# John le Carré has died **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** celebrity-death\ **Created:** [December 13, 2020, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970 "2020-12-13T22:54:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2020, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/1 "2020-12-13T22:54:58Z")
English novelist David Cornwell, who wrote under the pen name John le Carré, and who was known for his Cold War espionage novels, died of pneumonia on Saturday night (12/12), at age 89. He had worked as an intelligence agent for both MI5 and MI6 during the 1950s and 1960s; his career in espionage ended in 1964, after his identity was compromised by double agent Kim Philby. > **[John le Carré: Espionage writer dies aged 89](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55297558)** > > The renowned Cold War novelist, author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, died following a short illness. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2020, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/2 "2020-12-13T23:01:44Z")
Oh dear… another one. 😢 Damn. Rest in peace. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2020, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/3 "2020-12-13T23:05:25Z")
Only book of his I’ve read was “The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,” and…um…I didn’t much like it. (Didn’t care for the movie, either.) His ethic seemed to be “both sides are corrupt, to the degree of absolute depravity,” which I can’t reconcile with the fairly bright good of democracy fighting against the blatant evil of Stalinism. The book was difficult to read. Still, he was wildly successful, with a long and extremely productive career. So hats off to the memory! ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2020, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/4 "2020-12-13T23:12:01Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Only book of his I’ve read was “The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,” and…um…I didn’t much like it. (Didn’t care for the movie, either.) His ethic seemed to be “both sides are corrupt, to the degree of absolute depravity,” which I can’t reconcile with the fairly bright good of democracy fighting against the blatant evil of Stalinism. In this longer BBC obituary for le Carré, they mention exactly that aspect of that novel (which seems to have been a general hallmark of his work): > [@](#): > > Published at the height of the Cold War it challenged the perception held by many of his readers, that western spies were above the dirty tricks practiced by their counterparts in the east. > **[Obituary: John le Carré](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-19888446)** > > Former intelligence officer whose novels stripped away the glamour and exposed the seediness of the Cold War spy. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2020, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/5 "2020-12-13T23:24:30Z")
Ah, yes, I saw that. I really enjoyed his books and had read all but the most recent, and some of the older ones many many times. One thing I liked a lot was that he didn’t explain everything, so that yes, you felt at sea sometimes, but it also felt like you were learning along with the protagonist. RIP to a terrific author. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/6 "2020-12-14T00:10:05Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Only book of his I’ve read was “The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,” and…um…I didn’t much like it. Good, I’m not alone. I found it crushingly boring, but that was many, many years ago. Perhaps I’d like it better now. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/7 "2020-12-14T00:15:42Z")
[Spycatcher: Wright, Peter: Amazon.com.au: Books](https://www.amazon.com.au/Spycatcher-Peter-Wright/dp/0440201322) covers some of the same material (the internal poitics, not the external stuff), in an un-authorized version. When I read le Carre’, I read that implicit stuff about being a member of the right clubs, knowing the right people, and having gone to the right school, as just part of the story. No, it turns out he was just being polite about it. Because he was being allowed to publish, because he’d been to the right school, knew the right people, and was the right kind of man. Peter Wright didn’t go to the right school, and reading him you realize that le Carre’ was still telling just enough of the truth to advance his own interests. He was still one of his own characters. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/8 "2020-12-14T03:57:32Z")
RIP, John. I liked a lot of his books but not most of his more recent stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/9 "2020-12-14T04:04:49Z")
Damn. He’s the best espionage author I ever read, but I could only take one of his books every five years or so. Their plots tend to be: 1. The good guys catch a whiff of something sinister. 2. Clever spywork unveils a huge conspiracy. 3. Exciting adventures fighting the giant evil conspiracy! 4. OH MY GOSH THE GOOD GUYS ARE ABOUT TO WIN! 5. The evil conspiracy murders all the good guys and covers everything up and makes a tidy profit while they’re at it. 6. The end. Every time I finished one of his books, I wanted to go hide under the bed. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/10 "2020-12-14T07:30:46Z")
He was one of the greatest writers in English of the last century. His major themes weren’t political, but personal: the construction of identity through self deception and the toll that takes on the soul. The impossibility of ever fully knowing yourself, let alone anyone else. He had a melancholy view of human existence, but his. insights were universal and poetically expressed. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/11 "2020-12-14T11:25:00Z")
Excellent long article: > **[John le Carré obituary](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/14/john-le-carre-obituary)** > > Writer whose spy novels chronicle how people’s lives play out in the corrupt setting of the cold war era and beyond ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/12 "2020-12-14T11:35:55Z")
I’ve only ever read his _The Tailor of Panama_ and _The Night Manager_, and I’m just starting _The Little Drummer Girl_. Based on the comments in this thread, I suspect the first two on this list, at least, are atypical of his more regular/earlier output. I particularly enjoyed _The Tailor of Panama_, which I think is an original idea (I won’t say what that original, central idea is, as it would be a massive spoiler). Those who don’t get on with his other work may like to try this one. I suppose it is still a bit dystopian. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/13 "2020-12-14T12:01:02Z")
_A Perfect Spy_ is widely regarded as his best novel. His last novel was published in 2019, _Agent Running in the Field_. I haven’t read it, but apparently he didn’t mince his words about current politics. According to a review, he called Brexit an “unmitigated clusterfuck” and an “act of self-immolation in which the British public is being marched over a cliff by a bunch of rich, elitist carpetbaggers posing as men of the people”. Boris Johnson is a “fucking Etonian narcissistic elitist without a decent conviction in his body bar his own advancement”. Trump is described as “Putin’s shithouse cleaner”. He memorably said, “Now we have defeated communism, we are going to have to set about defeating capitalism.” ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/14 "2020-12-14T12:13:20Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > His major themes weren’t political That’s not at all my experience with his books. He had other themes, but his loathing of the powers that be, and his pessimism that they can be defeated, are central to the books of his that I’ve read. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/15 "2020-12-14T12:18:19Z")
I’ve read pretty much all his spy output and think accolades about him being one of the finest post-war writers in English are merited. He does not make it easy for the reader - patriots are fools or are taken advantage of, selfishness is not far from the surface, plotting is intricate. Taken together, its an epic chronicle set in the middle of European history covering more than half a century. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/16 "2020-12-14T15:01:43Z")
I can’t really think of any of his books that have the plot, which ones are you thinking about? ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/17 "2020-12-14T15:33:00Z")
Not to speak for LHOD, but allowing a little leeway in “all the good guys” getting murdered, it seems pretty fair for: Constant Gardner; Night Manager; Absolute Friends; Mission Song (I realise it doesn’t make a lot of sense to spoiler titles, because it gives the whole game away, but it seems worse to just leave them in plaintext, so to speak. Click at your own risk, I guess.) These are mid-to late- Le Carrés. TSPWCIFTC has a similar plot except The people who kill everyone and cover it all up are geopoiltically speaking, the good guys and are not, in fact, in it for a profit In TTSS and its sequels the good guys win more or less but the main theme is that Britain’s security services are staffed by traitors, time-servers, hatchet-men, pocket-liners and other moral detritus who spend as much, if not more time, maneuvering the few capable people out a job as they do actually safeguarding the realm. The general theme of Le Carré is something like; Espionage is a filthy business and the few people who enter it with ideals and a strong moral core end up disillusioned, dismissed or dead while lesser men\* triumph by abusing power and status for their own ends. \*Pretty sure it is always men, and not by accident. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/18 "2020-12-14T15:54:04Z")
My objections are that the good guys are only occasionally murdered, the good guys usually win (though I agree it inevitably has some bitter flavor), and also the bad guys rarely (never?) reap tidy profits. I agree there is much squalidness, and the protagonist is often somewhat unlikable, but also, there are veins of moral strength running through it. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/19 "2020-12-14T16:04:33Z")
I haven’t read the whole canon by any stretch, but my sense is that your take sums up the earlier works whereas LHOD’s covers the later period. Certainly I can think of two from my list where the good guys are murdered, and two - it might be three but I’d have to check - where the bad guys profit (the overlap covers one.) Moral strength in these books exists not to win a small but vital victory, but to be beaten down in return for at best a consolation prize. ---
**Author:** ![its\_the\_daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bb73d2/32.png) [@its\_the\_daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/its_the_daddy)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970/20 "2020-12-14T17:26:49Z")
I’ve read them all (inluding “The Naive and Sentimental Lover”) and love them all. Love Le Carre’s British perspective on what is effectively my own British lifetime. Sorry, though: > [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > I particularly enjoyed _The Tailor of Panama_ , which I think is an original idea (I won’t say what that original, central idea is, as it would be a massive spoiler) No, its a rip-off of Graham Greene. JLC himself called it an ‘homage’ to “Our Man in Havana”. Sorry for the spoiler. readers. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-le-carre-has-died/927970.md?page=2)