John Le Carré - A Legacy of Spies
Sept 19, 2017 22:43:22 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2017 22:43:22 GMT -5
Out of interest, have your read 'A Legacy of Spies', Uncle Henry? I commend the book to everyone reading 'The Third' today! Writing in 'The Observer', Robert McCrum reports on a final turn from Smiley’s Circus?
Robert concludes by observing that when, in the closing pages, we once more meet George Smiley, “in red pullover and bright-yellow corduroys”, for Guillam’s affecting farewell, the reader will recognise, perhaps, that Cornwell is signing off with a poignant and brilliant au revoir to Le Carré, his alter ego, a writer who is with the immortals. We too, Alistair?
"Old age marks a rendezvous with reality that provokes timeless questions. At the end of John le Carré’s new novel, his greatest creation, George Smiley, observes that “an old spy in his dotage seeks the truth of ages”.
As he approaches 86, David Cornwell, AKA John le Carré, still has to make a necessary rapprochement with his divided self, his past and its achievements. There are, no doubt, obscure and unreconciled regrets, obsessions and disappointments. But if you are lucky, as Cornwell has been, to retain your joie de vivre and your marbles, this final reckoning offers the resolution of an inner conflict. Le Carré has always loved German literature, and he knows his Heidegger: “Every man is born as many men, and dies as a single one.”
The “legacy” of his title tells us that Le Carré is in the posterity business. If he is playing for keeps, there are just three questions to which his dedicated readers will require an answer: what is A Legacy of Spies about? What is its deeper purpose? And where does it fit into his imposing oeuvre? ... "
As he approaches 86, David Cornwell, AKA John le Carré, still has to make a necessary rapprochement with his divided self, his past and its achievements. There are, no doubt, obscure and unreconciled regrets, obsessions and disappointments. But if you are lucky, as Cornwell has been, to retain your joie de vivre and your marbles, this final reckoning offers the resolution of an inner conflict. Le Carré has always loved German literature, and he knows his Heidegger: “Every man is born as many men, and dies as a single one.”
The “legacy” of his title tells us that Le Carré is in the posterity business. If he is playing for keeps, there are just three questions to which his dedicated readers will require an answer: what is A Legacy of Spies about? What is its deeper purpose? And where does it fit into his imposing oeuvre? ... "
Robert concludes by observing that when, in the closing pages, we once more meet George Smiley, “in red pullover and bright-yellow corduroys”, for Guillam’s affecting farewell, the reader will recognise, perhaps, that Cornwell is signing off with a poignant and brilliant au revoir to Le Carré, his alter ego, a writer who is with the immortals. We too, Alistair?