaimed and best-selling spy novels. But he would’ve been the first to disabuse you of that thinking.
After all, he often mocked his role as more that of a bored “night manager” than a daring swashbuckler. Indeed, it’s arguable that having so much time on his hands left him to conjure up in his head many of the intrigues he later played out in his spy novels. And his less than glamorous experience clearly imbued them with their morally ambivalent and defiantly seedy motifs.
I was a big fan. And, on more than a few occasions, I seized openings in my commentaries to lace allusions to Smiley, his serial protagonist. Here, for example, is how I did so in “Snowden/Greenwald Profiting off NSA Leaks. NSA Spying in The Bahamas…?” May 20, 2014:
Never mind the brazen insult inherent in making any comparison between James Bond, who spied for his country, and Edward Snowden, who spied against his. I cannot overstate that, as alluded to above, Snowden has more in common with a seedy traitor like “Tailor” in John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy than with a dashing patriot like Bond in Ian Fleming’s novels.
His achievements in life were considerable. And, with all due respect to his novels, it’s arguable that he deserved even greater acclaim for his essay “The United States of America Has Gone Mad,” which included this pithy and prescient rebuke:
How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America’s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history.
(The Times, January 15, 2003)
All the same, nothing he did impressed me quite like the way he famously quipped that there will never be a Sir David Cornwell. This was the self-deprecating way he rejected any prospect of having royal pretensions crown his achievements.
No doubt the seedy business behind the queen’s honours list was all too familiar (and repugnant) to him. Therefore, one could hardly blame him (or any self-respecting person) for not wanting to taint his reputation by any association.
I duly mocked the anachronistic folly inherent in these honours in commentaries like “Pardon me, Sir, But How Much Did You Pay For Your Knighthood?” July 14, 2006, “‘Sir Becks and Lady Posh?!’ God Help the British,” November 15, 2013, and “Australia Bans British Honours. Other Commonwealth Countries Should Too,” November 3, 2015.
John le Carré (aka Mr. Cornwell) died on Sunday in Cornwall. He was 89.
Farewell, John.
Related commentaries:
NSA spying… queen’s honours…