Regular readers will know of my esteem for John Le Carré, novelist who uses the spy story has his chosen vehicle. While in the country over recent weeks, I have been slowly watching the BBC dramatisations of Tinker, Tailor and Smiley’s People on DVD, starring Alec Guinness as George Smiley – unhappy, podgy, a man who found much of life, including love, rather bewildering, yet is the master spy of his generation. The BBC versions are not absolutely true to the texts, but they are very true to the spirit, and I loved them, partly for their 1970s London, and partly for Smiley’s gentle ruthlessness. If you’re planning any wet afternoons soon, I do recommend them!
And here are the credits for the BBC's Smiley's People, amazingly atmospheric even before the story begins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-fq_Vhl0zs.
But no DVD can compare with the text, so I took great pleasure in re-reading Le Carré’s Little Drummer Girl, an espionage thriller set across Europe, but in a different context, that of Israeli intelligence agencies against the Palestinian struggle. The initially unwilling spy in this case is Charlie, actress, rebel, redhead, and the story of her recruitment, her mission, and her relationship with Gadi, her agent runner, is truly wonderful. Sometimes ‘serious’ readers can be snobbish about detective or spy fiction – this is the book they should read.
Well said!
On snobbishness: there are works of literature that feature spies, detectives, science, young women and even cats. For some strange reason they get categorized and then people attach a set of prejudices (positive and negative) to them. Fiction is fiction; some is fantastic, some is good, some mediocre and some awful. Le Carré certainly has some novels that clearly fall into the class of "fantastic".
The same thing happens a great deal in music too of course.
Posted by: Dark Puss | Sunday, 05 July 2009 at 04:59 PM