John le Carre

 

John le Carre (1931-2020)

The recent death of John le Carre has garnered a lot of retrospective consideration of his works, and I feel that I'd be remiss if I didn't join in. I've read most (if not all) of his novels, and I've seen many adaptations of his work (more on these to come). (C has read about as much, as well.) There is something about the grittiness of le Carre that draws me into his work. Of course, there's intrigue, although surprisingly little violence (although nasty enough when it appears). Le Carre studied people in situations, sometimes in committee meetings, sometimes at gunpoint. But his granular lens is always focused on the characters. Of course, this can also make for wonderful adaption to the screen if done well (and it often wasn't). But there is one set of exceptions beyond question: the BBC productions of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People, both starring Alec Guinness as Smiley and both staffed with a terrific supporting casts. I haven't changed my opinion about this; indeed, C & I watched both series again this year during pandemic confinement. I've lost track of how many times I've watched these two series, but I don't tire of them, they're so nuanced. 

For a thoughtful reflection on the many incarnations of George Smiley--foremost of which are now those of Guinness and Oldman, but which has also included James Mason--and for contrast with Ian Fleming's (and later imitators) James Bond, read this article by James Parker in the December 20011 issue of The Atlantic. 

Guinness: My favorite Smiley

Also, here's a 40th-anniversary reflection on Tinker Tailor from The Guardian (2019). And here's a photo of the three-plus Alleline: 

A great supporting cast, especially Bernard Hepton (far left) and Ian Richardson (next to Hepton)
Hepton was even better in Smiley's People. 

So to honor le Carre and to indulge in a walk down memory lane of my own, here are some of my earlier blog posts concerning le Carre. And if you must, skip the posts and read and watch le Carre's works. 

Skeptical Anticipation: Tinker Tailor Movie Coming

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: The Movie (2012)

John LeCarre: Our Kind of Traitor

John LeCarre's A Most Wanted Man

A Review of A Delicate Truth by John le Carre

And from a list of "favorite movies" [sic] I made in 2010: 

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979) and Smiley's People (1982). Okay, C already complained that these are not movies. True, they were made for TV; however, because of the quality of the script, acting, and production design, I have to treat them as films. These are to me what the Godfather films are to C. I'm not sure that I can quote as well as her from the script (a frightening ability that she possesses when she quotes Vito or Michael to me), but still, if you want more, I'll give you an earful. Alec Guinness is superb as Smiley. The supporting cast consists of great actors.

John le Carre: RIP. 

8.2.14 Random Notes

On some recent viewing:

Film: "A Most Wanted Man". The NYT review was spot on, but it bears repeating that Phillip Seymour Hoffman will be missed. Although the German accent was unimpressive, he was such a physical actor that it didn't matter. The film mad his character--the German intelligence officer--the focus of the film, whereas Issa, the defector, was the focus of the novel, but this was a good move. Le Carre excels in capturing the treachery of bureaucratic in-fighting. Definitely worth seeing--an adult film without any naughty bits, just some realistic bad guys.

Theater Broadcast: "Monty Python Live (Mostly)". C & I have been fans since friends took us to see MP back in the early 70's ("Now for Something Completely Different"). Seeing this production, it strikes me that their best material came out of the television production, which perforce limited what they could do. Their penchant for vulgarity was tamed (but not eliminated). Now as older men (all now in their 70's, I think), they still seem to enjoy making us laugh. Although like everyone else, I knew the punch lines, I still laughed. These guys (and their gal Carol Cleveland) deserved every curtain call and accolade that they've received. Great fun, again.

Film: "Jersey Boys". Clint Eastwood does a musical! The translation of the Broadway hit makes the transition to the big screen. Although not a real fan of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, I enjoyed it. The music, of course, makes it work. Christopher Walken as the Mafia-type don is great, and the actor-singer playing the lead also does a fine job. You leave the theater humming.

Airlines: American flag carriers serve the worst food. It seems like every other carrier serves something more tasty and interesting.

Airport Terminals: Delayed in O'Hare all day before our flight to Shanghai, we ate--again--at Rick Bayless's place there. Although the airlines serve the worst food, American terminals--with ORD getting a special shout-out--serve the best fair. It's great to be home in America, home of great Mexican food!
Also, even CID (Cedar Rapids) served some decent fare.

Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon

Author Joseph Kanon’s Istanbul Passage is a fine thriller, full of the intrigue of espionage and the attendant moral quandaries that the best writers in the field, Greene, Ambler, and Le Carre, do so well. Set in post-WWII Istanbul, the Second World War has only recently ended, but already the intrigues of the Cold War have commenced. Germany and Eastern Europe have unearthed not only Jewish refugees hoping for a secure future by passing to Palestine (then a British protectorate), but also war criminals, some of whom know things valuable to the U.S., the Soviets, and maybe even the Turks, who are caught between the two new superpowers.

The central character is an expatriate American businessman turned sometime spy. Leon Bauer is mostly a courier, but then on “one last mission” things go astray. Far astray. Now Leon, who speaks Turkish and knows his way around the famed city, must use wits and guile that he’d never had to use before to try to turn things toward . . . what? Leon isn’t just presented with issues of tactics, but some troubling moral questions, too. Whom is he helping? Who’s trying to get him? Why should he help a likely war criminal? Besides the atmospherics of Istanbul and Ottoman intrigue, Kanon keeps his readers wondering about what will happen next, whom to trust not to trust, and what Leon can do to preserve some sense of moral rectitude that we know that he seeks. 

#JLF 2013 speaker Kanon whom I heard in Durbar Hall. Thanks again, JLF!

I was a little reluctant about this book because I’d seen a film version of this book, The Good German which didn’t work for me (or many other viewers either, it seems). But while the film didn’t work for a variety of reasons, I know now how the book could. Kanon has staked out an era (the immediate post-war) that is fertile for intrigue and moral quandaries, much as Le Carre did with the Cold War and Alan Furst (with less moral tension) in the immediate pre-war and early war period. He’s worth another read.

Some Thoughts About the Law Today

This blog by Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker raises interesting questions about the Edward Snowden matter. I share Toobin's concern about Snowden's going rogue and his naiveté about the Russians and Chinese. However, Snowden's actions, however right or however wrong, have caused prompted an important debate. The debate should become more lively and crucial with the recent actions of the Brits in detaining Glen Greenwald's domestic partner for nine hours under their terrorism act. For however we might rightly characterize Snowden and anyone working with him, they are not terrorists. You may argue that they are unwittingly aiding potential terrorists, but that's a different issue. Similarly, Snowden broke the law, but he did not "aid the enemy" because we have no "enemy". To start with, we are not at war with any country. Of course, individuals and groups want to harm us, that's a given. It's a new world in the sense that its not a nation (say like the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany) that threatens us so much as an amorphous, sometimes spontaneous phenomena of individual or small group efforts (for instance, the Boston marathon bombing brothers or the anti-technology guy who mailed bomb packages for several years). So we need to put Snowden's actions in perspective.

The Brits have really sharpened the argument with their actions. Whatever actions Greenwald and his fellows did or plan to do, it isn't terrorism, and yet the Brits detained and took items from Greenwald's partner under this pretext. This was an abuse of power. In a Tweet this I referred to John LeCarre's "paranoia": several of his recent novels have shown the Brits acting as lackeys for the Americans to perform tasks that were often stupid, illegal, and immoral. After this, I feel I owe him an apology: "I'm very sorry, John. My belief, or at least hope, that my government could not act so foolishly, callously, and immorally, let me to doubt your take on events. It's appearing more and more that you had it right". Anyone have his email?  Or, perhaps the Brits can abuse power quite in their own without any prompting by the U.S. government. Perhaps John doubts the initiative of his own government too much.

The Bill of Rights comes at a cost. Like most everything in life, these rights involve trade-offs. Free speech included in the First Amendment, for instance, allows any political fringe group, religious fanatic, or simple liars to say most anything that they want to say about our government and politics. In other words, to protect the good, we must allow the bad and sort it out later. Similarly, the provisions in the Bill of Rights about criminal procedure protect us from abuses of police power by protecting wrongdoers as well. In other words, we have to give the guilty a break (sometimes, not that often) in order to protect us all from abusive actions by the police and government. This was true in the late 18th century and it's still true in the early 21st century. But we must do more than simply point to the lovely words, we have to commit to enforcement of these rights  and take these matters most seriously. The debate should be serious and wide-ranging. The issue isn't that some would harm us: criminals domestically and hostile interests abroad have always been with us. The issue we  now should address concerns the parameters of the powers and protections that we should have under the new technological regime that we live in.

A recent article about civil forfeitures in the New Yorker provides a case in point. Civil forfeitures allow the government to take a person's property with little procedural protection if the property  might have been used or  involved in criminal wrongdoing, regardless of whether the owner of the property was involved. In a small town in Texas (I'm I surprised?) we learn of a police racketeering scheme to enrich the town and the police by bogus traffic stops and coerced forfeitures. So what happened? Nothing, no criminal charges against the police, although a civil suit did bring the practice to an end for now in that locale.

In a recent issue of Vanity Fair, Michael Lewis chronicles a frightening case of the misuse of a criminal prosecution against a former Goldman Sachs computer expert based upon slippery intellectual property laws. Reading the article, you thought it had a happy ending when the Court of Appeals (federal) reversed the conviction, only to learn that the state, apparently a the behest of a vindictive and deterrent-determined  Goldman, filed new charges on the same conduct. The matter, tried before a jury, was a fiasco given the alien nature of the Russian-born and educated computer genius and the forbidding complexity of computer code issues. If Lewis is correct--and he "re-tried" the case with real experts--we learn of a real miscarriage of justice and abuse of the system. Next to the government, how do we protect ourselves from the likes of Goldman Sachs and their ilk with unworldly financial power and clout--1% of the 1%?

I've invested 37 years of my life in our legal system. It can work well. It works imperfectly at best. We need always to challenge and criticize the system and decisions made within in it because we're human and prone to complacency, fear, and power-hunger. Look around the world and you can find beautiful words everywhere and shameful realities behind most of them. For the most part, we've avoided that, but we can lose it all in an instant if we're not vigilant. We all must constantly stand up to fear and power, our twin enemies. In this effort I consider myself not a Democrat, not a Republican, but an Actonian, after Lord Acton, the great British historian who coined the phrase that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". We must constantly speak truth to power, or we will lose truth, lose democracy, and enslave ourselves to those who will prey upon our fears and weakness.

A Review of A Delicate Truth by John le Carre

One of the perks of living in India is early release: some movies and books are released here before they are in the U.S. In our recent pass through the Delhi Airport, I spied John le Carre’s latest in paper for Rs 499 ($9.20). Sold! And I was underway as soon as we plopped down in the plane, having run late with browsing and grazing.

After completing the book, I read two reviews in the NYT. One by resident reviewer Michiko Kakutani, which was critical, and the other in the Sunday Book Review by fellow author Olen Steinhauer, which was much kinder. In a sense, I agreed with both. Le Carre, especially since the GWOT (Global War on Terror), has been almost obsessed with American heavy-handedness, blundering, and worse. As an American reader, I say to myself, “Really, we're not that dumb and brutish—are we?” Even recalling the worst of the Bush years—really? In short, Americans (acting under explicit or implicit government authority) are cast as bad guys. One must admire le Carre’s righteousness and his willingness to confront what he perceives to be the malign powers that should be wearing the  white hats: the U.S. and U.K. Such plot attributes will keep Hollywood light years away from producing a film version. Ditto BBC? But there is also an artistic price: I agree with Kakutani that Le Carre creates too Manichean a world for him to reach the heights that he did in the Smiley books that arose out of the Cold War.

Also, as Kakutani remarked, this le Carre book, similar to some of his more recent efforts, takes an almost Hitchcock-like focus on rather ordinary folk pulled into waters far over their heads. Or, as Steinhauer describes it in his review, the focus has gone from spymasters to whistle-blowers. In this case, the protagonists are two U.K. Foreign Service officers, neither of especially high rank. They have been, they both learn, played and marginalized, and they seek to set things straight. In this way, le Carre pulls us into their stories, and here is where le Carre still shines: in setting, character, and dialogue The little things that can make his world of spies so much larger than that of others writing with in the genre occurs because it contains wives, daughters, lovers, mentors, Cornwall, London, among other things, all finely sketched. Of course, it also contains plenty of conversations that record the machinations of politicians and bureaucrats. 

In the end, I must say that the Official Secrets Act and le Carre’s description of new star-chamber proceedings (which they hold the copyright to) doesn’t allow for any sense of British superiority over the gung-ho Americans. Steinhauer, by the way, appropriately defends le Carre against charges of anti-Americanism. It is the failure of American leaders to stand up for important values that he deplores, not the people as a whole. Many of us can say “Amen” to opposing many U.S. government actions in the last . . . . well, going back a long time. 

In the end, as usual with le Carre, we aren’t awarded a happy ending, but we receive lots of ambiguity. How do these characters continue their lives? In what I must warn as a potential spoiler alert, the story as a whole and the ending especially reminded me of the 1970s Robert Redford-Faye Dunaway flick, “The Days of the Condor”, which C and I had watched not long before we left for India, and which I rate very highly within the genre. 

The Manchurian Soldier-Spy: A Review of Homeland, Season 1

N.B. Spoilers follow


Iowa Guru and I have now completed Season 1 of Homeland, a gift brought to us from the homeland (would it sell in India?) by the Panda (Inscrutable or Hungry, depending on circumstances). I can sum up my response by suggesting that I feel about Homeland the way that the viewers of Frankenstein's monster must have felt upon seeing it for the first time: an ugly, patchwork, but kind of fascinating. 

Literary critic Harold Bloom has written about the "Anxiety of Influence", how poets and other writers worry about the influence and implicit lack of creativity thereby imputed to them by the work of their predecessors. We now have a test, and this theory appears not to affect the writers of Homeland (based, according to the credits, on an Israeli book).  They seem to want to borrow from two sources, at times rather openly. One source is the great film, The Manchurian Candidate (please! I'm referring to the Frank Sinatra, Angela Landsbury, Lawrence Harvey classic; not the Meryl Steep--Denzel Washington mistake). The other source is John le Carre's Smiley books and the brilliant BBC productions of them. (Again, please, don't go for the Gary Oldman--Colin Firth film, which was close, but no cigar. The New Yorker's David Denby explains quite well the brilliance of the BBC production and the implicit limits of the film.) Great precedents both--but you have to choose! 

In fact, I doubt either precedent really works in the current climate. Jihadism and World Communism both have strong religious elements to them. But the Cold War is quite different from Jihadism, whether fought through the science fiction of total brainwashing (coming as it did out of the Korean War) or through the true-to-life betrayals by British elites buying into the Communist utopia. OBL's efforts to reestablish the caliphate had no mass appeal. Who, among any developed country (Muslim or non-Muslim), has a desire to see Jihadism succeed? Exceedingly few, I wager. While a large segment of the well-educated and the intelligensia supported Communism (openly or covertly--including some in high-ranking and prestigious government and academic institutions), Jihadism holds no such allure. So we have a problem with the basic premise: Brody's motivation. 

Over the course of time, Brody is defined as a convert to Islam (it's happened millions of times before, but to U.S. Marines captured and tortured by Jihadists?), and he's defined as an avenger for the killing of the boy Issa. Alas, I don't doubt that drone strikes and the killing of innocents are generating huge resentments against the U.S. and are a recruiting tool for Jihadists, but to a Marine serving in combat, does this seem so awful when his life and that of his buddies are at stake? Against this premise, we must consider Brody's love of country, family, friends, and self: all seem overridden, but not by someone brainwashed or turned into some kind of automoton. Of course, Brody suffers from PTSD, but then the writers, while demonstrating this, choose to ignore it. (Would we really ignore and fail to treat the extreme injury that Brody or any POW in this war must suffer? If so, shame on our government for its callousness and stupidity, but I hope that this is a scriptwriter's ignoring reality.) This guy, despite the torture, despite the yawning chasm of loyalties and motives, chooses to stick with his Jihadist goal of revenge killing. So Brody's a robot who acts crazy yet remains ready to fulfill his mission to the death--until he heeds the call from his daughter. (Under these circumstances, it's so easy to forgive the just-in-time call in the plot.) One of the two main characters doesn't work. How about Carrie? 

I hope that she has no real life model. Claire Danes does crazy really well, but I pray that we have no loose canons in the CIA or State like her. (Well, perhaps we do. See this NYT Mag article, but I hope no certifiables.) Her character is wrong in some many ways (I know, I know, except the big one, off and on), but she gets hard to take. No wonder Saul turns her in. 

And the vice-president. What a dick! How realistic is he? Such a dick . . . dick . . . Dick . . . Dick Chene . . . . Okay, his character works. 

Mandy Patinkin as Saul is very good. Indeed, the acting is excellent pretty much throughout the cast. 

Okay, will I watch Season 2? Would I look away from Frankenstein's monster? And also, we have reason to believe that there really is a mole in the C.I.A. Somebody is spilling beans that isn't Brody and never was Walker. The scriptwriters have withheld information, and  I expect that I'll have to tune in to see where it goes, this monster. 

 

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: The Movie (2012)

Gary Oldman as Smiley

The acting and the casting is solid with fine performances. The script makes sense. The staging and setting are well-done in 70s Britain drab, and the score (except for the final piece) creates an appropriate atmosphere. But in the end, you feel like you've just tried to enjoy a 60-minute Hamlet. Yes, we see the plot, we see some of the characterizations, we view the ending. But there's so much more!

I can say this not just because I've read the book, and I find LeCarre a rich writer who can use detail to set contemporary scenes in a world of bureaucrats and spies as well as anyone could imagine. In fact, even modest literary efforts can get become lost in translation to the screen. (An exception, I expect, is The Godfather, but I speculate because I've not read Puzo's book.). No, the reason that I hold this criticism against this film is that I've viewed--on multiple occasions--the BBC production of it from 1979. It's not that Alec Guinness's performance is better than Gary Oldman's--it is, but Oldman provides an admirable performance. No, rather, it's the time that the BBC took--about seven 45-minute episodes--that allows the richness of the plot and relationships to develop and reveal the characters and the intrigue. This pace allows the viewer to absorb the intrigues and relationships, much as one would when reading the novel. And in the case of this novel, it will not be completed in a single sitting. The Odman film starts and moves slowly in the beginning, I think trying to capture the rich texture of the novel and its television predecessors, but in the end, to get in all of the main plot elements, it has to speed up. There has to be a sacrifice, and in this film, the screenplay sacrifices much of the backstory of the other (non-Smiley) characters.

Thus, it's a good, solid movie, worth seeing. However, to give yourself the best experience, watch the BBC production (free on Youtube). It's a terrific show. You'll appreciate the difference, and for this one occasion, television beats the movies hands-down for the quality of the experience.

Skeptical Anticipation: Tinker Tailor Movie Coming

This interview with lead actor Gary Oldman, who plays George Smiley, is very interesting. I will say, the Brits do take there acting very seriously. In addition, consult this Atlantic article about the incarnations of Le Carre characters. Anyone who knows me, or who has had to sit through some spare time with me, will know of my passion for the two BBC productions starring Alec Guinness as Smiley (along with a superb supporting cast). However, I do like Oldman's take on doing a role that Guinness so made his own: classical roles, such as Hamlet, require actors to step into a prior great's shoes all the time. Who's your favorite Hamlet? Gielgud, Olivier, Burton, Jacobi, Branagh? Just to name a few. And while LeCarre isn't Shakespeare, these characters are rich. So, yes, I'll go, although Iowa Guru threatens a boycott. It can be tough, my beloved James Mason played Smiley in Sidney Lumet's A Deadly Affair, an alteration of the first Smiley book, A Call for the Dead, but it really didn't work all that well. No, it's a tough role to fill.

Here's the link to the movie site. Save me a seat.

Henry Kissinger on George Kennan

Yesterday I posted an entry about Henry Kissinger, and in doing so I noted that he, along with George Kennan, are probably the two most important figures in American foreign policy outside of some presidents (and more important than some presidents). In the New York Times today, Kissinger reviews the new biography of George Kennan by John Lewis Gaddis. Kissinger's review is lengthy and thorough. Kennan is a complex figure, and Kissinger argues that Kennan would offer both realist and idealist visions that often contradicted each other. This trait limited Kennan's work as a policymaker, but it contributed to the deep insights that he could provide to those in power. As John Lukacs also notes, Kissinger remarks that Kennan is a superb prose stylist.

This new book is going to near the top of my reading list. As readers of this blog may recall, Lukacs has written about his friend can in a short biography and Lukacs published a selection of the letters that they exchanged over the course of around 40 years. It will be interesting to compare perspectives of the authorized biographer Gaddis with those of the friend Lukacs.

Kennan is an intriguing figure, who, like many number of great persons, he is at once contradictory, vexing, and inspiring. Full of very human foibles, but full of striking insights and accomplishments as well, I'm sure that this book will prove worthwhile. I look forward reporting on further in the future blog post.

John LeCarre: Our Kind of Traitor

Yours truly has been a John LeCarre fan for a long time. I have encountered his work both in his novels and in film and television productions of them. He started writing about espionage (and more importantly, those involved in it) during the Cold War. Since the end of the Cold War, he's dealt with corruption of a more private nature for the most part, or one could say in the spirit of current parlance, within the context of a public-private partnership. In some ways, his more recent work makes one almost pine for the good ol' Commies. Now, the nemesis is often found in the nefarious world of corporate crime or "the Americans" running rough-shod into some scheme justified by the "War on Terror" (a term that should be burned at the stake). LeCarre isn't the type of writer you want to read if you want to always look on the bright side of life (to borrow a turn of phrase from his fellow Brits @ Monty Python's Flying Circus).

As to this particular book, I found it one of the most engaging by LeCarre that I've read. I enjoyed its immediate predecessor--A Most Wanted Man--as well, but in this novel, the array of characters really drew me in. The central characters are a young British couple who encounter a family led by a Russian mobster. However, the mobster quickly displays many endearing qualities, plus he has a desire to avenge a death by fellow mobsters. He goes looking for "fair play English". The story unfolds from this chance vacation encounter in Antiqua, then to London, and then on to Switzerland. During the novel, we come to know a number of different characters, and LeCarre paints each one with details that give us a sense of the individuality of each of them. Indeed, as the novel progresses, I come to hope for a happy ending for all of them. But, of course, this is LeCarre, and one just doesn't think that things will work out that way. Of course, to learn how it turns out you need to read the book!

P.S. I didn't link to Amazon's site for the book as I normally do. I listened to this book, I did not read it. The audio presentation was quite good, with the narrator providing excellent characterization to the dialogues. Highly recommended.

Enjoy.

John LeCarre's A Most Wanted Man

I finished this novel recently. I am very much a LeCarre fan, so the anticipation is always great. I'd rate this novel as good, but not great. It's an enjoyable read. The young lawyer dealing with the demands and aspirations of her profession, the aging banker, and the various Muslims living in Germany, all are characters that intrigue. Add in LeCarre's understanding of the world of espionage and police work--and all of the conflict and rivalry that you have in that milieu--and you get a very compelling tale. Not as complex or deep as some of his past efforts, but nonetheless compelling. If you enjoy a good, contemporary realistic novel that focuses on current events, then you can't do much better than this.