RIP LeCarre

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19888446

2020 takes another one from us. Probably not an author to everyone's tastes, and certainly some works have stood the test of time better than others, but to me he's always been the master of the political novel (more than crime/spy per se). I found many of his later works totally thrilling, and he'll be much missed.

I don't know much about him as person, but I'm sure he family and friends will miss him greatly.

I've only read The Spy Who Came in From the Cold but it was enough to measure his excellent caliber. Admirable transition in the 1990s from Cold War thrillers into the world that followed, when some falsely thought the Berlin Wall's ending would be the ending of his material as well.

Digging into his author page, I saw that three of his books are up on the International Space Station. That is a pretty cool accomplishment. https://www.librarything.com/author/carrejohnle

I was present at a meeting with him in Poland. I was surprised he had the time for that. Very British, very intelligent. I have only read "The Spy" and watched 3 movies. The Constant Gardener was much better than I had thought and without a happy end. Realistic probably. I would like to read more of his novels, especially those set in faraway countries. Graham Greene was maybe his predecessor.

>1 reading_fox: I think you’re right about “political”, the foreground action was never the main thing — and a lot of the action was offstage, anyway — it was all about individuals getting caught up in bigger political processes. But he was clever at exploiting the technical language too, all that jargon that he introduced into the mainstream (did any of us ever think of a “mole” as anything other than a small furry animal before Tinker, Tailor?).

A day or two after LeCarre died, the NPR show Fresh Air ran an interview they had done with him a few years back. Quite interesting. It seems his father was quite a ne'er do well and they were at different times on the run from the police and/or the mob. They were from working class and LeCarre said one thing his father did do was to be sure he went to schools that would give him upper-middle class manners.

>6 rocketjk: He published a collection of autobiographical essays a year or two ago where he talks about that, The pigeon tunnel. And of course the father-son relationship in A perfect spy was his fictional working-out of the same thing.